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Peter Pond Trip Report #3

Clearwater River Trip Revised 8/7/01

Hi, folks!

The Clearwater River trip was over way last Saturday, but I never figured out how to get online in Fort McMurray -- and never had time anyway to finish writing this till I got home on Sunday, June 29.

The trip was wonderful! How to begin? I guess I'll proceed topically.

The People

One thing I learned on this trip is that I like Mennonites. A lot. These include: Ric and Theresa Driediger, owners of the outfitting company; superguide Kevin Schultz (also a ski instructor, has taught at Whistler and such), Rob Penner, one of the ecotourism instructors on the whitewater clinic last week; and now on this trip an appealing young man training to be a guide, Curtis Pauls. (Yes, I've figured out that going on canoe trips is a great way to manage to hang out with charming young men!)

So, my companions were Kevin and Curtis, plus John Griffin, an English professor from the University of Southern Colorado (at Pueblo) -- he's even closer to retirement than I am -- and Simon Ray, a cardiologist from Manchester, England, whose wife and small sons are visiting her relatives in Regina. I couldn't believe my good fortune to be amongst such a crew -- my four Princes of the Wilderness! I paddled as Kevin's bowperson, John was Simon's, and Curtis paddled solo -- quite a feat when the wind was high. The conversation was pretty much nonstop the whole time -- movies, singers and bands, sports (Kevin and Simon are sports encyclopedias -- baseball, soccer, kayaking, ski racing, tennis, even golf -- I timed two hours steady of such conversation when we paddled together one morning.) And we all told stories about our families and our travels.

The night we camped above a waterfall, Kevin read to us awhile from 'Cold Oceans,' a book about a trip in the arctic that a friend of his, Jon Turk, had written. Then he told us about being buried in an avalanche -- and quickly rescued -- at Whistler. No, a ski resort called Fernie? I forget. Anyhow, I got both on tape, plus the roar of the falls.

The Weather

We got held up nearly a whole day when our float plane couldn't get out of La Loche on Saturday, 7/14. That morning at Ric's in Missinipe (two-thirds of the way up Saskatchewan, two-thirds of the way east) thunderstorms threatened, but were supposed to end by late afternoon, so we thought our 4:30 flight (via float-plane from La Loche, maybe 300 miles north and west) would be okay. We'd each crammed our personal gear into our blue plastic waterproof barrel, maybe 3 feet tall and 16' in diameter, equipped with a metal ring spring closer and a bright red padded harness for portaging. The guys had stuffed our gear in the van and wrestled the two nested canoes and the single one onto the top. Heidi fixed us baked oatmeal and all the fixings over at the staff house, and we took off. We stopped in La Ronge at a suburban-style house to pick up a satellite phone from a friend of Kevin's who works on planes there. Turns out he'd just written an article on local spots frequented by Peter Pond and other traders -- had traveled to them by houseboat. He'll send me a copy.

We drove five or six hours north and west over roads sometimes paved and sometimes not through uninhabited sand and spruce. When we got gas and snacks in the town of Buffalo Narrows, which is between Peter Pond Lake and Ile a la Crosse -- where natives used to drive buffalo into the water and kill them with spears from their kayaks -- and where Peter Pond had once spent a winter -- the storm hit hard, lots of lightning and driving rain. By about 5 it was over, when we rolled through La Loche and out to a forlorn, rickety dock with a windsock on a pole and a few snazzy trailer homes parked nearby. The pilot pointed east-northeast and said the storms were still going strong at our destination about 50 miles away where the Virgin River enters the Clearwater, so we'd have to wait till morning to go. We pitched our tents in the grass and were invited to share the campfire where Jamie, the Mikisew Air rep who lives there, was entertaining some visitors. One of them, Clara Janvier, a Den' (Chipewyan) woman, turned out to have a husband who is an amateur historian and quite interested in Peter Pond. He was away hunting moose, but we exchanged email addresses and we'll be in touch in August. We ate cheese-stuffed sausages with mushrooms and onions and a romaine salad. We took Taiga for a run beside the car and drove around La Loche, not unlike a poor Mexican village -- dry, little vegetation, few windows, lots of fences and walls.

It was a little hard to sleep. La Loche, a quarter mile away, was hopping till at least 2:30 a.m. -- yells, roaring cars, sirens. Next morning we were ready to go at 6 when pilot Mark showed up. The guys strapped one of the canoes onto the dockside float, and Kevin and the dog and I climbed up and over and in to make the first flight -- we'd have breakfast ready when the others arrived. This was a Beaver float plane, vintage 1947, serial #12. The right front window was missing (a disembarking firefighter had somehow knocked the door into the water the week before; a snorkeler hadn't been able to locate it in the ten feet of murky water by the dock; someone had provided a spare door, but no window), so Kevin had to use ear plugs. We taxied out onto the glassy lake, mother ducks and their ducklings rushing to escape us, and roared into the sky. Lovely! Spruce and lichens and lakes and rivers; only one road, soon left behind. But then we were inside clouds; then ABOVE them. How can he find where he's going? After a half hour we came down through them, circled around a lake for awhile, went back up. Still going northeast, I could see by my trusty watchband compass. Twenty minutes later Mark shouted to Kevin that he was sorry, he'd been sure he'd be able to get down. Then we turned around and went all the way back. We fixed bacon and eggs and coffee on the Coleman stove out at the end of the dock and waited for the clouds to clear. In a nearby tree an enormous raven practiced his large vocabulary of whistles and coos.

Around noon the plane finally took off, this time taking Curtis and John so they could start fishing. Kevin and I left Simon to his biography of Franco and walked into town, nearly empty since people were sleeping off last night's revels, to get sodas. I hadn't seen any stores; turns out there are some; they're just hard to spot. No windows. Like warehouses, just steel buildings with heavy metal doors. High crime rate, desperate people. The first nations people on the reserve don't have to pay income tax on any money they make. If they leave, they lose their nontax status but get welfare. There are few ways to earn a living since the price of furs has fallen. Lots of these people are urging big new lumber operations here so they can get jobs. (As I wrote in my last email, I wish that anti-trapping environmentalists would realize that trapping is the only sustainable means of living for these folks -- sure beats clearcutting. Trap lines are limited in number, and quotas are enforced. And I believe it's true that no animal trapped or hunted by aboriginals have ever become extinct -- and that truth has held for thousands of years.)

Back at the dock, the plane came rattling towards us, canoeless, so we knew the others had put down! Mark lashed on the nested canoes, loaded our gear, and we were off.

This time the flight was lovely all the way. I got to sit in front, using the earplugs, so got some good photos. The spruce forest showed all stages of growth, from very recent burns to fully regrown. Way up here they don't fight them much, so the cycles are pretty much natural. The lakes were easy to identify on the map, but I didn't learn till later that the occasional superstraight cuts had nothing to do with fire curtailment but were mineral survey cuts.

Finally beautiful Careen Lake lay below us, and the Virgin River which drains it into the Clearwater. As we circled to land, we saw the brilliant red Horizons Unlimited canoe parked at the confluence, and John and Curtis fishing in the rapids. By the time we'd gotten the canoes off and loaded, waved goodbye to Mark, and paddled downriver to them, they'd caught five or six Arctic Greyling. They fished some more while we screwed the thwarts and seats back in the 17' canoe and Kevin mulled over our options -- make up some of our lost time this evening, or put in a big day the next day. He decided on the latter course so we'd have time to go back up the Virgin River -- first dropping our gear at a beautiful campsite up on a sandy bank -- to some dramatic falls. We 'parked' in the eddies below them while the guys tried for a few more fish. We swam there and back at the campsite, then had a late and huge dinner of the best fish I've ever eaten, watching the sun set in its lackadaisical northern way around 10:30.

Oops! I set out to talk about the weather, but got sidetracked into a play-by-play of our first two days.

Back to the weather.

Monday and Tuesday were delightful -- sunny and warm and breezy, with the wind behind us. Wednesday afternoon clouded up and we had a cold, windy thunderstorm on a long stretch of river that had no good spot to pull over -- just low, marshy vegetation (and bugs). But the lightening didn't get too close, and the storm passed in time for us to have a delightful lunch on a sandbar, where Taiga raced up and down like a crazy dog, her tawny coat against the pale green grasses matching the sand color in the foreground. I noticed as we got ready to leave that there was no shelter for me to take a private bathroom break, but Kevin, ever attentive, asked if I need to 'use the washroom.' He said he'd draw a line and started dragging his foot across the sand. I didn't get his meaning, but headed for the other end of the sandbar, where there were some low bushes. When I looked back, there were my Princes of the Wilderness, lined up shoulder to shoulder, facing the other way. I called the all clear, and when I got back to our lunch spot I saw that he'd drawn four boxes in the stand, with each guy's initial on top. Took a picture.

No more rain except once during the night, a pleasant drumming on the tent. But we did get some stiff wind. Part of Wednesday and most of Thursday and Friday we were paddling straight into it, which was pretty taxing on Curtis, paddling solo -- who of course is young and strong and simply needed to sleep a little more to make up for his efforts. Once I got tired from it -- One beautiful morning we'd paddled a half hour or so from putting in below Smooth Rock Falls and Kevin said he hadn't seen Taiga since the last distant bend, where she'd been swimming river right and he'd hollered 'Shore!' so she could get in her daily run. We scanned the high bank of mixed grass and aspens, expecting to see her coursing along. The other canoes had by now gotten far ahead, but we paddled back quite a ways and finally she jumped out from underbrush river left. She climbed aboard from a rock and assumed her usual supervisory position atop our gear barrels, and off we went. We paddled hard into the wind to catch up, but it took a half hour. My right hand tends to get all tingly unless I hold my right shoulder blade flat, tightly down and back, but even that didn't help. By lunchtime we were together again.

Other than that, the weather was superb -- if anything, too hot. Of course we could always take a swim or splash water on ourselves to cool off.

Flora

The first few days were pure boreal forest for miles and miles -- on the high ground narrow, pointy black spruce about fifteen feet apart carpeted with nothing but dry lichens and mosses between. Along the river there were Labrador tea bushes, blueberries (a very few were already ripe), some small aspens, and fireweed. Every patch of forest was at a uniform height, at some stage in the fire cycle -- dead black trees still standing among new knee-high growth, or older, limbless trunks standing sentinel over their medium-sized replacements. Soon jack pine added to the mix. These scraggly trees have tightly closed, curvy cones that cling to the trees for years without opening -- you can even find them beneath six or eight inches of moss, apparently still viable. They need intense heat to open, so they're dependent on fire for each new generation. Sure enough, on burned land we found thousands of these splayed wide on the ground, spreading their seeds below their dead, black 'parents.' Kevin calls these witches' trees; their gnarly arms would look just right guarding a haunted house.

We started seeing more tamarack and white birch. As we dropped in altitude and went from the granite of the Precambrian Shield into red sandstone country and finally limestone, the vegetation became more diverse, especially in low, sheltered spots. We didn't see many more burns -- perhaps because we were in the Clearwater Park area (no facilities, just protected), where probably the government fights fires. There were grassy meadows, rose bushes already sporting fat rose hips, and raspberries -- I plucked some juicy, sun-warmed ones from the jaws of death on afternoon; no bear had climbed down the huge boulders next to a pounding waterfall to find them in their sunny, moss-lined cranny, though we'd seen fresh bear scat not far away.

The Bugs

Every time we said they were awful, Kevin and Curtis shook their heads -- they were nothing compared to most years. A dry spring worked in our favor. On both water and land, when there was sun but no wind, black flies came around early in the trip, and later horseflies joined in, helping themselves to big chunks of us. One afternoon Kevin pointed out that the black flies like blue -- clouds of them were floating in the big air-eddy created by our clumped blue barrels. He spaced the containers out to make the spot less hospitable to them.

But most of our paddling time we had breeze and no bugs. On land, when there was sun and some breeze, the mosquitoes weren't out at all. Most of the portage trails wound through open woods, up and over parklike terrain. But where there was underbrush and shade, we used our bug stuff. Evenings, we had leisurely meals with the sun still high in the sky, but after 10:30 as the sun set, we slopped on the heavy-duty DEET and donned our bug nets -- Simon and Kevin had handsome net-and-nylon bug jackets that covered their heads as well. John somehow did without, but his ears eventually looked like red cauliflower. His cigarette smoke was only partially effective against the beasties. The worst part was having to make a trip into the woods when the mosquitoes were thick -- a couple of times I spread bug dope all over my derriere before squatting. I was grateful that I'm a superquick potty-person.

Fauna bigger than bugs

We didn't see many animals. For one thing, the wind was behind us the first few days, and for another, we hardly ever quit talking. We heard lots of wood (or hermit?) thrushes some evenings, and nighthawks swooped around to snatch up our bugs. Monday night Kevin pointed out a bald eagle perched on a snag not far from our campsite by some rapids; through my binocs I watched him glowering grandly around, king of the forest. The next morning on my potty trip I found a big pile of fairly fresh bear scat with whole blueberries in it, then an old whitened piece of legbone and huge white moose antlers. Early that afternoon we camped high above a sandcliff maybe 80 feet high where the river had eddied around and formed a huge circular shallow pond. There were fresh mooseprints in the steep sand trail up to the campsite. After we pitched our tents, I followed them through the trees and lichens along the top of the cliff, which curved far around to where Kevin said there was an abandoned cabin. At one sandy spot I noticed a lot of little holes all around at the same instant I felt sharp bites on my feet -- red ants! I found the log cabin, still in good shape but obviously not used for years, its door agape and its old stove rusting away. Going back, I followed a different game trail further from but parallel to the cliff. The low, light-green lichens on the forest floor looked almost like snow. The guys had each chosen a secluded spot for reading and basking in the sun. If I'd been 16 years old, and if we'd had an aluminum canoe, I would have wanted to drag it up to the top and cruise it down the steep sand into the deep still water below!

That night around ten as the sun sank slowly behind the cliff, I was determined to find some wildlife -- a beaver, a moose, something! I took one of the canoes and paddled silently far around the grassy island that filled most of the large pool beneath the cliff. Nada. Just nighthawks. But it was lovely, and from the other end I could just barely see our campfire glowing among the trees.

The next morning we were luckier -- the wind was in our faces. Kevin and I were a few hundred yards behind the other canoes when we saw something long and black, humped fore and aft, moving across the river ahead of them. We thought it must be a moose, but wading, not swimming. It climbed out on the back -- a bear! The others had stopped and were pointing at it -- I don't think it saw them or us till then -- and it watched us awhile before lumbering off through some aspens.

One pleasant aspect of this country is that there's nothing poisonous but poison ivy, and we didn't even see that. The only snakes are garter snakes. We did see some hawks and a couple more eagles, but no white pelicans like the ones so plentiful on the Churchill. On portage trails we saw wolf scat several times, full of fur, as well as fox. Kathy, I considered bringing some back for you, but all my Ziploc bag were already in use.

Wednesday we saw something whitish floating by the far shore. We paddled over and found a disgusting sight -- it was a dead, belly-up jack (Northern Pike) over 3' long with a 10' sucker stuck in its mouth. That night as I lay in my tent listening to the mosquitoes I heard something jump into the water. Sounded like it weighed at least fifty pounds. Later I recognized it as a beaver-tail slap (Remember, Maureen?); we were just downstream from a beaver lodge, and one of them coming home upstream must have been surprised we were there. We saw LOTS of beaver lodges every day, and quite a few muskrat houses as well.

When we camped at Smooth Rock Falls, I thought we were getting up at six, but found myself alone, wide awake and all dressed. So I hiked down to the bottom of the gorge, hoping to see a moose in the reedy shallows. But I was afraid I might startle a bear, so I kept whistling (Elliot -- your 'I Thank You God'). So of course there was no moose.

Other humans

We saw three while we were on the river, all on Wednesday. As we approached the only bridge in the area -- carrying a long, isolated road that goes from La Loche far north to a uranium mine (Cluff Lake Mine) -- we thought we might see some demonstrators; we'd heard that a group of M'tis (mixed-blood people with no treaty rights) had been blocking the road there some weeks ago demanding to be allowed to build some cabins inside the park, but they were nowhere in sight -- had left some signs, though. But there was a young Canadian camped there, working his way across Canada by car. We chatted with him during lunch.

That night at our buggy campsite we heard a motorboat -- how could somebody maneuver one down the rapids? It bore two Den' men, brothers Ron and Larry Lemaigre, on their way to their hunting cabin up on the Ducharme River, a tributary just south of us. They stayed to chat a long time over tea. Ron was proud to be a janitor at the Ducharme School in La Loche -- we knew that few people there had jobs -- and told us that before the arrival of television and such, most people still lived by hunting moose, catching and drying fish. He and many others still hunt moose; they tan the hide the old way by scraping the flesh off, soaking it, smearing it with brains, soaking and scraping some more, over and over, until it's soft. Then they smoke it over a spruce or birch fire to preserve it. His mother makes everyone moccasins with the hide. They sell any extra hides and pelts at Robertson's Trading Post in La Ronge, which I'd visited while there. He says that they -- and everyone who has cabins in the bush -- always leave the door unlocked in case someone needs to use it. They know visitors will use what they need, but expect in return a note and maybe a box of shells. He says that is the traditional way, where possession and use of materials are based on who needs what, not on ownership.

He repeated the complaint that the 'Greenies' with their anti-trapping movement have caused the prices of pelts to drop so low that the work doesn't pay, especially in the last two years. He says it's sad, since most people can't get jobs. He wants us all to know that there's no way species will be depleted: traplines are registered (people can't start new ones) and quotas are enforced. He says that until recently over 100 families shared the land for trap lines (families are big, so that affects lots of people), and they still have their cabins and trails. He says they would definitely go back to them if there were a surge in the prices.

His story is interesting. In the sixties, when he was a little kid of seven or eight, his dad was sending his summer's catch of fish (dried?) by plane to La Loche. He sent Ron along, telling him he had to stay with his grandparents and go to school with his older siblings, who were already there. Ron knew no English and was unfamiliar with the town, and mostly he wanted to stay with his father. He refused to get out of the plane, so the pilot took him back home. But before Christmas, his folks delivered him to school themselves. He felt strange there among so many people, missed his parents, and didn't like the nuns, who rarely let the kids speak Den', and then only with permission. He didn't even know how to ask for a drink of water.

He says now there are a dozen local Den' teachers, and the other 80 are from the south. The kids learn about computers and technology, but lots of them don't like school and they are all smart alecs. He notes that his dad has done all right -- can understand English well enough to do some fishing guide work, and never went to school, even for a single day.

He did say that some local kids have gotten good education and are serving the community in good ways, as nurses, policemen (there are 17 RCMP's in the town of under 5000), and even one doctor.

Campsites and lunchsites

These were mostly lovely. Kevin planned things so we were able to spend some time at the prettiest spots. Our Sunday night campsite, on the Virgin River, I described under 'weather.' Monday we lunched on huge polished rocks by Granite Gorge, and that night we camped on the river left bank by the last of Bielby Rapids. I pitched my tent close to the roar -- and sure enough, I dreamed about some weird building that had a powerful upward-swishing whirlpool in it, which I was supposed to navigate somehow. I awoke in time to avoid the challenge (Okay, Freudians among you...enough!).

Tuesday we paddled a long flat stretch with no high banks for comfortable picnicking. But Kevin knew of a sandbar we reached after a chilly thunderstorm ended. It was lovely, and Taiga burned some energy streaking up and down its length. Her coat matched the sand her feet churned up, but she ran against a background of tall, pale-green grass -- a lovely sight. The only problem with the site was that there was no vegetation high enough for me to hide behind to pee. So I just waited. After lunch, ever-attentive Kevin asked if I needed 'to use the washroom.' Sure, but.... He said he'd draw a line. As I headed for the far end of the sand bar, I looked back to see the guys arranged along the line he'd drawn with his foot in the sand, facing away from me! When I gave the all clear and came back, I saw that he'd drawn four neat boxes along the line, with a different guy's initials at the top of each. One way to keep the troops in line!

Tuesday night we camped river right on the point below Mackie Rapids that had the high sand cliff on the back side and the cabin a few hundred yards away. (Bill -- these place-names are for your benefit -- do you remember where you camped in '88?) It was lovely, not too buggy till late. When the sun was low and golden, we swam in the current just above the point.

Wednesday we ate on a sandy beach river right. I was busy with maps looking for the Methye Portage, which Peter Pond had crossed to get to this river (more on that later), but the guys were vying at games of strength and balance. You can try these at home:

1. Kneel on the sand. Put your elbows against your knees, your forearms straight ahead on the sand, and your hands stretched ahead palm-to-palm. Put a lighter in front of your longest finger. Then sit back on your knees (no inching forward!), put your hands behind your back, and try to knock over the lighter with your nose.

2. Put a bottle in front of you. Stand on one leg, and try to pick up the bottle with your teeth.

3. Standing on one foot, try to touch one elbow to the ground. Kevin calls this the ultimate tele-turn.

That evening was damp and cloudy, and we camped in a brushy spot we knew would be buggy. We were right. We sat in our bug nets while our Den' visitors stood talking -- no nets, no bug dope, no bugs swarming around their bare heads and arms. Has their blood developed some anti-mosquito substance, or what?

After dinner I was wide awake, so stayed up late sitting on the sloping rock shore, playing every tune I could think of on my recorder.

Thursday Kevin urged us to get a fast start so we'd get to our campsite early. He wouldn't say much about Smooth Rock Falls, just that we'd be amazed by the place. Before two we stopped at a portage trail leading off to the right. Always hoping to see some wildlife, I set off with my load ahead of the others, as usual. But Kevin said to wait, we'd be turning off to the left. And soon after the turn, we could hear the rumbling of the falls -- big ones! The trail twisted among aspens and lichen-covered boulders, then came out at the top of rushing, booming waters descending in four steps -- first a wide falls maybe ten feet high, then a surging curve to a foaming torrent thirty feet wide dropping thirty feet into a hissing, frothing pool; then after fifty feet or so jostling along below a sheer cliff, it pounded down another cascade, swirled to the left, and disappeared between the walls of the gorge. We were indeed amazed! Then we learned we'd not only be having lunch here, but camping as well -- we had the afternoon off! I pitched my tent eight feet from the edge of the cliff (and only 50' from some fairly recent bear scat!), above all the wild pounding and surging. Best tentsite ever!

After a shouting lunch at the top of the falls, Kevin said we'd spend the afternoon at another spot on the other side that was maybe even better. I couldn't imagine. He said to wear our bathing suits and bring all our shower stuff. John stayed behind to fish, but Kevin and Simon and Curtis and I paddled across above the falls and tied up in some willows, then cut through some underbrush to....another falls! The drop was the same as the total of the other falls, but in a much shorter distance and carrying much less water, which cascaded down over huge polished globes of smooth rock, twisting and turning. Kevin realized the water was high enough that we could have paddled there, so Curtis went back and brought his canoe to the very lip of the drop! The rocks were slippery and my Tevas didn't grip well, so my Princes of the Wilderness held onto me as I minced across the stream. We noticed smooth bathtub-sized potholes worn in the rock, and when I stuck my paddle down into a pool only four feet in diameter, I got wet clear to my armpit without finding the bottom. We started climbing down the side. There was a sheer drop of eight or ten feet to negotiate, and then we were there -- at the loveliest shower stall I've ever seen. After shimmering down a reddish granite globe, a silver curtain of water fell eight or ten feet into a pool; there was enough of an undercut behind it that you could stand behind the pounding water, soap yourself, and rinse in the shower -- while enjoying the view of miles of wilderness far below. We each found spots to spend an hour or two lying in the sun. Simon read his Franco book, Curtis and Kevin found flat places to bake in the sun over on the other side, and Taiga, who finally found a way around and down, snoozed near her master. I sat on a sloping rock and soaked up the rays, then got out my recorder -- because Elliot, your 'I Thank You God' was in my head and my heart...'for this most aMAZing day'!

We stayed till the sun started coming down in the sky, then went back to camp. But unable to stand the fact that John had missed out, we insisted he go with Kevin to see it while the rest of us got ready for dinner. He was glad!

Sleeping so near the precipice above the falls was interesting. It did cross my mind that if a bear came in the back window, I'd want to leave by the front door....and would I remember about the cliff? Or -- pale shade of Juliet's potion-terrors -- would I go berserk in the night and start sleepwalking? But morning came fast enough, with mist rising from the gorge and sun just starting to break through.

Friday's lunch spot was just as dramatic. After portaging all the gear and canoes around Skull Canyon (the one pictured on Bill's web site), we climbed up to the top of its last big cliff to eat. Curtis, counting rock-climbing as one of his many skills, went up higher rocks upstream. I tried not to worry, taking my cue from Kevin, who -- no matter what -- never got ruffled, even late afternoons when, having gotten into his Scotch, John started doing wild pirouettes on sloping rocks.

Later that afternoon, after some exciting rapids, we came to a fine place for a swim by a sloping rock. The river had gotten quite wide by this time, and the current was strong but swimmable. Kevin had his dog demonstrate how she can tow a canoe to shore; then she paddled around visiting each of us as we swam and bathed. I even washed my hair! But when I did my good ol' water ballet surface dives to rinse, Taiga went crazy. Must have thought I was some big fish.

Our last camping spot wasn't great; Kevin warned us. We were below Contact Rapids, where the river is wide and smooth enough for the float plane to land. We pitched our tents in a buggy meadow there -- I was afraid the fat thorns on the rose bushes would puncture the nylon and maybe even my mattress pad. But we flattened the vegetation and the tents did fine. At least there were some smooth, gently sloping rocks for cooking and eating our dinner.

The next morning at five till six, we heard the engine of the plane, still in the clouds. Mark was right on time! Since I was in no hurry to leave, I stayed behind with Kevin and Curtis to pack the tents and eat pancakes while Simon (needing to make phone calls) and John (wanting to lay in a supply of beer for the ride back to La Loche) paddled way down the lake to the plane. When their canoe was lashed securely (takes about 20 minutes!), they took off towards us, then veered away into some trees -- scary! But the pilot had aimed up a narrow rapid BETWEEN some trees. Quite dramatic. By the time we flew out about 8, the wind was up and the pilot took off in a more ordinary fashion to the south.

Food

It was terrific! Heidi, the woman at Ric's who prepares and packs the meals, knew that I was wild about peanut butter and sent a huge jar -- plus jam and honey. Other selections in the blue 'lunch' barrel were salami, other kinds of sausage, several kinds of cheese, cucumbers, carrots, mustard and ketchup, bagels, homemade English muffins, pita bread, some kind of fancy multigrain bread. To drink was Lipton tea mix, raspberry or peach flavored. I got addicted.

We stopped often for snacks -- every day Kevin brought out a new kind to add to the choices: pistachio nuts, sunflower seeds (which Kevin ate nearly nonstop the whole trip, spitting the little shells into the wind), fruit leather, beef jerky, sesame candy, red licorice, some gummy candy called Fuzzy Peach that's sour on the outside and sweet on the inside and glows a lovely pinkish orange when you hold it up to the sun; peanut butter fudge that Heidi had rolled up in little foil balls; EatMore protein bars; granola bars; and I shared the Hershey's almond bar and an Oh Henry I'd brought as surprises.

Breakfast: bacon and eggs and toast on the dock Sunday morning; granola with strawberry yogurt Monday morning, when we wanted a quick start; then excellent pancakes with tons of syrup and canned peaches; cream of wheat with brown sugar and (reconstituted) milk. But NO RAISINS. Darn. The only breakfast I thought less than a success was the reconstituted hash browns with canned ham. Yuck.

Dinners: Well, the first night was fish. Arctic Greyling, eight or ten, breaded and fried -- best fish I've ever eaten -- and we drank the big bottle of white wine I'd contributed to the trip. Then pasta with tomato sauce and cheese; burritoes with beans, rice, cheese, salsa, tomatoes, pickled jalapenas; curried rice and lentils and onions;

Desserts: Chocolate sauce cake (like pudding cake. Yum!) Then CHEESECAKE, would you believe, with blueberry sauce!! It was supposed to be a surprise, but I'd seen the box lurking there in the blue barrel, and saw Kevin fiddling around with some pans and bowls, then taking it to the river to chill it so it would set).

WATER! I forgot to mention water! Since even the Clearwater has giardia in it, you shouldn't drink the water without treating it or filtering it. BUT -- there's a nifty product that's been out a couple of years called 'Aquasqueeze,' and Ric sent one along with each of us. It's the size of a large water bottle and utilizes an 'ionic adsorption micro water filtration system.' You screw off the cap at one end and fill the bottle from the river. Then you pull the drinking cap off the other end, pull out the pop-stopper, and squeeze water out into the cup. Takes out 'silt, sediment, chlorine, toxic chemicals, PCB, PCE, detergents, DDT, microscopic pathogens...heavy metals...radon....' It's made by Benefits USA, but bears no address. You can refill it 1000 times before it wears out. Ooops -- I haven't been counting!

Equipment

This may interest those of you who contemplate such a trip.

Ric seems to put lots of money into good gear. We paddled bright red Trailhead Prospector canoes, 16 and 17 feet long, made of Royalex. Kevin calls them the sports cars of touring canoes -- they can still carry a lot of gear, but are faster and more fun -- much pointier and narrower than the solid workhorse Tripper we paddled in the clinic. I used a regular plastic rental paddle -- Kevin couldn't understand why I didn't bring my lovely wooden Hemlock Pete one with me on the plane. I wished I had, too, after using the plastic thing a few days. It has a raised spine up the middle to the handle to strengthen it, which means the thing makes an annoying blurbling noise when you're paddling. There's no way to do a silent underwater stroke when you're trying to sneak up on animals. Also, I paddled all one afternoon with Kevin's nice bent-shaft paddle for flat water. Wow! I'd heard they're amazing -- easy as pie! It comes out of the water so easily that you keep up a faster, more efficient pace. I want to get one.

Each canoe had long painters on both ends for tying up and for lining rapids, but as it turned out, we never did any lining -- portaged the unrunnable parts and ran the rest. Each canoe also had a rescue bag fastened to a thwart -- a nylon cylinder about ten inches long and four across with maybe forty feet of line stuff in it.

Another great innovation is the use of blue plastic waterproof barrels. We had two sizes: the large ones were maybe three feet tall and a foot and a half in diameter, and the small ones were about 2/3 that size. The lid fastens with a metal ring clamp around it. We each had a big one for our personal stuff. Each barrel is in a bright red padded harness with yellow trim -- lovely -- with padded shoulder straps and hip belt, plus a sternum strap so the barrel doesn't roll around and throw you off balance when you're climbing up and over boulders and logs on the portage trails. The barrels are great in camp -- they're great seats and work surfaces, and whatever stuff you don't need in your tent, you just leave parked in your barrel outside. And things don't get smushed, unless you're like me and cram so much into your barrel that the little film canisters of hair conditioner and sunscreen pop open and get goo all over everything.

Tents: The one they gave me to use was a Quest 2- or 3-person tent with those super poles that have shock cords running through them. It had a nifty vestibule built into the rain fly, and when you reefed it up you could still get plenty of breeze through there without the rain coming in. It was completely tight -- nary a mosquito could get in except the ones I brought with me. (But who let in those spiders?)

Sleeping bag and pad: I had my own wonderful LLBean bag and my Thermorest pad which fills nearly full of air on its own -- you just have to blow a few more breaths in. Delightful!

Crazy Creek chairs: All of us had these except John. They're fabric-coated foam rectangles with one hinge, forming a seat and a back. You adjust the angle with straps. You can lay them flat or have any degree of acuteness; you can rock in them. They're great folded and parked in front of your tent so you can sit down and make a quick slick entrance with minimal insect invasion.

My nylon pants with the zip-off legs were superb. They have two roomy Velcro pockets, where I kept my sunglasses in their solid case, my film canister of sunscreen, my lip balm, and my bug dope stick. On land I also carried my cord with whistle and little Leatherman tool; on the water I fastened that to my life jacket. You're always supposed to have a knife on your life jacket in case you're in an upset or something and get a rope tangled around you. One night when I heard something shuffling around in the woods outside my tent, I fell asleep with my whistle clamped in my teeth.

My Otter watertight box: In it I kept my camera, a spare roll of film, a pair of dry sox, and some Kleenex. I kept it in my day pack, which was fastened with a carabiner to my gear barrel, which was lashed with the others to the thwarts. If we had upset, the barrels would keep the canoe afloat. My day pack got wet whenever we shipped water in big waves. In there I kept my toilet paper in a Ziploc bag, my water bottle, my pants legs, and my jacket.

My paddle shoes: these worked great for paddling and short portages, thanks to the hard plastic waterproof orthotics the makers of the expensive REAL orthotics gave me, feeling guilty because of all the trouble I was going to trying to make wettable ones out of silicone caulk. I kept handy in a net bag my Tevas with their homemade caulk orthotics bonded to them -- used them on land when I wanted to dry my feet out.

My binoculars were well worth the trouble of hauling along.

My camera!! It quit working on Tuesday!! Made all sorts of odd clicking noises instead of poking out its lens as it's supposed to. Yes, I tried a new battery -- actually had put one in the day before. I was devastated. Then I remembered the throwaway one Leslie bought me -- thank you, Leslie!!! And sweet Dr. John handed me his, said his wife got it for him, insisted he use it, but that he hates taking pictures. I'll send him the copies.

All the warm week, I kicked myself for taking up room with my fleece longjohns, but I was happy to sleep in them the last night, which was a cold one.

Portages

Well, I never carried a canoe the whole time. The three younger Princes of the Wilderness did -- and carrying a 75- or 80-pound canoe is no snap. A couple of the trails were around a kilometer long, with some steep hills both up and down. At two sets of tough rapids we portaged most of the gear, then scouted the rapids, planned our moves, and ran them. We made one 'carry' around short, steep Craig's Falls, which has swallowed canoes in the past; we carried the gear -- not far, but the 'trail' was a steep ravine with huge sharp boulders and bushes -- and the guys carried the canoes right-side-up, one at a time.

But I did make two or three trips each portage. The first was with my own gear barrel, which Kevin said was the heaviest one at about 35 pounds. The harnesses are so well-made that it's not hard at all; I just had to be careful where the footing was bad. What the books say is true: You look forward to the portages as a change from paddling, and because you see the country from a different angle and can find animal tracks and scat.

The rapids

I saved these for the last, since they were so much fun. First, as I learned in the clinic the week before, in an open canoe you don't even attempt the crazy stuff they take you down on raft trips on places like the Ocoee and the New River. Second, when the water piles up in jostling waves, you travel slower than the current so you ship less water, and you do lots of bracing (pushing down on the water with the flat blade of your paddle) to keep your balance. Although there are times when you have to power through stuff to get where you need to be in time to avoid the next obstacle, he whole thing is usually slow and gentle and graceful if you do it right. As Kevin says, 'The thrill is in the skill.' It's a really neat feeling to be so calm and steady amid the thrashing swirls and sloshing peaks.

Of course I had it easy as pie, having in my stern one of the best guides in Canada, according to Curtis, and I fully believe it. I had nothing to fear. Having lived through being pitched out of a raft on a 4+ or 5 rapid on the New RIver in West Virginia and suffering only the black eye the frightened guide gave me when he finally arrived in the eddy to rescue me, the swirly waters we tackled on this trip weren't scary. We didn't go through anything rougher than a 3 or maybe 3+, and there were not many of those. Mostly I worried about doing something dumb that even Kevin wouldn't be able to fix fast enough and then causing everyone to wait around while we regrouped after a capsize. Kevin made things seem so easy that I kept forgetting there was any danger at all, that if we fetched up broadside against a rock and let the upstream gunwale dip, the canoe would be full of tons of water in an instant and get wrapped around the rock -- or, worse, pin one of us against it. Late in the trip we did see one aluminum canoe torn and folded around a rock. It looked like it'd been there awhile.

So mostly my job was to 'draw' the bow to the right by pulling my paddle smartly towards the canoe when Kevin said 'draw,' and to 'pry' the bow to the left by prying it hard against the gunwale to push the blade outward. (Except for maybe fifteen minutes, I paddled on the right the whole trip.) I didn't trust my duffeck, so usually I just did draws instead. At first, when Kevin would say, 'We'll be going to the right up here,' I'd holler, 'You mean NOW? Should I draw NOW?' but eventually I learned just where the right spot was. Then I got to the stage that, when I saw a rock pillow coming that Kevin hadn't seen, I'd draw or pry depending on which way most of the current was flowing, and he'd wait a second and straighten us out at just the right time. Every now and then we'd hit something pretty deep that we hadn't seen, but it would just be a slight bump. Kevin never yelled, and sometimes the rapids were pretty loud, so I had to keep an ear cocked to the rear while keeping my eyes glued to the water ahead.

Sometimes we'd paddle flat water for an hour or more, then have some dramatic place we'd have to get out and scout -- Kevin's done this river three or four times, and has maps with the cumulative notes of all the guides who've paddled it since '72, I think -- including Gerald's notes from your '88 trip, Bill. But with every little change in the water level, the difficulty changes -- and the choice of route would change as well. Kevin did a slow, thorough job of scouting and of teaching us how to make decisions (don't run anything you wouldn't want to swim). We spent lots of time clambering around in the bushes along the tough rapids. Then usually Curtis would solo his canoe down first, sometimes with us watching from the side. Then he'd signal with his paddle if he'd discovered that we should go a different route from the one he took. It was great watching him float that thing through, twisting and ferrying to follow just the right path. Sometimes we went next, but usually last. The first main rapid was exciting -- Simon and John got turned backwards, but had the sense not to try to fight back around. They just ran it really well backwards! As Kevin says, you LOSE if you try to fight the current; you've got to USE it.

Sometimes the rapids would go along for what seemed like miles -- not scary ones, but you had to stay alert. And then you'd go for hours on flat water, sometimes into a strong wind. But the current was nearly always strong. The last day or two, when the river had become really wide, it was like rolling down a broad, happily jostling-frolicking silver highway into wild dark valleys of wilderness. Sheer joy!

My ignominious moment came at our last big rapid, part of Contact Rapids. Here there were lots of islands with rushing channels of varying difficulty between them, so you had to scout and pick. We decided the water was high enough that we could run one gushy spot, though it's usually lined or portaged. It was just a short, fast, steep stretch no more than 20 feet across, but with lots of churning brown water coming through with a lot of force. We could see at the end that the water was shooting over some pretty jaggedy rocks both left and right, but you could aim for the center -- little more than a canoe's width. 'What if we hit the rocks, Kevin?' 'We'd go right over them. Look at all the water shooting across their tops.' We all agreed to give it a try. Curtis sailed and danced down beautifully. I told Kevin my only fear was that I'd misinterpret something he said. He said all I had to do was paddle hard -- this was a paddle-hard rapid -- and when the time came, to do a big draw like mad. As we put off and got ready to go, I folded my feet under the seat (you always paddle on your knees in whitewater, and if necessary you hold yourself in with your feet under the seat) and felt my right arch constrict with a cramp. I stretched it out, but it returned with a vengeance when I curled my foot back under the seat. I decided not to worry about it or tell Kevin (so maybe having part of my wits preoccupied with it will explain what happened next), and off we went, zooom! Wheeee! I paddled like mad. Fun! Kevin yelled 'Good job!' twice before I realized he wasn't saying 'Good job' (not a phrase I recall him ever using) but, instead, 'BIG DRAW!' (which, of course, is the only command he'd said would be forthcoming). He must have wondered what in the HECK was the matter with me! So I drew REAL big, but too late, and we hit the rock, the canoe wobbled a bit (DID I grab the left gunwale for a second? For shame! I think I might have!) and sailed on over, plunged through the standing waves, taking in a few gallons, and we wheeled into the eddy just fine.

I'm sure there's a good dent in the bottom of the canoe, but never thought to look. I was shamed. Rats. The big moment, and I screwed up. Of course gentle Kevin said nothing about it, but was interested in hearing my explanation when I got around to telling him. A genuine prince.

This was a perfect example of what happens when I, ordinarily an independent, do-it-myself person, link up with someone who knows their stuff. I become totally dependent on their direction, abdicating any responsibility to act on my own judgment. I wasn't even looking ahead at the rock, or assessing our speed, or thinking about where the spot to DRAW would be. Sorry, Kevin. And sorry for me; I would have learned more if I'd kept my wits about me.

After that we had a few more grand-highway-downhill rides, fast and fun. The last one was a little wild, and everyone hit a rock here or there but finished with a lot of Yippeees! We hadn't seen Curtis end his run, but he cheerfully confessed he'd ended up doing it backwards -- and with style, I'm sure. He'd also cracked his nice paddle.

So that was it! We'd reached the wide part of the river where the plane could land the next morning, and we set about mashing down the grass and rose bushes to pitch our tents.

My only disappointment on this trip was learning on Wednesday that we would be ending our trip BEFORE the north end of the historic Methye Portage, the route Peter Pond was the first white guy to follow. So we wouldn't be paddling any part of the river he actually traveled! The description I'd read on Ric's web page was apparently true for the trip as it had been made several previous years. He'd decided to shorten it for this year -- and it's true that most of the fun part was over where we got off at Contact Rapids. Still, I was feeling kind of blue about the whole thing until that evening when we were fortunate to meet the two Den' men, Ron and Larry, who gave us first-hand, lifelong knowledge of that portage, which was one of their main routes to the river before the Cluff Mine Road went in maybe twenty years ago. It took them one day on horseback to get from La Loche to the start of the Methye Portage at the north end of Lac La Loche, and another long one to cross the twelve-mile portage, which is very steep on the north end above the river. I believe it took Peter Pond and his sixteen men four days, carrying four 25-foot canoes and all the trade goods they held.

So, even though I didn't get to paddle exactly where my infamous relative did, I thought about those early adventurers a lot. They didn't have DEET or Gore-tex or nylon, and they paddled sixteen hours a day with time out for a pipe every hour or so. Every time they hit rocks they had to stop and patch their canoes with rolls of birch bark, stitching it with coils of spruce root and sealing the seams with pine pitch, all of which they'd brought along for that purpose and all of which made the canoes that much heavier to portage. They didn't have pudding cake or bacon or curried lentils or yummy candy-treats -- just pemmican, made by native women employed at places like Fort William on Lake Superior and later at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca -- from pounded, dried buffalo meat -- plus dried Saskatoon berries -- packed with lard into skin containers. Peter Pond is credited with having promoted the idea of using pemmican to enable traders to travel farther with less weight. They had no time to fish or hunt -- no delicious arctic greyling for supper!

As it turned out, I got to see the Methye Portage from the air. I had to wait around after the guys left (They were going to stop for beer and sodas in town; I was going to go along to buy a camera and walk back, but the guys at the dock said NO WAY you can walk through town by yourself. So they drove me back and we said goodbye.) while Mark flew some firefighters to a small fire not too far away. I studied the huge map in their office, then tried to get my notebook caught up. We took off about two o'clock, and this time Mark had dug up another set of earphones for me. I could plug them in and we could talk, though the roar of the wind from the open window hit my mike and made a big racket. So he turned the switch off and told me to pound on his shoulder if I had a question and he'd turn them back on. We flew to the north end of Lac La Loche, and Mark pointed out the stone cairn on an emerald lawn cleared in the spruce forest below. He offered to put the plane down on the lake there, but I said no -- I was eager to get to Fort McMurray to start the next part of my trip. I was having to pay big bucks for this charter flight since there are NO scheduled ones from here; people from poor Saskatoon don't seem to do much business with their rich Alberta sister. I would have had to fly south to Saskatoon, then west to Edmonton, then clear back north to Fort McMurray, only 80 or 100 miles from where I started. So we circled around a few times and I took some photos. As we flew west, I followed along on a map and think I saw Rendezvous Lake, where the North West Company guys, each carrying two 90-pound bales of furs from the northwest Athabasca country, would exchange loads with their colleagues bringing trade goods from Lake Superior. Looked at from the air, the twelve miles were a long way. I'm sure they seemed endless from beneath an upside-down canoe.

A little while after we crossed the Alberta border -- we were above an area labeled 'UNSETTLED AREA' on the map -- something went awry with the engine. It coughed and spluttered, and Mark jumped to poke at buttons on the dash. I closed my eyes and prayed. 'Everything's fine,' he said. 'I just had to switch to the other gas tank. Usually the first one lasts longer than this.' My guess is he forgot to allow for all the circles we made over the Methye Portage Memorial Cairn.

Then he bent over his maps for a long time. It was hard not to remind him to keep his eyes on the road, but of course flying is different. He said he'd never flown into Fort McMurray and had to figure out the landing. I took pictures of the Clearwater, huge now and multi-streamed at its junction with the even larger Athabasca River, flowing down from the Rockies south and west of here and now heading north to Lake Athabasca. I'd be here in this oil-sand boomtown (yes, Peter Pond saw black oily stuff coming out of the sand) till Tuesday, when I'd fly a couple of hundred miles north to tiny Fort Chipewyan, near which Peter Pond established the first trading post in what is now Alberta.

Will send similarly voluminous reports on same when I get them written. Right now it's the wee hours of Monday, July 30, I'm back home with my dog and my cats (well cared for by Cousin Dave and his girlfriend Candace), and I'm heading to the Western Wind Ensemble-Singing Workshop at Smith this afternoon. I hope your summers are going well and not too fast.

In case you're interested in a canoe trip with Horizons Unlimited, here's their info:

Horizons Unlimited Churchill River Outfitters
Box 1110
La Ronge, SK S0J 1L0

306-635-4420

Check out the great trips and clinics on their website at: www.churchillrivercanoe.com

Judy