Horizons Unlimited · Churchill River Canoe Outfitters
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FORTY DAYS ON THE CHURCHILL RIVER

by Daryl Sexsmith

Turning Forty is a significant time in life. In my life it is especially significant because I feel that I am being called to a new vocation of which I am unsure. I have completed my work as a United Church minister in Leduc, Alberta and to make the transition to whatever is next I am first taking a forty day canoe trip on the Churchill River. My current plan is to begin about the first day of summer and complete the trip by the end of July.

I will be starting my trip at Besnard Lake, Saskatchewan from which I will paddle west to Pinehouse and then north to the Churchill River. I will come down the Churchill River to Missinippe where I will take a break for a day or two at the mid point in my trip. I will then continue on and finish my trip at Pukatawagan, Manitoba.

The trip will be unhurried and I will be writing and drawing each day. I hope to publish a book about the experience. There will be forty people praying for the success of my journey.

I will report on the first half of my trip on this Web site by July 11th and then again when the trip is complete.

I would like to thank Ric at Churchill River Canoe Outfitters for letting me post this on his web page.
 

Mid Trip Report - from Churchill River Canoe Outfitters, Missinipe Saskatchewan

The journey initiated me to the way of solo travel on day three. I was determined to achieve a great distance when the wind made paddling into a stationary exercise. It was only 2:15 in the afternoon and I was in the lee of the lone island on Neale Lake. The information I had said that camping was poor in this area. When I went to shore I was surprised to find an okay spot to put up my tent and cook my supper, okay had it been four hours later in the day.

Soon I was out fighting the wind again. Three strokes on one side, four on the other and the same stand of sea weed was still below my bow. Had my stern not been caught on a rock I might have even gone backwards.

On my second visit the island was even less appealing. The ground was too rough, the vegetation too thick and if it were not so very windy it would be a mosquito trap. I just couldn’t stay.

Attempt number two at leaving the island came with a little more confidence. There was a lull in the wind and I was even out beyond the rocks and doing the J-stroke for a minute or two before being blown back to my destined campsite.

This time I knew I had to like the spot. I put my tent up, had an afternoon nap and got the day recorded in my journal. The longer I stayed the more at home I felt. I was quickly accepting the way of solo travel.

By the end of the first week I had learned the art of picking my campsites well. Like the trip itself, camping sites became comfortable and homey with the time invested.

Originally I had planned to make a drawing at each site and now on day nineteen I have five sketches in my book. Once I figure out how to draw the wind I’ll have a lot more.

On day eleven I was driven out of the tent at 6:00 a.m. by the heat of the sun which had turned the small enclosure into an oven. Once outside the morning was pleasant and still., a most beautiful time of the day. Almost naturally I started to draw and had so much fun in camp that morning that I didn’t leave until eleven. The relaxation that came with getting up so early was incredible. When they occur, I now let such mornings be the focus of the trip.

I have made some valuable discoveries about time and the gifts of life during the first half of the trip. Hopefully the foundation has been laid for whatever is to come over the next twenty days. Tomorrow I begin again, rested and in a deeper state of mind than when I began.

I start again with deep anticipation as to what a long trip is really like. An e-mail that I just received contained a quote about dead fish being the only ones that swim with the stream. As I celebrate mid-life by paddling down a river I will undoubtedly make discoveries about how even downstream travel is somewhat against life’s flow.

To keep in touch with community I have forty prayer partners who are my companions in the solitude. If you are one of them thank you for your support and if not thanks for your interest in my journey. I will have a short note posted at this site on the successful completion of my trip and then a more complete story a couple of weeks later once I’m home and at my computer.

Final Report

My packs have now sat unopened on the kitchen floor for over a week. The trip is complete yet in some ways I am still camping. September may find me on the river again as I playing with the idea of paddling out the last days of summer.

On the second half of my trip I no longer used the word "wow" to begin my daily journal entries. Usually, I began with the phrase, "I wonder what time it is?" On the night that the sun set at 8:00 p.m. I knew that my watch battery had given out. The rest of my trip was timeless.

A day and a half out of Missinipe I had lunch on an island where a tornado had touched down only days before. My trip was timed right to have missed this event. Friends of mine were lucky in a different way. They successfully weathered the storm on this very island. The wind blew one way flattening their tents, it stopped as the eye passed and then it blew the other way. I wandered through the rubble of broken and twisted trees feeling very small, out here all alone with my fourteen foot canoe.

A few days later it was my turn to weather a storm. I was trying to make good time that day when out of no where the wind came up. Having learned my lesson a few weeks previous I let it push me to shore where I gladly hopped out for a rest. My canoe, however, was taking a beating on the rocks. No matter what I did I could not protect it from the pounding.

When the wind lessened I thought it was all over and I was happy to be on the move again. Minutes later when the wind halted me a second time I was at a shore line boulder field that stretched up high above my head. It appeared to be the worst possible spot to weather a storm but it ended up being just what I needed. As the rain and hail flew my head stayed dry under the smallest of overhangs. My canoe bobbed up and down in its own little harbor and I held on to the rope. Its kevlar hull would have been smashed to bits at the previous location but here the rocks formed a canoe shaped stall and my faithful companion didn't get one new scratch in the pounding.

Cold and wet I dug out the camp stove and had hot soup while bailing the four inches of water out of my canoe. I then paddled as fast as I could to a island camp site that I knew from a previous trip. The wind and cold kept me here for day and a half. It was so cold that the lake was steaming and I later learned that some parts of Saskatchewan recorded frost on one of these nights.

When the weather stabilized I was rested and eager. Soon I was ahead of schedule again. In the end I completed the trip in 37 days and caught the train earlier than planned at Pukatawagon. I had come 634 kilometers on my own without serious mishap and had suffered from little boredom or loneliness. If I was bushed at the end of the trip it was in a good way, returning to my usual world more complete.

I would like to say that the trip initiated me to a new sense of time but it was more than that. I had to look at everything with a new view of appropriateness. Letting a storm blow by is appropriate, so is sitting down with strangers for lunch, especially if they have been fishing. Canoeing alone is finally becoming appropriate for me after twenty years of gaining experience in the company of great friends.

Of all the food in my pack granola became my favorite. I could eat it for breakfast, for lunch and for snack time and it became more appealing as I tired of some of my other standbys. Perhaps what I loved about it was that it did not have to be cooked. Yet, when I met a family who had been out all night in the rain without food it was my granola that I gave away. It just seemed appropriate not to give them something that they would first have to cook.

There is much more that I could tell you of the experience. I had a thousand laughs with myself as my sense of humor ran free. The Churchill River is great. I've paddled most of the rivers in Northern Saskatchewan but chose to return to my first river for this long trip. In thirty-seven days I linked up some of the small sections that first wet my appetite for the passion of paddling as well as discovering much new territory.

As for my vocational journey, I will choose what is next through my widened view of appropriateness as learned while traveling the river. Somewhere between days twenty-five and thirty-seven I also made the discovery that the things that I am seeking vocationally are also in some way actively seeking me. Thank you to all who have supported me and taken an interest in my wilderness experience.