Beyond the Trees

by Adam Shoalts

  The wind raged that night. My tent poles moaned and nearly buckled from the pressure of the blasts. Sand, whipped up by the gusts as they swept across the beach below, blew all over the tent and even inside through its screen doors. Worried that my little tent would blow away, I crawled out in the night to check on the pegs. Several had lifted right out of the ground, pulled up by the force of the winds sweeping under the tent fly.

  I jammed them back down and piled rocks on top to help hold them, shivering as I did so. Back inside I rubbed my arms to keep warm, and burrowed back into my sleeping bag. Sleeping I found difficult in spite of my exhaustion, on account of the racket made by wind gusts rumbling my tent’s rain fly and constantly pounding and shaking its nylon walls.

  When I woke in the morning the wind sounded as fierce as ever. Sometimes, though, from inside a tent, wind can sound worse than it actually is. Thinking this might be one of those times, I poked my head out the tent to take a look…It wasn’t one of those times. The wind was as strong as it sounded. It was far too rough to paddle. I’d never make it off the beach in such a powerful headwind.

  All day, in fact, the wind never let up. I waited anxiously for any break, but none came. So I tried to make the most of it by resting and recovering my strength. At one point I dug a little pit in the sand to shelter a fire and then boiled water for tea. Rain fell, off and on, but with my knife I shaved off some dry kindling and kept the fire burning long enough for several cups of tea.

  I also decided to reduce the wind rushing under my tent. The noise it made was quite distracting, and I didn’t much care for the sand sweeping into my tent either. To accomplish this, I stacked up some rocks to form a low wall around the edge of my tent fly facing the wind, which prevented gusts from sweeping underneath. The rock wall made it much quieter inside, and I slept better.

  In the cold and fierce wind, the surrounding barren mountains, with their great, ancient rock outcrops, and the distant snows on the far side of the lake, did begin to look a little more dismal and threatening. The skies were filled with dark, low-lying clouds that billowed by on the arctic winds. But then weather can change the mood of any landscape.

  I hoped the winds would calm down in the evening. I was starting to feel distinctly anxious, knowing that I’d lost a full day, and could ill afford to lose another. In the Arctic the worst winds are generally in late summer, which in the past have stranded canoeing parties for weeks at a time. It was still only July, which didn’t seem to bode well for what I might encounter come August. This was a drawback of solo paddling: one person in a canoe just can’t battle winds as effectively as two or more can. In the old days of the fur trade and exploration, there was a reason why canoes typically had between eight and ten paddlers.

  The evening brought no respite from the stormy weather, and I huddled inside my tent, just hoping for a calm enough spell to set off. Shortly after one a.m., though, the howling of the wind subsided somewhat. When I went out to investigate I was taken a little aback by the scene. Across the dark waters the midnight sun, having dipped below the mountains, filled the cloudy sky with an eerie red glow. In the faint, unearthly light the mountains stood dark and gloomy, with just patches of white snow standing out against the black slopes. I felt as though I were looking at some portal into another world—I’d never seen anything so hauntingly surreal. The wind was still sharp and cold, but the lake was calmer, with just small waves rippling across it.

  I decided to make a break for it. I rushed to get my sleeping bag and extra clothes packed up, the tent down, and my canoe flipped back over and launched into the lake. I packed the barrels and my backpack, zipped up my lifejacket, pulled on the black balaclava and warm gloves, then pushed off, hopping into the canoe.

  I paddled hard away from shore under dark skies into the wind, heading toward the eerie red glow of the horizon. The wind, however, proved fiercer out on the water than I had anticipated. My furious paddle strokes could barely edge the canoe forward—the wind kept driving me back toward the bleak shore.

  Try as I might I couldn’t overcome such strong gusts. All I was doing was exhausting myself for little gain. So, after only a kilometre and a half, I reluctantly put into shore on a gravelly beach. I realized I had no choice but to wait for the wind to die. In the meantime I set up my tent on the gravel, leaving everything else ready to go at a moment’s notice should the wind ease up.

  I slept some three or four hours, after which the wind didn’t appear any better, but anxious as I was, I decided to attempt paddling against it anyway. The northern part of the Dismal Lakes is shaped like a giant T, or, as I thought of it at the time amid such wild and desolate scenery, like Thor’s Hammer. The bay I was trapped in formed the hammerhead, the part that looks like it’s swinging downward. The fierce southwest wind was funnelling through the mountains and right across the end of the “hammer,” which I’d been trying in vain to escape from. I figured if I could just overcome the wind long enough to get out of the hammerhead and around the point into the main section of the T, or handle, the winds shouldn’t be as bad there. Tucked away in that narrow section of the lake, the wind wouldn’t be hitting head on as it was here, and the mountains would help shelter me.

  It was about eight kilometres out of the bay I was trapped in, or six and a half kilometres farther from where I’d stopped on the gravelly beach. All I had to do was paddle with all my strength for that long and it seemed I should be all right.

  I put the tent away, did a few stretches to prepare myself, and then once more launched the canoe into the lake. Furiously I paddled; it was some of the hardest, most exhausting paddling I’ve ever done. Bit by bit, stroke by stroke, I forced the canoe forward. I was glad I had my bent-shaft paddle for the extra efficiency it gave each stroke.

  The wind was icy and steady, but regardless I was soon sweating with exertion. There wasn’t any chance to rest—for if I did, the wind would immediately drive me back down into the end of the bay. So I kept going. Finally, after several exhausting hours, I rounded the rocky wild shores into the main stem of the Dismal Lakes, the handle of Thor’s Hammer.

  Here the lake was only a bit more than a kilometre wide, and with the bleak, stony mountains on the far shore sheltering me from the wind’s wrath, I could now paddle more easily, pushing on up the lake. The ice had melted here less than two weeks earlier; the Dismal Lakes tend to remain ice-covered right up until July.

  The scenery along the Dismal Lakes was wild, majestic, and awe-inspiring. It was true tundra, devoid of trees, with ancient mountains and rolling hills. There wasn’t much wildlife about, but the scenery itself kept me enthralled as I paddled all day, not stopping until seven that evening. I’d managed to advance fifty kilometres—through the whole of the first Dismal Lake, and then down through the narrows connecting it to the second of the three lakes. Amid this inconceivably ancient landscape, I pitched my tent on the tundra, and gathered up just enough little willow branches for a fire in the shelter of some rocks. For as long as I was able, I intended to keep making fires, in order to save my precious fuel canister. To travel light, I’d packed only a single mixed butane-propane canister, which I’d need in places where there was scant wood to burn.

  * * *

  The next day I continued paddling through the lakes, feeling almost overwhelmed by the ancient landscape. Some of the world’s oldest fossils, containing primitive life forms dating back over a billion years, have been discovered in the area around the Dismal Lakes by geologists. And to the south of these magical lakes, just east of Great Bear on the Canadian Shield, are possibly the oldest rocks ever discovered on the planet, dating back an astonishing four billion years to when the earth was a lifeless wasteland.

  After passing through a weedy, sandy channel, I came to the last of the three Dismal Lakes. The wind was roaring as I reached it. This time, however, the wind was blowing in my favour, creating big waves rolling across the lake. It had been over a month since I’d used my sail, not since the Mackenzi
e River had I had a chance to unfurl it. Poling and hauling up the smaller, rapid-filled rivers hadn’t afforded any opportunities for it, and Great Bear Lake had been either too calm, too icy, or too dangerous for it. But now conditions seemed ideal for me to test it out again. I pulled the knots holding the sail to my canoe’s centre thwart, and like an old friend it sprang up as if happy to see me, catching the wind.

  As it did the canoe suddenly leapt forward, speeding ahead across the lake. With my straight-shaft paddle I steered over the big waves. After over a month of painstaking travel I’d almost forgotten how exhilarating it felt to sail a canoe.

  We seemed to practically fly, and when the wind really gusted the sail shook then folded over almost double as the wind struck it forcefully. With breaking surf and the canoe flying along I felt a little nervous, given the size of the waves. The cautious thing to do would probably have been not to sail in such high winds alone in a canoe, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation—it felt incredible to move so fast, especially after such wearisome portaging and stiff headwinds. The canoe’s speed I estimated at over ten kilometres an hour, based on clocking time on my watch and measuring it against distances along the lake. In less than thirty minutes I’d crossed the last of the Dismal Lakes.

  Draining the Dismal Lakes is the Kendall River, a fast-flowing, rapid-filled stream of about thirty kilometres length that empties into the Coppermine River, which in turn flows out to the Arctic Ocean. Once I’d reached the river’s outlet from the lake, I quickly reefed my sail and switched back to paddling. Seeing how it was the first significant water I’d paddled on since my trek began where the current was actually in my favour, it felt almost like a holiday to travel without having to wade, haul, drag, and pole against a current.

  The river was full of small rock-strewn rapids, which I plunged through in the canoe, dodging the rocks and enjoying the speed of the current. Most of these rapids would have been easy to navigate were it not for the same strong winds that had driven me across the lake. The wind, in places where the river curved, now hit me broadside, which made steering the canoe trickier than normal. Still, my progress was swift and I soon reached a canyon that marked the end of the short river.

  This high-walled, red limestone canyon had some bigger rapids inside of it, one of which saw fit to fling my canoe at the canyon wall after I’d plunged through its foaming water. Fortunately with my paddle I was able to brace myself from slamming into the cliffs, and continue downstream. By evening I’d made it through the whole of the Kendall River and reached its outlet into a far larger, more powerful river—one steeped in history and fable, where a half-billion years ago volcanoes roared over the land. The Coppermine.

  No aspect of my journey across the Arctic was more fraught with danger, uncertainty, and hardship than what this storied river promised to unleash upon me. Somehow, against all conventional logic, I had to find a way to canoe the Coppermine River in reverse—a river whose current made the Mackenzie’s seem tame in comparison. Its formidable, roaring current, packed as it was with thunderous whitewater rapids, treacherous cliffs, and deep canyons, I knew, would take everything I had.

  × 12 ×

  THE SERPENT’S COIL

  Back on those acid rain–scarred hills above Sudbury I’d visualized my entire route, brooding over its every aspect, and how best to approach its various obstacles. I’d come up with different stratagems for different sections, planning everything as carefully as I could. But there was one section of my route that always filled me with doubt. That was the Coppermine River.

  If trying to canoe up the Mackenzie alone was regarded as absurd by experienced canoeists, trying to canoe the Coppermine in reverse—a river whose current was perhaps three times stronger than even the Mackenzie’s, was seen by veteran northern travellers as utterly delusional, if not a case of actual self-harm. The river’s tortuous course was filled with innumerable obstacles: thundering whitewater rapids, sheer cliffs, canyons, and a powerful, rip-roaring current that extended for hundreds of kilometres. My task was to figure out a way to navigate my canoe upriver, against the fearsome current and foaming rapids, with what amounted to about hundred and twenty pounds of gear and provision inside the canoe, slowing it down.

  In 1770, when the explorer Samuel Hearne and renowned Chipewyan leader Matonabbee reached the river’s rugged valley, seeing the falls, canyons, and rapids, they at once deemed it unnavigable for birchbark canoes, instead opting to travel on foot. They were smart like that.

  Where I came upon the Coppermine River, it was certainly an impressive sight—a noisy, fast-flowing waterway over a half-kilometre wide. To the north were strange-looking mountains formed of long slabs of stacked pinkish rock, which looked vaguely like the Egyptian step pyramid of Djoser. They’d been formed by ancient lava flows piling up one on top of the other hundreds of millions of years ago.

  In the middle of the river lay a couple of big, flat, meadow-like islands sprinkled with bright clusters of purplish pink fireweed and yellow cinquefoil. I paddled a short distance against the current to land on the nearer of these islands. By now it was late evening, and a light rain had begun to fall. So I made camp and gathered driftwood for a fire. I needed a good night’s sleep to prepare for what promised to be a gruelling, exhausting upriver battle that would exceed anything I’d yet attempted.

  Lying in my tent, listening to the noise of the nearby river, I thought over what I had to do if I were to succeed in getting up the Coppermine. Against a current that powerful, brute strength would count for little. My only chance was to rely on agility, careful decision making, and, above all, determination. Now more than ever the idea of the tortoise racing the hare was my guiding philosophy. Only with a great deal of patience and persistence could I overcome the river’s seemingly impossible current.

  I got an early start in the morning, packing my canoe with a sense of dread as I listened to the rumble and roar of distant rapids. There was no kidding myself: I was in for the challenge of my life. I began by paddling away from the island, against the current, over to the river’s western bank. It was strewn with rocks and steep slopes, not at all ideal for wading and hauling. Worse yet, my wading boots were starting to fall apart, the left one having been ripped open on some sharp underwater rocks. The waders themselves had several punctures in them. I’d become used to wet feet, but it wasn’t great for the agility needed for scrambling about on rocks.

  With my hip waders on, I began wading while pulling the canoe behind me. This kind of wading is typically shunned by canoeists because it’s dangerous. As the wise Bill Mason put it, when wading, if you “jam your foot between rocks when in waist-deep water [and] if you fell downstream, the current could hold you from getting back up without help.” That’s probably why wading alone on arctic rivers isn’t often encouraged. In 1979 the federal government published a manual for canoeists seeking to paddle “barrenland” rivers in the Canadian North. In the chapter on the Coppermine a helpful warning was included in bold type: “The Coppermine is a river that should be attempted only by canoeists experienced in whitewater. The region is totally isolated; the water is fast and cold and serious mistakes can be fatal.”

  Canoeing parties of six to twelve are the norm for safety, and some northern outfitters refuse to rent canoes or equipment to parties of less than four, on the grounds anything smaller is reckless. Even travelling in a group of two in a single canoe—as Chuck and I did, and as my friend Travis and I were also in the habit of doing—is seen by many northern canoeists as risky. As for travelling upriver, alone, that was simply not done.

  I thought back to the days I’d spent poling up the Mackenzie, and how, in comparison, that now seemed almost easy. Here the current was too powerful even for poling, let alone wading and dragging the canoe like I’d done on other rivers. My only options were either to hike along the shore with a rope pulling the canoe in the water, or else to keep one foot on dry land and the other on the water’s edge, grasping the canoe’s b
ow directly in my hands and hauling it upriver that way.

  The shoreline was steeply sloped, with jumbles of skull-sized rocks that were easy to trip over, especially when having to keep an eye on the canoe as I either hauled it with rope or else directly with my hand on the bow. It proved hard, difficult work, but I kept at it, putting one foot in front of the other, choosing my spots among the rocks with care. In some places, where the river ran over shallower stretches, I had to climb down into the water to pull the canoe forward.

  It was a sunny day, and the glare off the fast-flowing water, coupled with the mesh bug net I wore, limited my vision. The clouds of blackflies were extreme, attacking any flesh they could get at. Before long I came to a large, roaring rapid that I had to very carefully line my canoe up with rope.

  Lining, also called tracking, is a delicate business. It consists of guiding your canoe up rapids with a rope while standing on shore. I’d been doing it for thirteen years and fortunately had never had a mishap. But there’s little margin for error; if the canoe catches the current wrong, it can take only seconds for it to tip, fill with water, and get swept away. Truly, there’s something very unsettling about watching your canoe—loaded with all your essentials, including emergency means of communication—out in the swirling, turbulent waters tethered to yourself with just a thin rope. As such, I only use this method when I have little choice, which on the Coppermine looked like it was going to be most of the time.

  Hours passed without much progress. The current remained rip-roaring, with dangerous eddies, whirlpools, and rapids nearly everywhere I looked. The steeply sloped shoreline, filled with rocks perfect for twisting an ankle on, further complicated things. Whenever conditions were slightly less daunting I tried to hike as fast as I could, as I was ever conscious that time was ticking on my journey, and that at the rate I was going I’d still be stuck on the Coppermine when the snows of September came.