Beyond the Trees

by Adam Shoalts

  It was slow going, as I had to constantly shift from left to right, pushing off from the ice on either side to move the canoe forward. Onward I zigzagged, deeper into the ice, sometimes breaking up the weaker sections and other times managing to squeeze into gaps of open water between larger floes that were still as much as six inches or more thick. By now the wind had picked up a bit.

  After only a short distance my progress was halted by a thicker patch of ice that didn’t want to budge. So, I reversed, paddling backward, in order to take a second run at it. Building up a little speed, I rammed the canoe at it. But rather than break it, the canoe’s bow just skidded up onto the ice and stuck there. Evidently this floe was thicker than it appeared. I tried reversing again with paddle strokes, but I couldn’t dislodge the canoe.

  Cautiously, I sprawled forward in my canoe, over my backpack and barrels, to try to free the canoe by pushing off the ice with my paddle. Putting my weight into it, a hard push at last dislodged us. Exhaling from the effort, I cast a glance around the ice labyrinth. This one was much thicker than the ones I’d already navigated, and it seemed I wasn’t going to be able to force my way through it after all.

  Seagulls passed in the distance over the ice, their raspy cries ringing out across the cold waters. I decided to back out of the ice and search elsewhere along the pack edge for an opening. But since the individual floes were constantly shifting on the rising wind, while I’d been busy dealing with the ice, the wind had closed the passages behind me after I squeezed through them. I was trapped.

  My canoe was wedged between floes, unable to move forward or back, or side to side. This was a bit disconcerting. Locked in the ice like this, if the wind were to shift offshore and really pick up, I’d be blown out into the heart of the lake, miles from land. As romantic as drifting for miles on ice floes may sound, it wasn’t something I had any great wish to personally experience just now.

  To free up some space to manoeuvre I tried forcing the floe on my port side away from the canoe, digging my paddle into it and pushing as hard as I could while the boat stayed braced against the ice on the other side. The floe shifted about an inch. Then I turned around in my canoe to jab at the thick ice behind me; eventually I managed to smash some of it off. Still, I was surrounded. So I had to work cautiously all around the boat, breaking enough ice with the paddle to be able to manoeuvre it again. I needed to be able to slightly adjust the canoe’s position so that it would point toward a weaker bit of thin ice between some floes—that was the escape route.

  With hard effort, I freed the canoe enough to be able to push back through the maze in the direction I’d entered it, this time taking a different channel back. Gradually, paddling and pushing off the ice slabs, with relief I reached the open water again.

  Once out of the labyrinth I tried paddling along the outer edge of the pack ice, striking at it with my paddle to test any leads. Again and again I jabbed at the ice; it was thicker than it looked. Finally, I found a short opening between some of the floes. But it was no use. I’d never make it all the way across the ice to the open water, nearly a kilometre away. So I pushed off again and rethought my approach.

  It was a cloudy morning, still only about five a.m., with rain threatening. The rain, I hoped, might help melt the ice, making it weak enough to get through. But how long that would take was uncertain, and I knew I had to keep going.

  As it was, with the ice having thwarted my advance, I was in a predicament. I could think of two options rather than just giving up and waiting for the ice to melt: on the one hand, a safe option, which would be painstaking slow and wearisome, and on the other, a riskier, dangerous one. The first, safe option was to paddle deeper into the bay I’d been passing by, which was free of ice except near shore, and then try to break a passage through to the shoreline. If I could get close to shore, it was conceivable that I might be able to proceed along it—assuming there was a bit of open water in close, as is sometimes the case on icy lakes in springtime. Failing that, I could land on shore and continue on foot: portaging all of my gear to beyond the ice, bypassing it altogether to continue my journey. But how long that would take I had no idea, as the ice field might extend for miles.

  The second, riskier option was to paddle in the opposite direction, far offshore deeper into the lake, seeking the end of the ice. In terms of width, the ice floes didn’t seem much more than half a kilometre, but in length I was rather less sure. I could see open water on the horizon, so if I paddled deep enough out into the lake, it seemed I’d be able to reach it and skirt round the pack ice. My mind toyed with which of these options to take. Should I play it safe? Would the wind pick up? How far did the ice extend? Two, maybe three, maybe more kilometres? What if on the far side there wasn’t any passage back to shore? If an offshore wind picked up while I was along the pack edge I could be swept far out into the lake. Or if the wind blew onshore, creating waves, my canoe might be swamped or else thrown onto a floe.

  The cautious side of me won out: I decided to paddle into the bay toward the shore. But as I neared the floe edge inside the bay it became apparent that the ice was considerably thicker than it had appeared from a distance. Worse, there didn’t seem to be any open water near the shoreline. Seated in the stern in my canoe, it was hard to get a good view. So, cautiously, I stood up, allowing me to see better over the distance.

  Standing up, I could see it was as I feared: the ice extended right to the shore with no break. Any hope of finding open water along the shoreline that would allow me to continue was dashed. Worse still, even my hope of portaging beyond the ice was, I could see clearly, not possible—for in order to do that, I’d first have to get to the shore, and the ice that separated me from it was much too thick to break through with my canoe or paddle.

  I paddled idly, hovering around the pack edge, calculating my next move. The wind had increased a bit, but it still wasn’t too bad. From what I could see—admittedly not much—the ice didn’t cover all of Great Bear, just this one little corner of it, which was now tripping up all my progress. If I could just find some way around these icefields I’d be able to continue my journey. It seemed an awful shame to squander the relative calm spell, just waiting for ice to melt.

  And thus, by degrees, the more adventurous side of my brain asserted itself, as if leading me by the hand toward the riskier option: paddling far offshore, deeper into the lake. How far the ice extended out into the lake was unclear—but it certainly did appear that there was an open passage out there. Perhaps, after all, it might be less than a kilometre, which I could skirt round quickly and easily, safely resuming my travels once round it close to shore—the whole thing taking less than half an hour. Surely, the wind ought to hold off for that long.

  I began paddling toward the middle of the lake, setting a quick pace, as I wanted to get around the ice pack as fast as I could before the wind had a chance to pick up. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to paddle the whole way around it, as there might be a thin enough patch in it where I could simply plow through it, thus reaching the open water on the far side faster, which across the pack ice looked tantalizingly close.

  But as I paddled along, scrutinizing the edge, I couldn’t see a break in the ice open enough to make the dash through it. Ten minutes of paddling and searching had brought me more than a kilometre offshore—farther than was strictly comfortable, out here as I was on the world’s eighth largest lake, alone in a canoe. But the prospect of finding an opening in just a few more strokes kept drawing me on.

  Only when I glanced back at the increasingly distant shoreline did my cautious side finally reassert itself. The pack ice looked to continue for another kilometre, maybe more—and I wasn’t going to risk going any farther to find out, not with the wind rising. It was time to abandon any thought of skirting round the ice pack, and instead retreat to shore. I drew a long C stroke with my blade, spinning the canoe around. Then I paddled rapidly back along the ice, shuddering a little at the thought of having been lured so far out.
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  Luckily, at the mouth of the bay I’d only partly explored was a tiny island surrounded by rocks and grown over with spruces and willows. The near side of the island was only a stone’s throw from shore, whereas the other side faced out toward the vastness of the lake. From the island I’d be able to keep an eye on ice conditions. Besides, if I had to be stranded I figured I’d rather it be on an island, like Robinson Crusoe.

  × 8 ×

  THE ICE LABYRINTH

  The island’s shore was made up of fist-sized rocks that made landing somewhat difficult, especially now that I was more conscious than ever of the need to minimize wear and tear on the canoe. Smashing through ice had been a necessity, but I knew what ice could do to a boat, as I’d seen Titanic—twice. So I couldn’t take for granted just scraping straight up onto the rocks, then climbing to the front of the canoe over my barrels. That sort of thing is well enough in cottage country, but here, sooner or later, if it put a hole in the canoe’s bow I’d be in trouble. Instead I carefully spun the canoe parallel to the rocky shore, as close to it as the shallow water would permit. Then I stood up, slowly stretched out one leg, and set my boot down on dry land. Then, with one foot on shore and the other still in the canoe, I gently pulled the boat in close, avoiding any more scrapes than necessary.

  My total progress had been barely more than five kilometres from my last campsite. But since I had set off so early it was still only eight a.m., and with any luck I might manage to be underway again before the day was out. In the meantime there was nothing to do but to wait—either for the ice to melt or for the wind to shift it enough to open up leads.

  I left my canoe resting there, and went to investigate the little island. It was a charming enough place. The ground was mostly rocky, and overgrown with willows and small spruces. Among the willows matted low to the ground I noticed four lichen-covered rocks. The archaeologist in me noted that they were placed in an arrangement that was unlikely to have been natural. They were larger than the small cobbles strewn elsewhere across the island, and formed roughly a spread-out square. In the middle of the overgrown rocks, lying beneath the matted arctic willow, sinking into sphagnum moss I found a few old animal bones. Evidently, someone had once landed on this island and cooked a meal here, arranging the four rocks to shelter the flames.

  The bones were clearly old—lichens had already begun to form on them. I pulled up what seemed to be the tibiotarsus of a goose—probably a snow goose or Canada goose, both of which are common on Great Bear’s sheltered bays. There was also what looked like part of a goose femur and a few other bits, but the rest of the bones had likely been chewed away by mice. Judging from the various clues—the age of the willows, the presence of lichens not only on the bones but also the stones (which would have otherwise been burned off in a fire), how the bones had become half-embedded in the moss, and the absence of any visible ashes or charcoal—my best guess was that at least forty or fifty years had elapsed since whoever had been here and had the campfire. Perhaps it had been a hunter, a fly-in sport fisher with their guide, or even a passing trapper. But in the absence of other artifacts it was hard to know.

  I sprawled out comfortably beneath a spruce tree in the middle of the island and dozed off. The cool breeze kept the mosquitoes to a tolerable amount. An hour passed before I stirred to check on the conditions.

  The sun, which had crept out from the morning’s clouds, was rapidly melting the thinner chunks of ice around the island. Farther out, though, the pack ice that had blocked my route remained very much an impassable barricade. It was shifting on the wind, edging westward, the direction from where I’d come that morning.

  Since it now seemed clear that I’d be waiting for some time, I decided to fetch my kettle and make myself some tea. After more than a month of continual travel, it felt like a vacation to suddenly be able to rest, enjoy a cup of tea, and relax on the island. Perhaps being stranded in ice wasn’t so bad after all. I lit a match and held it to a bit of dry sedge placed inside a tepee of spruce twigs. For the first time in perhaps half a century, the silent rocks once more sheltered a blaze.

  As the hours drifted by I drank tea, daydreamed, made notes in my journal, and watched waterfowl fly across the bay. There were mergansers, pintails, and goldeneyes, freshly arrived in these latitudes from their migration north. Just off the southern tip of the island was a large ice floe, still thick with several big blocks of ice heaved up onto it by the wind. A flock of pintails landed on it, making me think of penguins drifting on an ice floe. Gulls of various kinds, too, soared above the bay’s open water, hunting for fish. It’d been about a week since I’d last washed my face, so making the most of my island stay, I dipped my face into the ice-cold water along the shore.

  One thing I didn’t do much, resting under the spruce and staring off at the drifting ice, was wonder about what was going on in the world at large. The “news,” I figured, never much changed, and I found I didn’t mind not knowing what was up with the world.

  As the morning and afternoon passed the pack ice shifted rapidly, the wind blowing it farther west. But more ice came along with it, keeping the route blocked. I was still hoping to push on that day should any break in the ice materialize. With that in mind I cooked up a freeze-dried meal, consuming the calories in the hopes that it would give me the energy needed to make a hard push that night along the lake.

  But as the hours slowly ticked away the offshore ice to all appearances remained impenetrable. If anything, the evening had seen more ice drift into view. I’d assumed from what little I’d seen that the lake had largely melted, but the steadily drifting ice suggested that farther east much of the lake must still be frozen. Trouble was, without a bird’s eye view, how much or how little of Great Bear’s immense 31,153 square kilometres was open water or ice I had no real idea. From what I’d seen in the Yukon it had been shaping up to be a later ice melt than the previous year.

  By late evening I’d resigned myself to the fact that for the time being I wasn’t making it any farther through the ice. I set up my tent on the island in the only place there was room for it, squeezed between some willow bushes and a spruce. Then I lay down to sleep, hoping that when I woke the wind would have shifted the ice enough to resume paddling.

  * * *

  Around midnight I stirred from my sleep. It was cold enough that I could see my breath inside the tent. I crawled out of the warmth of my sleeping bag and unzipped the tent’s door. It was still light out but the skies were clouded over, giving a twilit kind of gloom to things. I pushed through the willows to get a look at the lake, to find out what the ice had done since I’d been asleep. I was hoping that the wind would have blown it clear away, leaving me with open waters.

  Instead, I could barely believe what I saw: the ice had multiplied, now the whole bay was iced over! The floes had drifted in all around the island, stretching off in all directions, entombing me on this little speck in the vast lake. I shook my head in surprise, but took heart in the speed with which the pack ice was plainly shifting on the winds. A few hours more and it might yet open up a passage for me. I thus climbed back inside my tent to sleep some more, hoping for better prospects the next time I woke.

  Not quite three hours later, around three a.m., my eyes opened as I rolled over on a spruce root, which ran under the tent. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and back outside to find out what fate had in store for me now. Pushing through the willows, I was surprised to see…nothing at all. Thick fog had swallowed up the island, making it difficult to see much of anything.

  Nevertheless, my hopes rose a little, as I knew fog must mean warmer air temperatures were melting the ice. I scampered down to the south end of the island, pushing past willows out onto the rocks for a better view. There was some open water here, extending out a considerable way, at least before the mist obscured things. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked fairly encouraging. At any rate, a full day idle on the island had made me restless to push on, as what had initially seemed charming
had now begun to feel more like an icy prison.

  Anxious that the fast-shifting ice floes would close up the passage before I could escape, I raced to take down my tent, pack things up, and reload my canoe. By three-thirty a.m. I’d launched the canoe and was paddling away from the island back out into the lake. The fog limited visibility, but straight off from the island was a wide passage that was easy enough to make out. It brought me back in the general vicinity of where I’d tried previously to break across the ice. Pack ice still cloaked the lake as far as I could see eastward. An eerie, dead calm reigned, which at least would make things easier than they’d been the day before when the wind shifted the floes on me after I entered into them.

  The ice had definitely thinned from what it’d been twenty-four hours earlier. I found a lead between two floes and began to weave into the pack. The core of the ice slabs, normally about the size of a big kitchen table, was still solid and opaque with white ice, but the edges had dissipated into clear ice that could be smashed and broken up. My canoe’s bow broke through this thin ice as I proceeded along, while I smashed with my paddle any other ice. In certain places, I’d have to put a little more muscle into it to split in two some of the larger floes that stood in the way. This took repeated jabs, aided by putting weight on the ice to force it down into the water. The water then flooding onto the ice helped break it up.

  But in spite of my best efforts, it was soon apparent that the ice was still too thick to get through. I sighed, alarmed at the thought that for the second day in the row I might be stranded in the ice—my daily distance amounting to almost nothing. The odds of me finishing my journey before the onset of winter were dwindling. Up until now I’d been ahead of schedule, but Great Bear’s late ice breakup was a bad hand to be dealt. Even if I could get through the ice, wind and waves might still pin me down on the lake’s north shore. With a sinking feeling in my heart I pictured the sands of time in an hourglass remorselessly running out, winter on the horizon.