(Forward by Richard Dempsey) - 3 weeks ago I posted a trip report about a month long canoe trip across the Barrenground in NWT. My wife finished transcribing her notes, into a "trip report". It doesn't read like the same trip. In retrospect, her trip sounds more fun (GRIN)...I guess bow paddlers have more fun. For what it's worth, here it is...it was a 30+ day trip, so it's rather long.
Wendy's account:
MacKay Lake, Northwest Territories 1999
July 10
Haven't had a moment to write since we took off from Yellowknife on the 7th, after a night in a bed & breakfast like the ones in magazines: scenic location and fabulous food. From our own deck we looked out on the cove where the float planes land and watched them come & go. Yellowknife is actually 2 towns: the modern one on the hill that could be anywhere; and the one down by the water, a jumble of make-do architecture among the rocks and coves like a Maine fishing village except newer and funkier, where the float-plane traffic and the granite underfoot are reminders of the thousand-mile wilderness all around.
Left in the evening after waiting all day for another party to be flown in---on the same day to the same place in those thousand miles that we were going to! ! But these people did give us some perspective on the so-called risks we were taking. 2 little old Germans named Ted and Frieda, 70-ish, with ratty and disorganized equipment, starting a far more ambitious trip than ours: 2 months & several hundred miles. But they were very experienced.
Flew 1 1/2 hrs, nothing in sight but gleaming water & wilderness with fewer and fewer trees. Landed in a cloud of mosquitoes, 900 miles north of anyplace we have canoed, very different from anyplace we have even seen before. The land lies bare, exposing all its curves except for a few figleaves of stubbly spruce in the sheltered crotches. Endless, open, windswept, fenceless, like the western prairies looked 200 years ago. The sun set about 11 PM, rose about 4 AM, but in between dusk turned into predawn twilight, skipping night entirely. In the morning we paddled past Ted & Frieda, still trying to get organized, but they soon passed us and that was the last we saw of them. They have a little sail on their homemade canoe. Later we passed a grave inside a picket fence on a hill above the lake, hundreds of miles from any settlement.
Camped on a sandy saddle between 2 bays, where the crosswind blew away the mosquitoes but sand flies replaced them. This was on a sand & gravel esker which wound on for miles like the river it once was, sometimes crossing land and sometimes parting the lake waters. We walked along the top and found a beautiful set of caribou antlers. I had seen their silhouette earlier from the water. 2 more sets of antlers in the willows below the esker, multiple caribou trails everywhere streaming across the meadows and along the esker. Obviously huge herds come through here at times.
Paddling under the biggest sky in the world, the vast space of water is continued by the land rather than enclosed by it. We see loons in the distance but they rarely yodel.
Next day when the wind came up we headed for a sandy beach at the foot of another esker. Against the sky we saw a human figure-I called out, "hi Frieda!" But then I noticed a gray beard. A guy named John out kayaking in the opposite direction from ours, as surprised as we were to see other people---especially since his wife's name is Frieda!! He walked on crutches because of a bad hip. So much for the loneliness and dangers of the subarctic: 3 people in 2 days, two of them old and the other handicapped!
A nice smiley guy who had designed and built his beautiful wooden kayak. Walked with us along the esker, did very well. Gave him some stove fuel.
Camped on top of the esker, from which we can see the whole circle of skyline, the thin edge of an enormous bowl almost brimming with water. That water is so pure we drink it straight from the lake, so clear than when calm it looks like mercury. It is not calm now, a gale has been blowing almost 2 4 hrs. John left around 3 AM. when the wind laid down a little. There are two ancient Indian stone tent rings just a few feet from our camp, not immediately noticeable unless you look down from the esker top. Found fresh caribou tracks in the sand. Grizzlies live around here but you could certainly see them coming a ways off. Rich thought he heard a wolf the other night.
July 11
Left about 7 PM. last night when the wind died down enough to cross 4 1/2 miles of open water. Camped on a sand dune that we had seen across the lake from our esker---which we can now see as a low pale line in the distance. There is an invisible bird around here with a tentative, contemplative, melancholy whistle.
Beautiful bright day, brilliant inescapable sun. Tromped for hours, through boulder fields where clouds of bugs shimmered like heat waves, along the water's edge, up hills for views as empty and free as in Wyoming (but with a lot more water); all the time along the caribou trails that stream everywhere. No worry about surprising bears except in a few spruce copses. Saw some ptarmigan.
Rich caught a 3-lb. Trout!! Not pike! It's been years since we had trout. 2 smoke plumes like forest fires on the horizon-but no forests around here.
July 12
Writing on a red-checked tablecloth looking out a fly-specked window at a panorama of lake and islands with mounting thunderclouds. We left about 8 last night when the lake turned glassy calm. This held for the next four hours as we slid across water like a waxed floor that needed sweeping, littered with bugs that swarmed out from the land in the still air. The lake reflected the sky in all its vastness; you felt dizzy looking down from the canoe, as if it were flying miles high. The sun very slowly burnt its wick down to the horizon, repeated in the water so that at one time there were 4 sun-balls lined up. There wasn't quite a midnight sun, but at midnight the sky was still full of color and soft light. About then, we saw a cluster of cabins several miles away, highly visible because they were painted red, yellow, blue and green and looked very strange through binoculars, like a candy village. But they turned out to be just a caribou-hunting camp, deserted at this season. Caribou antlers are piled high in the front yard. According to the logbook that we found, the "bou" are all over the place in August. Nothing locked but the cabins are stuffy so we put up the tent by the dock and went to bed about 2 AM.-almost sunrise.
July 13
Still here, still looking out the window---the lake crackles with whitecaps as far as the distant rippling line of hills. This cluster of cabins is on the tip of an esker that extends into the bay with water on each side, while behind the camp it wanders away from the bay to the shore of a large unnamed lake about 1/2 mile inland. On one side of the esker the inlet fades into marsh, but on the other side a noisy waterfall pours down from a little tarn just above which in turn is fed by rapids from the big inland lake. Another tarn is perfectly ringed with pink stones like landscaping. These little glacial potholes are tucked in all over the place, waiting to queer your course if you try to pick a distant goal and make a beeline for it. That would be impossible anyway because of the boulders. The green hills appear open and free, but to walk those hills is to negotiate an obstacle course---hundreds of them, well-marked by generations of caribou. Anywhere you want to go, the caribou have made a trail there for you.
The wind blew fierce all day. The cabins began to seem more cozy than stuffy so we moved into one. Rich and I walked back to see the sparkling lakes. Then I boulder-hopped to the top of a windswept, rock-strewn ridge. As far as the eye can see and 100s of miles beyond, the land is free, unfenced, unchanged, as the whole world once was.
July 14
Not long after writing those words last night, I heard engines (thought it was a plane) and looked out to see 2 small open motorboats bumping in across the chop, each towing 2 loaded canoes. They were seven Dene Indians: James, Noel, Morris, one quiet guy whose name I never caught, and 2 elders---Alfred and Modiste. We helped them pull up their boats, then everyone jammed into our cabin while Rich made coffee because they were cold and tired. They had been searching out ancient Dene sites for a U of Calgary archeologist, all hired by a company who wanted to do some road-building in the area. Several of them had worked as guides at this camp, so they headed for here when the weather turned bad. We told them about the tent rings we had found and pointed out the spot on the map. The site was unknown to them though the elders know where many things are on old travel routes, such as other camp sites, abandoned canoes, etc. James, Noel, and probably everyone else keep a daily journal (English) to enter into the tribal computer back in Yellowknife.
The Dene fired up the propane heaters, fixed a hole in the dining-hall wall where a wolverine had got in, and made themselves at home. The elders say it is the worst July weather they remember. James and Noel are the friendliest of the group, both came to our cabin to sit and talk. We hung out with them in the dining hall most of this morning, while I watched Noel and Paul play cribbage---they were very funny. At this rate on this trip we will be counting the days that we don't see people (as opposed to our other wilderness trips)!
About 4:30 p.m. the sun came out about halfway though the wind and whitecaps were as high as ever, but they left anyway with canoes in tow. They have to meet a plane tomorrow.
July 15
Left about 1 p.m. when the wind laid down some, though it was still bouncy with headwinds most of the way except for a short stretch that was surfy with tailwinds. Paddled 5 miles to a beautiful esker, carried all our stuff across (this trip is our first that has involved "portages"), accessing a shortcut lake that will cut off 25 miles around a dangerous headland in the main lake. Rich found this route on the map before we left, and the Dene all strongly recommended it. Camped in the middle of the esker next to the canoe, which we will haul the rest of the way tomorrow---total distance about 300 yards. The shortcut route is also a "winter road"(truck route over the ice) and the land portion between the lakes has actually been graded and improved. It's strange to see a roadway hundreds of miles from the nearest (summer) road.
July 16
I am sitting immobile for the first time all day, every muscle aching---but the sun is blinding bright on the bay, the emerald land gleams from every rough stone facet clear into the blue distance, so I feel fine. The rocky green landscape is studded with spruce clumps everywhere---so much for the treeline on the map. No animals except for a few siksiks (ground squirrels) but most of the animals come with the caribou, which the Dene told us should show up by August.
2 real portages today, not just campovers but part of the day's progress: unload, carry stuff over, carry canoe over, reload. One was about 100 yards and the other about 200, both quite enough. Fortunately it was an easy paddling day, beautiful calm under the biggest sky in the world with a fringe of fluffy clouds that in the flatness of both lake and land seemed to float so low that you could look right over them.
The portages took us through 2 small lakes that lead to Portage Bay of MacKay Lake, which we are now looking out on. Camped at a cabin that Noel had pointed out to us on the map, except that he was off slightly and we had to backtrack to find the place. It wasn't worth the effort---the cabin has been broken into and trashed, probably by a wolverine since the hole in the door is low and the destruction vicious. Rich found a phone number and will call the owner from Yellowknife. There was, however, a nice high sandy hill to put the tent on.
July 17
Camped on cushy heath in a windswept meadow a few feet from the waves that break on the rocky shore, not too far from the mouth of Portage Bay. Left the trashed cabin at noon, paddled into a mild headwind that got stiff at one point but died down again. The shores along here have reminded us of Reindeer Lake, bare granite sloping down to the water and black cliffs, unlike the boulder fields before today.
Climbed to the top of a high hill through volumes of mosquitoes---from the black granite summit I saw blue water, great sky, and green land with no building, road, or fence to the far horizon. Portage Bay looks like a fjord between 2 lines of hills.
July 18
Waiting for the wind to die down, on a little flat spit of land where we have been sitting for the last 4 1/2 hrs. We got here by the most desperate gutwrenching effort I have ever put out, when a sudden offshore wind threatened to blow us over or at least backwards, back to the far shore from which we had just come by the second- most gutwrenching effort I had ever put out. Crossing the mouth of Portage Bay, the wind and swells made us seem to be paddling in place no matter how hard we worked. I gave up watching for the other side to come closer and just watched my paddle. But we made it across, and even got a respite with the wind behind us for a while, until suddenly it veered and tried to force us back the way we had come. No sooner had we clawed our way gasping onto this shore, than we saw our first caribou! It was a mother with baby. Since then 5 more have come by along the ridge above us, also a beaver swam past. This is no place to camp however, so we are sitting here hoping there will be calm this evening like there was last night. We are back in the main part of McKay Lake again. Passed 3 small boats with people fishing at the mouth of the bay--- one yelled that "Gary was expecting us" at McKay Lake Lodge, where we hope to spend a night if this wind ever quits. Rich radioed the owner from the hunting camp the other night.
This could almost be the Mediterranean coast: the sky and water just as blue, the land nearly treeless and fragrant with herbs, though here instead of bayleaf and sage the herb is Labrador tea, which covers the ground so that everywhere you walk you leave an aromatic wake.
July 19
Incredible gale all day, stronger than any we have seen in Canada, making white rollers far out on the lake and flying spray on the rocks of this shore as if it were on the North Atlantic. Last evening, we left that little spit about 7:30, not that there was any calm but the wind diminished enough to paddle close to shore. Made about 5 miles and stopped when the swells got fairly high, about 9:30. The only flat spot for the tent was solid granite, a test for our new mattresses---very comfortable. The land has changed again in the last several miles. Granite shelves sloping into the water like in Portage Bay (or Reindeer Lake), and back from shore it's as rocky as ever, but instead of the litter of white round boulders it's an even more wild landscape of jagged black boulders like fangs. On the other side of our little inlet is the esker that we had hoped to reach but didn't quite, its sand slopes gleaming when the sun comes out. Spent the day in the tent out of the gale, which was fine since we needed a rest day. A Twin Otter presumably from McKay Lake Lodge (less than 5 miles away) crossed overhead several times this afternoon---it is incredible that a small plane is up and around in this storm.
We are camped at the edge of a moonscape, broken by black granite fangs and Stonehenge-style monoliths, with a few huge gray lichen-crusted massifs like errant whales, all of it blasted by this staggering wind. The skyline is sleek as if the country is gentler over there, though once you got there it would probably be the same as here.
July 21
Left yesterday morning. Saw a naked forest of caribou antlers silhouetted along the horizon of the first point of land, a whole herd of bulls that I was eager to get a picture of, since as it happened that was also our correct traveling direction. Rich didn't think so, so we paddled all the way over to the wrong side of the lake---and all the way back again. Finally arrived at McKay Lake Lodge, a large complex of buildings and landing strip lined up on an esker with a huge bay at its feet and open tundra at its back. At the dock a woman walked by rubbing her butt and moaning about sitting in a boat---we felt so sorry for her.
It was extremely disorienting to emerge suddenly from the wilderness to a bustle of float-planes, four-wheelers, strange people, and Sally Jessy Raphael blaring on satellite TV. The cabins were all full so they stuck us back in a storage shed between 2 bunkhouses for the teenage staff, who played loud thumping music all day and all night (for this, they tried to charge us full rate). But there were showers, laundry, lots of food, and interesting people: owner Gary, a solemn potbellied 50ish white guy; Bertha, middle-aged Dene manager, possibly linked with Gary; her sister Dorothy who was married to an Inuit (unusual combination), with 3 cute little kids; 3 Dene teenage girls and one old grandma---these four seemed to do most of the work; and assorted Dene and white guides, most 20ish but a few older. The Dene were mostly related or connected in complicated ways, explained to me by Bertha, who was very friendly and laughed a lot. She also knew most of the Dene guys that we had met several days back. There was a pleasant evening gathering by all in the lodge. We went back to our shack when some terrible guitar playing started up, but it was still too noisy for Rich to sleep all night.
After a late breakfast we were grateful to be gone. We followed the esker for only a couple of miles before stopping so Rich could get some sleep; as the crow flies it was less than that and we could still hear the lodge generator when the wind blew right. A mother caribou with baby trotted by just 100 yds. from the tent. Behind us is heathy, rocky, flat tundra studded with little lakes and hardly any trees, not even small spruce. Saw 2 Parasitic Jaegers from the canoe today---too beautiful to be so fierce and cruel.
July 22
Left in the glassy calm of 3 A.M. The glory of an extravagant sunrise was doubled on the water, and swimming birds broke the colors into abstract patterns in their wakes. Made good mileage, stopped at about 7:30 AM when we got tired, near the water on a low heathy coast. Sleek golden lines of land, immense sky and lake, herbal-scented wind.
July 23
Starting at about midnight the wind turned into a gale that is blasting unimpeded across the low spit of land that we are camped on the edge of. Spray from breakers crashing 10 ft. away rattles like hail on the tent, which convulses in the wind as if roaring animals were hurling themselves against it, in a nonstop riot that has gone on for 16 hours so far; while we sleep, read, and eat in the 6'by 10' calm eye of the storm. Every so often we stick our heads out to see the stampede of white waves rushing straight toward us, and pull our heads back just before the lead monsters crash only a few feet short. The tent hasn't been shaking quite so hard for a while this afternoon, and searchlights from the sun sweep over us occasionally, so maybe this thing is on its way out.
Later......the clouds broke up some at around 5 PM. There is still a strong cold wind, the lake is cold indigo seething with black shadows but without their white crests. It's relative peace after 18 hrs. of roaring and ruckus.
This afternoon we watched 5 caribou working their way along the low ridge behind our coastal plain---2 babies and 3 adults. I tussock-hopped back to the ridge and climbed up to the stony fells, where I saw a bull caribou with such gigantic antlers I didn't know how he could walk without falling on his face. He stopped to look at me about 1/4 mile away, trotted on, stopped to glance back, then on again. Watched a jaeger chase a tiny bird and then work the field about a foot above the ground, as if it were chasing something in the grass.
There are often large rocks on top of boulders exactly as if someone had placed them carefully there this morning and gone off to eat lunch---but it was the glacier that placed them where they have teetered for 10,000 years, till I came by and picked them up.
July 24
Not much wind this morning when we took off, but the swells were still high: bathtub sloshing left over from yesterday's storm. As we followed the low land, caribou filed along the horizon, looking like leafless trees walking against a backdrop of tall white clouds.
Camped on the gravely tip of an esker, near where Indians have camped recently and left their homemade wooden tent pegs behind. There should be a sign here: "Caribou Crossing"; about 100 yds. back is a steady stream of caribou going up and over the esker to ford the stream on the other side, one or two or bands of up to 50; mothers with little woolly babies, males with top heavy antlers. Sometimes you see them coming in the distance, other times they seem to suddenly be there out of nowhere. The land is like the Great Plains must have been with the buffalo herds, trampled and rutted everywhere.
Rich caught a nice big pike, in spite of the fact that everyone has told us that the water is too cold around here for pike. He built a fire to cook the fish, and I am sitting here poking the fire, looking at the view, watching the caribou come by---there are always some in sight. One small calf wandered around alone for 45 minutes and I thought it was a poor little orphan, until its mother came back for it. It butted her so hard she almost fell over, then when it trotted after her I saw that it was lame, though this time the mother stopped to wait for it to catch up.
July 25
The caribou were still on parade when we left Caribou Crossing with (mostly) following wind and waves, made 14 miles as measured along the shoreline on the map, but we took shortcuts. There are lots of sandy beaches along here, the land is low, green, and sweet-smelling even far out on the water. Everything is so flat it makes the sky itself look two-dimensional, as if you could put a stepladder up to the clouds and look over them.
Camped on bare granite bedrock surrounded by huge boulders, on the summit of a headland from which we have a 360-degree view: graceful lines of gold-green land sweeping toward the hard blue horizon, and shining water that crawls before the wind toward the opposite shore but never gets there. We can see until there is nothing more to be seen, and in the whole expanse we are the only humans. But that's 2 more humans than there are trees, which we have not seen for several days, not one of any size. As Rich was walking along the shore with his fishing rod, a tiny fuzzy baby caribou ran up to him as if he looked like mom. Apparently abandoned, it was the only visible caribou in all that landscape.
July 26
Woke up this morning to bright sun and a strange grunting noise, looked out to see several hundred caribou where the lone little baby had been last night. As we watched from our rocky knob, they grazed their way all around its base over the course of the morning, aware of our presence but not at all bothered. They grunted and snorted like a herd of pigs.
The north wind spat rain alternating with the sun all day. In the afternoon I walked across the empty plain around the shores of the bay, relatively easy going with fewer rocks and more firm level ground than usual between the tussocks and marsh. Rising above the plain are several high knobs of bald granite like the one we are camped on, as well as whole graveyards of upright granite slabs where the frozen ground has pinched out rocks exactly the size and shape of tombstones.
On the way back, I met the herd coming toward me 500 strong. It parted like the Red Sea to go around me, leaving a circle about 100 ft. wide with me at the center, spinning in place and snapping pictures. The lead animals were mostly bulls, unencumbered by calves, although some were still quite weighted down---one huge set of antlers must have had 20 fingers on each palm. Then came the mother cows, though this division was actually very general, since there were some cows with calves near the front of the herd and bulls all along the column. The cows with the tiniest fuzzy blond calves were definitely all toward the end. One calf just stood there bleating steadily with a noise somewhere between a lamb and a pig, and I saw a female caribou trotting back against the flow, as if she had forgotten her own baby. Some of the caribou wheezed as if they had nose bots, that disgusting little beast that sets up housekeeping in the sinuses of caribou. The massed clicking of thousands of ankles made a soft patter like rain on a tent roof. Being in the midst of this herd of wild animals was one of my most memorable experiences ever. Tonight we had a fire in a crevice of the rock with a wonderful view behind it. Rain clouds walked around the horizon, and a few caribou still circled around our hill.
July 27
The herd was entirely gone this morning, though from the water while paddling we saw the usual small groups etched against the horizon. The weather was once again a cold breeze with in & out sun. Made about 8 miles, camped on a large perfectly flat peninsula which breaks off 10 ft. beyond our tent to the beach 20 ft. below. Siksiks live in holes in the bank and like to sniff around our canoe when we're not too close. We walked around the peninsula on the sandy beaches that fringe it, then short-cutted back over the top, where we simultaneously noticed that there were no caribou trails and discovered the reason why: screaming clouds of mosquitoes, the worst we have seen since the first day of the trip.
July 28
Windy and cold this morning with high surf on the other (windward) side of the peninsula. The siksiks (or maybe it's only one) run back and forth to their burrow with straw in their mouths sticking out on both sides like whiskers, or come poking around our tent door, putting their paws on the net screen to peek in. Rich left a peanut-butter cracker out for them, but evidently they don't like peanut butter.
Standing by the fire, which seen from the air must be the only speck of light in a great emptiness, watching distant surf break the sharp sleek edges of the land. Gray sky, herringbone water just a little wrinkled on this leeward side of the peninsula. No mosquitoes today! The ice-fresh wind that blows them away makes life easier for all the other creatures: the busy siksik, occasional caribou that stop in surprise to look at us, jaegers, ptarmigan and plover, and even us---if we could just paddle. I walked down the peninsula this afternoon and found a possible portage site that might save us having to go around the stormy point, or at least this stormy point. From the tent the surf on the windward side sounds like a distant Niagara.
July 29
Fog and rain but the wind is shifting so maybe it will bring a change. We were reading in the tent half-asleep at about noon when a sudden shout nearly sent us through the roof: "Hello!" Another human voice in the middle of nowhere. We popped out to see a lone canoer paddling up. It was a white-bearded guy in his late 50s named Skye, who lived in New Mexico doing pottery and odd jobs---in other words, an old Taos hippie. He was canoeing our route but in the opposite direction over a much greater distance. Several days ago he had run into Ted and Frieda (way ahead of us), and yesterday he had seen a grizzly bear with cubs at the spot where we intend to be tomorrow if this wind lets up. Supposedly he has done a lot of paddling on Great Slave Lake, but his outfit looked funky and inadequate---a black garbage bag for rain-pants, a paddle more suitable for a rubber raft, a Wal-Mart tent that he mentioned was not much good---and he himself looked exhausted if not hypothermic. We fed him hot coffee and lunch, and he went on in spite of the weather. Ahead of him still is most of McKay Lake as well as several white-water rivers which he admitted to having no experience with, but intends to "learn by doing". We seriously wonder about these plans---we seriously wonder how much longer he's even going to be alive.
It took Rich most of the afternoon to get wood together for a fire: willow twigs, a little driftwood, and the thin slats that prospectors use as markers, which we have found washed up on beaches all along the lake, as if some boat sank with a load of them. Since these are all over the place, we have decided that they are what writers refer to when they call the Far North "Land of Little Sticks".
The fire feels good. Lake and sky are the softest gray, like 2 textured sides of a silk scarf draped over the slimmest rod of land. The caribou train winds along the horizon, filing up continuously from somewhere beyond until at last the column ends......then a straggler, the caboose.
July 30
Preferring stormy seas to another day of lying around in the tent, we paddled down to a portage that cut off the exposed point of land we were camped on, then crawled all the way around the edge of the bay (which we could easily have crossed in better weather) and on down the side of the lake, all forward progress pried off the backs of 3-ft. swells going in the opposite direction, wind likewise. In 6 hrs. we paddled 7 or 8 miles, though we are actually only about 4 miles as the jaeger flies from where we were yesterday. Only another 4 miles of lake to go before it becomes a river.
Camped near a giant boulder, green with lichen and sparkling with mica. Beautiful view: behind us, the rolling green tundra scattered with rocks and willows reminds us of Wyoming as a lot of this country does; before us the great restless lake with the opposite shore considerably closer than it has been. All along this lake we have often paddled by dikes, walls, and jetties of heaped-up rock exactly as if a bulldozer had pushed them up---which it has, a bulldozer of wind-driven ice.
At 2 different places today we passed a crippled caribou, each lying in a thicket by the water where they could swim away if in danger, though we have not seen any signs of wolves or bears. Both got to their feet and tried to hobble away from us on three legs, keeping the fourth hoof clear of the ground. One was a male with velvet antlers, the other a female with a little woolly confused baby.
July 31
Barely a ripple on the water this morning. At last we reached the end of the lake, passing the northernmost point on this trip (64'10"N ) before the turn south into the Lockhart River. Rich had been told there was a waterfall here, so we pictured something like Niagara Falls, but what we encountered was 1/4 mile of rapids that took 2 hrs. to portage and line the canoe through as we thrashed through willows, slipped on rocks, fell in holes, and got thoroughly drenched. Fortunately it was a warm windless day, though that meant we were also half-blinded by bugs. After that came several smaller rapids which we went on through, beginning to actually enjoy them until I misjudged one that I tried to scope through binoculars. An irresistible current pulled us to the boiling middle of the river where suddenly several huge holes opened up before us. Over we went----and somehow out the other side still in one piece, though Rich had nearly been thrown out of the canoe and half the river had splashed in. Those holes had been invisible through binoculars, therefore from now on we will walk the length of every rapid before we try to run it so there will be no more surprises.
Arctic terns came zooming out from an island in the river, screaming threats as they hurtled aggressively around our heads as if they thought we menaced their nest on the island, understandable when you consider that they had flown 10,000 miles from Tierra del Fuego to reach that nest. A band of caribou swam the river right in front of the canoe, completely ignoring us.
I love a current! You know you're getting somewhere. I was pretty tired of that lake. Camped on a hill with the endless green tundra behind, river below, and endless green tundra beyond that. The shining river curves far into the distance.
August 1
Awakened this morning by the grunting and splashing of a band of caribou as they forded the river right in front of our tent. Spent the windy, warmish day here being lazy, washed clothes and laid them out on bushes, looked at the view. Once again the sky arches over us, without that strange flattened look it had over the lake. Beautiful cloudscape, silky blue and gold hills far away; between us and the hills is the velvety tundra flecked with white rocks that sometimes catch the sun so that one small rock will light up and be visible for miles. I walked back toward the ridges over the easiest terrain in weeks, ground that was solid, dry, and not too hummocky. Some of the ridges are bare granite that you can stroll up like a ramp, to the crest where you can look around at all the little lakes tucked here and there, unnamed, maybe never even seen before. Came across another tiny fuzzy caribou calf all alone, but its mother will probably come back for it like the other seemingly abandoned babies we have encountered.
It's only the first of August but already bearberry and mountain-cranberry leaves are turning purple and scarlet, while stars are coming back into the late-night sky.
August 2
Last evening we watched from the tent as more caribou swam the river below us. Left Caribou Ford (Rich thinks that sounds like a northern dealership) about 10:30 AM but didn't get very far, at least in the canoe. We lined the canoe through the first rapid but had to portage the second, which was 1/2 mile of river but nearly a mile on land--- fortunately most of it level, firm, and not too rocky. 3 hours later we were back on the water.
Camped about 3 miles from where we were camped yesterday, on a headland amidst gray granite and scarlet bear berry, overlooking a lake-like broadening of the river scattered with islands. There is perfect flat calm in the evening, after 2 weeks or so of nonstop wind, though somehow it's not reassuring. We heard thunder in the distance for the first time this far north, and the sky is turning black--- in contrast, the lake is deep jewel blue and the land peacock green, or gold where a few sunbeams find their way down.
We were strafed by Arctic terns again earlier. They are small birds but really scary, their grating shriek is so harsh and angry; their bodies are shaped like bladed boomerangs hurtling through the air as if they could slice the top of your head off.
Just watched a caribou swimming the lake, with its white tail sticking straight up like a tiny sail. The waters along the shore are full of caribou hair-we probably have hair balls in our stomachs from drinking it.
August 3
One perfect morning with not a cloud in the sky. I took a nap on a rock, like a lizard. Rich fished all day, since he hasn't got to do much fishing on this trip. In the afternoon I hiked back to an unusually high hill from which I counted 28 lakes and ponds. A sandy esker began in the lower right corner of this panorama and snaked diagonally across the entire picture, sometimes diving under the green surface and emerging further along a straight line to the top left corner where it was broken by the river. The esker continued on the other shore, the river broadened into another lake (Outram), and both flowed out of the picture. That far off point where esker, river, and lake coincide is our final destination, the pickup point where the plane will arrive one week from today.
Came back along a rocky creek with vast stretches of bedrock scoured by flash floods, like you see in southwestern canyons. Willows along the creek grew up to 8 ft. high, practically Sequoias for around here, and I came across one little defensive huddle of spruce trees (the first in a week or more), maybe 5 ft. tall but probably at least that many centuries old.
August 4
Another bright day with a mere breath of a headwind as we paddled to where the river narrowed once more. Rich had to line the canoe through another long rapid, but this time it was as easy as walking the dog. Then we paddled on around a few more curves, until the current began to pick up speed and a distant ominous roaring began to grow louder, so having learned our lesson we pulled over to look around. Along the shore was a high-water line of matted caribou hair, like the world's worst bathtub ring. Just ahead the river entered a canyon and disappeared around a right-angle bend that formed a sort of headland, but since the rapids were already fairly formidable, we decided to portage from where we were without bothering to look round the bend. We portaged across the headland, on a route making a triangle of the right angle formed by the river's bend. The point at which we arrived back at the river was actually the place I had seen in the distance yesterday, where the river cuts the esker in two and then widens into Outram Lake----the pickup point! We have really arrived, if almost a week too soon, and I am glad.
While we were hauling the stuff, a Twin Otter circled overhead, landed just out of sight in the lake, and a few minutes later 2 people came down to fish on the further bank of the river, gave up after a couple of hours and took off again. Meanwhile we set up camp on the beautiful golden esker overlooking the mouth of the river, a view that compensates for the steep climb through sand down to get water (or rather the trip back up). As soon as everything was situated I made the trip with the water-bottles---and the first thing I saw on the beach directly below camp was a very large flat footprint. My thought was, "That guy has really bad arches!" until my glance moved ahead to the long sharp claw marks on the next print and the next: a trail of grizzly tracks all along the water's edge, apparently fresh. There was no bear at the end of the trail, but from then on everything we saw in the landscape looked like a bear and seemed to be moving; Rich kept his rifle at hand and we resumed the bedtime candy-wrapper pocket checks that we had stopped bothering with.
All afternoon that enormous roaring sound had been in the background of all this, so we went over to see what was around the bend where the river disappeared. We crossed an expanse of slick polished granite, beyond which suddenly appeared a spectacular waterfall: a series of enormous plunges with terrifying power and noise, green chutes so clear you could see the rock beneath the water, water diving into massive detonations of foam. An incredible sight.
The view from our esker includes the river zigzagging into the vast blue lake, hills along the lakeshore, and in the other direction the green tundra strewn with rocks and patches of scarlet bearberry. The roar of the falls in the distance advances and recedes as the wind changes.
August 5
Hiked back along the sandy esker, an unusually beautiful one that winds unbroken as enticing as the Yellow Brick Road, laid with a patchwork runner of red and purple bearberry, golden willow and crowberry. From the top I could see for miles in all directions, including almost the entire course of the river from McKay Lake to Outram Lake. I got about halfway to the high hill from which I had seen our present campsite 3 days ago. Another aerial attack, this time from some aggressive jaegers who did not have the incentive of a 10,000-mile journey but were just as furious as the terns in defense of their nest---I detoured around that point on the way back.
Bearberry leaves are sometimes such an intense candy red that they light up like a clown's nose when the sun shines on them.
Today is the first in several days that has been breezy enough to leave off bug hats. You tend to forget about having them on until you try to eat something (big mistake) or raise the net to get a better look at whatever---and suddenly the world is much brighter. The problem here is black flies. They are far worse than mosquitoes, with a bite that first bleeds and then burns like fire for days, but the good thing is that they are ridiculously easy to kill. They move slowly, squish readily, and you never have to chase them around the tent like mosquitoes because they are drawn to light like paper-clips to a magnet--- you just wait til they cluster on the screen door and get them with your thumb. But they do tend to burrow into your socks.
August 6
The roar of the river in its perpetual stampede as it hurls itself into chaos, can be heard for miles; when you outdistance it you really notice the silence. Today I tromped over tundra and marsh, forced a way through willows, and climbed a steep hill to see a beautiful fjord, where granite hills drop straight down into an arm of the lake. This entire area where river meets lake is trampled and rutted by caribou, groves of willows are crushed, hair everywhere, and some places smell like a Texas feed lot: obviously not very long ago a herd came through that must have numbered thousands like the epic herds you read about. Maybe that's when that bear was here, since predators follow the herd.
This evening another plane circled around and came down just out of sight behind the little point that sticks into the mouth of the river, 2 people walked over the point to look at the waterfall, and took off 20 minutes later.
August 7
This really is one of our most beautiful campsites, with the wide open tundra, granite hills, red-carpeted esker, fjord and waterfall, and distant lake set with islands like plates on a table---it is also one of the most lifeless. It's as bad as the first 2 weeks of the trip before we started seeing caribou; no animals of any kind except for a few birds anywhere in that enormous view. Not too many days ago it must have been a sight to behold: multitudes of caribou streaming across the land and jamming the river-fords, while bears and wolves worked the stragglers.
It's a little tedious sitting here day after day, but the north wind has been so relentless I'm glad we haven't had to paddle. It's been so cold it almost feels like snow during the day, then every evening the sun breaks through beneath the clouds and suddenly land and water glow with jewel and peacock tones. Soon the clouds are gone, the sun slides down to the horizon and then burrows along just under its edge the rest of the night, leaving a narrow red trail behind it around half the rim of sky while the other half of the sky is dark enough to show a few stars. But sometime toward dawn the clouds always move back in to stay until the next evening.
August 8
Walked all the way around the river's mouth to land's end where I could look out across the lake, at the faraway shore that is smoky with rain. Today is one of the rare really wet days with continuous drizzle that makes the hills and tundra look like the Scottish moors. At the top of one cliff that drops into the lake a horrible rotten smell rose up. I peered down and saw ledges littered with caribou bones, as if the pressure of the herd had forced the front runners over the cliff to their deaths.
August 9
Sunny this morning! A good time to make our last move, so we packed up and paddled 1/4 mile across the mouth of the river to where the esker continues on the other side. Here about 100 yds. downstream from the waterfall, the river makes a sharp left turn and opens into the lake, but near that corner there is a little cove sheltered by the esker that makes a perfect landing for float-planes such as the 2 we have already seen. It gets a fair amount of use, judging from the red fuel drums lying around and trash on the beach. This is where the plane will arrive for us tomorrow.
I tried to follow the esker on across the land but on this side of the river it is not continuous like on the other side; in places it is easy to trace with its piebald pattern of red bearberry and golden willow, but it is frequently broken up by marshland, which is no fun. So I returned along the shore, with its bathtub ring of caribou hair and view of the shining lake.
August 10
Woke up to rain, so we left the tent standing for shelter and packed everything else, hauling it all down to the beach ready to load, after which there was nothing to do but sit in the tent and wait. Somehow I knew in my heart that we had been forgotten and nobody was going to come for us. Around 10:30 AM we heard the distant drone of a plane that grew louder as it approached and circled overhead, but it was an unfamiliar plane, definitely not any of the ones that we knew belonged to our air service. So we casually sat in the tent and watched as it landed in the cove, taxied up to the beach and cut its engines, when on a whim I yelled, "Are you by any chance from Air Thelon?" "Sure am" the pilot said. I don't know who else he thought we were expecting. Anyway we rushed around to get the tent packed while he refueled, and soon we were on our way. The 2- hour flight seemed barely long enough to let go of the world of wild land and water and prepare for civilization, but as funky Yellowknife came into view suddenly all I could think of was a hot shower and the cinnamon french toast at that little B&B.
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