by Adam Shoalts
The tangled jungle of alders, willows, spruces, and tamaracks gave the creek a claustrophobic feel as I followed its snaking course. The thick clouds of biting insects didn’t improve things much. Dead trees across the waterway forced me to climb carefully onto them and then haul my canoe up and over so that I could resume paddling on the opposite side. It was hard work, given that the heavily loaded canoe weighed more than I did.
Soon I arrived at a place where the swampy creek forked in two: it wasn’t immediately clear which fork I should take. My maps and GPS were no help—neither had the kind of detail needed to accurately discern swampy channels. It was clear they weren’t terribly precise, as my plotted position on the GPS showed me on dry land somewhere, which wasn’t the case. I was smack in the middle of the remaining waterway.
So I set aside the maps and GPS and instead read the landscape. Neither fork looked promising—both led straight into logjams. The bushes and fallen trees had become so thick that I couldn’t see much beyond twenty feet in any direction. But examining the current I detected a stronger flow from the left fork, so I resolved to follow it. I was still heading upriver, and sooner or later it seemed, this waterway was going to dry up and disappear. There was barely room to swing a paddle inside the thickets, but I jabbed and pushed along as well as I could.
I’d gone only a short distance before a logjam formed of dead spruces barred the way forward. There was nothing for it but to get out of the canoe and into the water. Carefully, knowing how easily I could slip and cut open my leg on one of the logs’ sharp, snapped-off branches, I began the backbreaking labour of clearing a passage—first shoving, heaving, and pushing with the weight of my body to get the logs out of the way, then lifting, hauling, and ramming my canoe to get it through.
The jam continued as far as I could see. The sight of such a nightmarish string of obstacles before me, combined with the relentless hordes of blackflies, made me briefly wonder if on balance it might not be wiser to quit now, point my canoe downstream, and paddle with the current back to the Mackenzie. Fortunately, this was but a passing delusion, and saner heads prevailed: I banished such thoughts and instead plunged into the river up to my waist, heaving with renewed force to batter the canoe over the logjam. I smashed branches aside, and forced the canoe through like a medieval battering ram against a fortress gate. Then, to squeeze under the next jam, I had to get down into dark water that rose above my waist, flooding my hip waders and drenching me. There wasn’t anything to be done but to keep going.
I was in the zone now—you know that zone you get into when you’ve been canoeing up rivers alone in the wilderness for a month? That was the exact zone I was now in. With renewed vigour I shoved, heaved, and twisted my way up and under successive logjams. One fallen spruce formed a kind of bridge across the narrow creek; to get around it I scampered up its trunk, balanced on my chest on top of it, and threaded the canoe underneath with my legs dangling in the air. But this triumph was short-lived. Around the next bend lay a logjam that made a mockery of all others. It was massive, impenetrable, and utterly demoralizing—a colossal pile of dead trees that looked as though a beaver the size of Godzilla had heaped them up. To hack through it with my hatchet would take months. I had no other option but to portage around it through the swamps of alders and black spruces.
Since it wasn’t possible to carry everything at once, it’d have to be done in stages. My easiest load was my backpack, which held my tent, spare clothing, tripod, hatchet, and other survival essentials. I strapped it on and plunged off into the green alders. They were almost as tall as me, making seeing ahead difficult, but they didn’t last long, as the vegetation abruptly gave way to a foul bog.
I picked my way elf-like across it, trying not to step in the wrong place, seeking out the mossy patches of firmer ground wherever they existed. Next the ground sloped up, revealing more fallen spruces to climb over and alders to push through. Once through these obstacles, having managed to bypass the giant logjam, I could see where the creek resumed. It wasn’t exactly clear sailing—there were more jams ahead, but they weren’t so bad as to rule out relaunching the canoe.
But first I had to retrace my steps back to where I’d left the rest of my gear. So far I’d only completed the easiest load, my backpack. Next I’d have to transport my two barrels across the swamp. These would have to be taken across one at a time, as any more weight would just cause me to sink into the muck. The bugs in the midst of the swamp were dreadful, swarming me as I laboured back and forth across it, transporting each load successively. The bug net I was wearing overtop my broad-brimmed hat didn’t make much difference—blackflies always seem to find a way to squeeze through eventually. Finally I went back for my canoe, dragging it behind me through the alders and across the morass. When I came to the ground that sloped upward, I lifted the canoe over my head and carried it in order to get around the toppled dead spruces. At last, panting and sweating, I reached the spot where my backpack and barrels were waiting.
No sooner had I repacked the canoe and launched it back into the swampy creek than I arrived at another logjam. Wearily I climbed back out of the vessel, summoning up whatever strength I had left. Grabbing hold of the canoe’s bow I hoisted it up onto the first of the fallen spruces. Then I began heaving it across the barricade of dead trees. The jam continued for some ways. Luckily, though, I was able to slip back down into the water where a spot opened a bit, crouch down, and then wade under the fallen trees as I dragged the floating canoe behind me. The water once more rose above my waist and flooded my hip waders. Soaking wet, I kept edging under the dead spruces by kneeling in the water, forcing the canoe to scrape beneath their claw-like branches.
At last I emerged from the swampy logjams to a welcome sight before me—the blue waters of the second of the two Headwaters Lakes. Like the first, it was long and narrow and enclosed by towering, spruce-clad ridges that in places had vertical rock outcrops amid heaps of tumbled boulders. There were caves visible on the rocky slopes, making me wonder whether grizzlies or windigos might inhabit them.
A Pacific loon cried hauntingly from somewhere across the water. Despite their name, Pacific loons are found in the Arctic, and are cousins of the common loons farther south. I made camp on the lake’s north shore, knowing I was now getting close to the mighty, frightening expanse of Great Bear Lake.
In the meantime, I enjoyed the soul-filling splendour of a wild, lonely lake I had all to myself. My soaked clothes I left drying in the branches of a dead spruce. Then I found a pleasant place on some soft moss and lichens, and I stretched out and slept.
* * *
Hard as the previous day had been, harder challenges yet awaited me. After paddling across the lake in the early morning I headed down a short swampy stream that promptly dried up, meaning yet another portage. Back and forth I went through the willow swamps, transporting each of my four loads—the two barrels, backpack, and canoe, mosquitoes and blackflies swarming horrendously. The incessant biting of the flies and mosquitoes was almost maddening, since my hands were full and unable to swat them away. A high rocky ridge remained in sight to the east; I used it as a guide so that I wouldn’t lose my way amid the willows and suffocating clouds of swarming insects.
Eventually I came to a small, nameless pond amid the willows. This little pond, I realized, was the true headwaters of the Hare Indian River, that’s to say, its farthest source, lying beyond even the two lakes. The little pond was barely more than two hundred metres across, but I decided to spare myself what little portaging I could by transporting my loads to its muddy edge, then paddling across, before resuming my struggles on its far side. It seemed probable that I was the first person ever to drag a canoe all the way from the river’s mouth to its swampy, inaccessible headwaters—if only because under any normal circumstances to do so would be utterly impractical, if not completely mad. When it came time to transport the canoe, I simply dragged it behind me through the willows, mosses, and grasses. The dragging was made
more difficult than it ought to have been owing to the fact that inside the canoe, adding to its weight, were my hiking boots (I’d kept my waders on for the portage), as well as the beaver pole (which I knew I’d still need), fishing rod (my emergency food plan), and the wheeled cart (a dubious idea). Why did I have a wheeled cart? It was the cart I’d bought in advance in case I needed to wheel my canoe along the gravel of the Dempster Highway. That hadn’t been necessary, but I kept the cart in spite of its bulk and extra weight, because of a report I’d read of an Arctic canoe trip done a few decades ago by two paddlers. They’d reported using a wheeled cart to great effect to lessen their loads on portages, and I’d hoped to do the same. So far the willows and uneven ground had precluded any hope of using it—and thus it became more dead weight for me to haul in the canoe. I consoled myself with the thought that I might yet meet with some favourable terrain where it could be of use.
Once across the small pond I portaged on, not entirely sure which way to head. Again my maps and GPS weren’t of much use here. I hoped to find a stream flowing in the other direction, out to the last of the three long lakes, since this would mean I’d reached the Great Bear Lake watershed. The willows gave way to sparse woods of tamaracks and black spruce, the uneven ground cloaked with caribou lichens and aromatic shrubs of Labrador tea. As the name suggests, the leaves of that plant have long been used to make tea, and in springtime their pretty white flowers add a touch of beauty to sombre subarctic forests.
I navigated intuitively, rounding some swamps and trudging through alternating terrain, until I happened upon a welcome sight—a tiny creek not more than a ditch, where the water flowed the opposite direction, east. That could mean only one thing—I’d crossed a watershed divide (or else become hopelessly lost). A few steps behind me, all the water was draining west, down into the Hare Indian River and onto the Mackenzie, and from there out to the Beaufort Sea. A couple of steps the other way the water flowed east, through tiny creeks and lakes to the vast waters of Great Bear Lake itself.
The little stream, less than a foot wide and ankle-deep, was too small to paddle. But the sight of it cheered me all the same, as I at least now had something to follow. Several hundred metres farther on it widened into a shallow creek that twisted around through an open sort of meadow before disappearing behind a willow thicket. The water here looked as though it might be deep enough to at least pole my canoe, so I dropped my backpack by the bank and returned for the other three loads, swatting hordes of mosquitoes as I went.
Transporting each of my four loads individually meant that to advance just one kilometre I had to travel seven times that distance on foot, as not only did I have to carry the four loads separately, I had to retrace my steps back to the start each time to get the next load. This depressing arithmetic made me especially eager to find any watercourse that would allow me to resume travel by canoe. The little creek flowing east offered that hope, so I pushed myself hard in order to get everything to its muddy banks.
But I’d met with too many creeks in my life to pin my hopes on one. They often come across as charming at first, but then, once you’ve gotten to know them a bit, they dash your hopes. Such was the case with this little stream. After I’d poled along for just a few hundred metres it led right into a willow thicket that blocked any passage forward. The bugs here were among the most intense I’d ever seen. Unable to press forward in the canoe, I reluctantly stepped out into the mud, sinking to my knees as I staggered toward firmer ground.
The willows were impossibly thick; portaging through them wasn’t an option. I had no choice but to unload my gear from the canoe and struggle across the deep mud with it to more solid ground, outside the willow swamp. Here the ground sloped upward, with black spruces and a few tamaracks. Scanning ahead, I couldn’t make out any clear water, just a tangled mass of willows that seemed to suffocate the little creek I’d hoped to follow. I sighed, realizing that my longest and likely most difficult portage yet now lay before me.
With my backpack and a paddle as a walking stick, I set off to seek the end of the willows and the return of navigable water. The ground was uneven, rising and declining into small gullies. In some places I had to claw through thick clusters of black spruce; in others I plunged through willow thickets taller than me, making me apprehensive grizzlies or muskox might be lurking about. I tried to do the polite thing and announce my presence by talking out loud so as not to startle them. Hopefully they’d do the same for me.
After about a kilometre I finally reached a point where the stream looked navigable. I set down my backpack on the bank, then returned to fetch my next load. It was a warm, sunny day, the temperature climbing to the mid-teens. All the portaging, perhaps combined with the bugs that were incessantly draining my blood, gave me a terrible thirst. I’d filled my water bottle before leaving the lake that morning, but it was empty now. Nearly three weeks had passed since my water purifier had broken, and so far, drinking untreated water had no apparent ill effects on me. But I drew the line at drinking from a beaver swamp. Thus, I pushed on without water, continuing the long, gruelling portaging.
Yet the painstaking effort required to carry each of the loads over rough, uneven terrain became increasingly difficult to maintain without water. By this time I was sweating and nearly exhausted. I slouched down to rest and thought the matter over: it seemed on balance that the odds were greater that I’d pass out from dehydration than get sick from drinking untreated water. So upon such logic, I filled my bottle from the little creek. Before drinking I held the bottle up to the sunlight, making out tiny organisms in it. “That’s just extra protein,” I told myself, before taking a gulp.
It may have been that I was badly dehydrated, but the water seemed to taste especially delightful. At first, I thought, I’d only drink a small amount, enough to keep me going. But then I drank a little more, again reassuring myself that the odds of anything bad coming of it (based on that science paper I’d read) were minimal.
By late afternoon I’d finished the portage and was able to relaunch my canoe in the creek. The narrow creek was still tightly hemmed in by willow bushes, but it was deep enough to float a canoe in. But despite the depth, the narrow banks made it impossible to paddle in the water. So to make progress I had to stand upright in the canoe and jab with my paddle at the banks, propelling myself onward. Still, I kept hitting bottlenecks, where I couldn’t squeeze through. Here, I’d have to climb out and struggle among the willows and clouds of biting insects to haul the canoe and my gear around, until the stream widened again. In a few places I found that I could stand on the bank, wedge the canoe sideways, and with hard effort heave it through the bottleneck. This spared me from unloading and reloading, the trick being not to turn the canoe too far on its side and spill everything out.
Gradually the twisting little stream led me onward through the willow jungles and sedges until it widened out and tamaracks and spruces reappeared. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but then I saw some goldeneye ducks, a cheering sign, as it surely meant there must be larger water nearby. Sure enough, a few more strokes and the creek emptied into a beautiful lake set amid low hills. After the swamps it seemed almost seemed like a mirage. I paddled out onto the narrow lake after the goldeneyes, filling my water bottle over the side of the canoe. Then I made camp happily on the lakeshore amid clusters of Labrador tea, sphagnum moss, caribou lichen, and black spruce—familiar things that always made me feel at home.
That evening, recuperating with a freeze-dried meal, I listened to distant thunder. A storm was on its way, probably gathering strength over Great Bear Lake, which I hoped to finally reach the next day. I took shelter in my tent, drifting off to sleep while the storm passed away to the west.
* * *
The morning dawned with a fierce wind blowing from the northeast under grey skies. The wind brought relief from the bugs, but made me somewhat apprehensive about paddling to the end of the lake I’d camped on. It was about six kilometres long, and I needed to rea
ch its far end before I could begin the final phase of my quest to reach Great Bear’s coast. My maps indicated a small stream draining from this nameless lake, twisting and snaking southward eventually into Great Bear Lake. I doubted it’d be large enough to paddle, but with luck, I might at least be able to wade through it and drag the canoe behind me, thus sparing me a difficult portage over rough terrain that, with all my loads, would total over eleven kilometres to reach Great Bear.
But first I had to somehow overcome the headwinds that were sweeping across the lake. I lingered taking down my tent and packing things up in the hopes that the wind might slacken a bit, but it seemed only to grow stronger. “Well,” I thought to myself, “there’s nothing for it but to give it my all.” That’s my general approach to things.
I packed up the canoe, took up my bent-shaft paddle for the extra power, and shoved off into the wind. All my effort and energy I threw into paddling, fighting the wind with every stroke. Progress was painstakingly slow, but gradually, stroke by stroke, my canoe edged forward. What motivated me was the thought that if I couldn’t succeed in overcoming these gusts, I’d have no chance at all on the vastness of Great Bear Lake—and thus by such logic I paddled on. An hour later I reached the lake’s end.
The small stream that drained from the lake I located without difficulty. It was shallow, with rocks protruding from its rippling waters. There wasn’t any chance of paddling it, but I was at least able to heave and drag the canoe over the rocks while sloshing through the water. This went on for some ways, but my hopes that the stream would deepen after a few kilometres were dashed. Instead, it became shallower, to the point where dragging the canoe any farther seemed unwise.