Goodbye Mr Mackenzie Fish Heads And Tails

[Jule Watkinson]

Thisyear's canoe trip was 960 miles in length, and took us 39 days across an amazingly vast wilderness area, in fact one of the largest and most remote and pristine natural regions left on the planet. Starting in Yellowknife, capital of Canada's Northwest Territories, we paddled along the shore of the Great Slave Lake, then carried our outfit over Pike's Portage, worked up to Clinton-Colden and Aylmer lakes, then paddled down the Coppermine River, and finished at the native village of Kugluktuk on the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

We arrived at the Portland Airport at 3-1/2 hours before the scheduled departure time of our flight to Seattle. Turns out we needed the extra time to straighten out a glitch: The airlines had no record of our payment for our leg to Edmonton. That took an hour to sort out. Then, the line to get through security seemed to take another hour.

We awoke several times in the wee hours of the morning; Jenny had picked up a cold in Portland so she was feeling a bit raspy. Then we finally got up about 7:00 am. It was a beautiful day, some overcast, not cold, not too buggy. We hiked a ways off over the bedrock and through the stunted black spruce forest. The spruce are about 20 feet tall, maximum, with lots of birch, alder and wild rose.

From there we drove on through town, over the bridge to our chosen launch site: the old float plane dock on Back Bay where we had camped and flown out during our 1997 Thelon River trip. A fellow was working at the dock filling fuel drums, and we asked him for permission to work - off in one corner. No problem, he said, in a friendly tone.

At home, the boat had seemed much too large; but here, all our gear and six-weeks of food barely fit. We were in such a hurry to leave (we didn't want to caught in the channel or out in the bay with a storm coming), we just threw the gear bags in and took off - this at 3:40 pm. We paddled under the bridge and were just pulling out into the main channel when we had to make a hard left to get out of the way of a float plane approaching for a landing.

We paddled around the north of Jolliffe Island and then southeast across Yellowknife Bay to the eastern shore. The sky was partly clouded over. Out on the water we had up to 10 knots of headwind and some small whitecaps. This was enough wind to keep the mosquitoes at bay. We enjoyed the paddling. It was very nice to get going and very nice to be on the water again. We had some reservations about how well the canoe would hold together and how well it would perform, but at least it floated, and it paddled easily enough, even fully loaded.

There was heavy rain during the night and it was still drizzling in the morning. There was not much wind, but the morning was not inspiring either, so we slept in. The last few day's preparations at home, the traveling to Yellowknife, and the preparations there, had left us deeply fatigued. Now, at last, it was time to relax. we slept most of the day.

The weather started looking better about 4:30 pm, so we decided to move on. Besides, as the afternoon wore on the day had grown warm and the tent's interior had become intolerably hot, even though the skies were still very cloudy. We set off at 6:22 pm and paddled south, staying outside of all the islands of size. Then we finally, ducking through the channel just before reaching the last large island in the chain, we paddled southeast with a light crosswind across 1.5 miles to the next island chain.

We stayed outside of all of these islands until Post Island where we ducked inside. The sky let loose with rain again. We did not have the spray cover fitted, but at least we had our waders and rain jackets at the ready. For 15 minutes it was a full-on deluge. From Post Island we steered due east. About 10:30 pm we had had enough. Jenny was feeling ill, and had vomited over the side. She had picked up a bug of some sort in Portland and had been feeling pretty rotten the last 3 days.

Fortunately, that feeling would soon change. We crawled into the tent and it was surprisingly comfortable for such an improbably site. In the water below camp I saw a fish jump. In the trees behind was an eagle. Despite the rain we enjoyed the scenery. Small but sturdy spruce, dark green against a sky as blue as the water that reflected the whole scene. The late evening light had a pink tinge. The clouds lifted to the west and the sun gleamed through golden. Our constant companions rested or fished nearby: gulls, terns, ducks with ducklings, loons, eagles, osprey and ravens. We fitted the spray cover for the night. 4.5 hours, 11 miles.

We had a very good night sleep, no rain. We set off at 8:09 am. The sky was heavily overcast, steel gray. The wind was very light and from the west, giving us a nice nudge all day, and fortunately the rain held off. Jenny was feeling much better.

In Drybones Bay we stopped on a small island for a shorebreak. Just here were a couple of baby terns. We could have caught them by hand. The parents scolded us incessantly. They babies were quite large and fluffy, almost larger than the parents, but they had no flight feathers. They tried to hide in the tall grasses. They were tan brown with dark brown spots, a perfect camouflage. Our shore break lasted about 3 minutes until the bugs discovered us.

We finished crossing the bay. The wind picked up from the west-northwest, giving us a nice push, but making the steering more difficult. Reaching Burnt Island we couldn't tell if it was an island so we switched on "Geepus" and very soon found ourselves on the map.

We walked around, out to a peninsula, where locals had camped in the past. We found an old table and a fire pit. Jenny had an accidental slip into a shallow bay where she tried to cross on slippery rocks. We also found a whole grove of wild onions and more of the precious little pink and yellow flowers. The Labrador tea grows 4 feet tall and are crowned with their white tufts of flowers. Jenny worked on organizing our food, our half dozen grocery sacks is now down to two.

No rain during the night. We slept very comfortable on our heather mattress. We packed up and set off at 8:13 am. There was a light headwind, but we created a light tailwind instead. The sky was overcast, but gradually through the morning the clouds dissipated along with the wind. We couldn't paddle close to shore because the mosquitoes would soon find us.

We worked our way directly to Matonabee Point through a number of islands, mainly keeping to their outside. Devil's Channel looked intriguing but it would just add more miles and put us too close to the bugs so we stayed outside, rounded Gros Cap and headed east for the first time. We had a light tailwind across Campbell Bay and then light headwinds.

The mirages were playing tricks on the horizon, distorting islands and making it look like a huge portion of the lake was covered in ice. The headwinds were very cold and it had us wondering for awhile if there was indeed ice.

We had a very good night's sleep on the rock, again no rain with the wind calm. Jenny emerged from the tent and exclaimed, "the water has come way up!" I was thinking, that would be possible in a very strong blow; but the wind hadn't blown. Then she went to the shore for a better look and said, "hmmm, optical illusion."

We cut directly across the widest part of Francois Bay four miles to a couple of small islands. Then we followed the coast which was much more regular and no longer festooned with islands. Three miles across Hearne Channel is Blanchet Island which is so huge it looks like the mainland. Our side of the channel was very beautiful and interesting: bedrock with black and orange lichens, the thinning forest, more gravel beaches, starting out small - about 5 feet wide - and getting bigger the farther east we went. We had seen none of these previously.

The last couple hours of the day a strong tailwind sprung up and took away our lethargy. With very tired arms we paddled hard and enjoyed the ride for the most part. The wind allowed us to take a quick shore break. As the evening wore on we stopped twice, looking for a campsite but without finding anything suitable. On a large gravel bar we saw a tiny baby bird, maybe a plover, but not camo-colored. It was white, like a baby seagull, but didn't look like one. He wasn't frightened by us. We didn't see any parents nearby.

We enjoyed relaxing in the tent, listening to the water lapping at the shoreline, and occasional dragonfly flitting by. One end of the tent we had to place over a krummholtz spruce, the entire tree. It didn't seem to mind (tongue in cheek), and it smelled wonderfully fragrant.

Yet another calm, peaceful and restful night. And once again the heat of the sun prompted us out of bed. We set off at 8:00 am, the sky was mostly clear, wind zero, and the bugs followed us about 2 miles. We paddled extra far out and eventually lost them. It is always with relief that we remove the bug clothing in the morning: headnets, bug mitts, and jacket.

We worked our way along the shoreline and then paddled outside the southwestern island and the inside of the narrow island. This is extremely beautiful country. We saw a few fishing boats out. Mid-day we picked up a light tailwind which gradually increased and for the rest of the day we romped along in 2 to 3 foot following seas which were often white capped. The canoe seemed to handle this without problems.

We rounded Sachowia Point in a southwesterly 15 knots. Despite the boisterous conditions, there was no place to land for about 5 mi in it was either cliff or steep, forested rock. Very pretty. We were very glad to get around it in such conditions. We started looking for a campsite, stopped a couple times, didn't find anything we liked. This is not a pristine wilderness by any means. We find lots of evidence of fishermen, hunters, campers. Even name writing on rock faces.

It is interesting to note that all along the shore there are a finite number of decent camping areas. They are not ubiquitous, although they are many. These same campsites get used from generation to generation, going back to who knows how long. And they are often marked with tent hold-down rocks. These hold-down rocks are not like tent ring rocks of the Arctic. Here they are much smaller, for whatever reason. This evening I found an old campsite featuring a set of hold-down rocks overgrown with very thick lichen. lichen grows very slowly in these latitudes, so very thick lichen growing on the rocks suggested they had not been moved in a long time - perhaps 50 to 100 years. We always leave such sites alone.

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