Beyond the Trees

by Adam Shoalts

  I was hungry, too, and that night when I landed on a rocky, hilly shore to make camp I could barely contain my excitement at what I found—the first ripe batch of cloudberries! These are my favourite of all berries: they’re big, juicy orange berries, a bit sour but wonderfully delicious (perhaps especially if you’ve taken the trouble to spend several months eating only energy bars). I ate multitudes of the cloudberries, finding a veritable jackpot of them on a hillside. Cloudberries occur all across northern Canada, but in Newfoundland they’re known as “bakeapples” on account of tasting something like a baked apple (and also because Newfoundlanders like making up their own names for things).

  The thought of baked apples while I sat alone on the hillside eating cloudberries reminded me of a childhood memory. My father had spent the better part of two years building our house with his own hands. My brother and I at the time were only seven, and while he worked long hours on the house, we were turned loose in the encircling woods to amuse ourselves. One late summer day, having made a fire with a magnifying glass, we were naturally keen to roast marshmallows over it. My father, however, who was busy working on the house alone, said we had none. To get us out of his hair, he told us that when he was a boy he used to roast apples, telling us these made a wonderful treat, and he fetched us some from an old overgrown tree on the edge of the woods. I was so excited at the thought of this delicious treat that I picked the best apple I could find among the bunch he brought. With a cut green stick for a spit, I patiently roasted mine with care, my mouth watering. When the apple was good and roasted, I bit into it with excitement, only to scowl—it didn’t taste good at all, just sour! As I busied myself setting up my tent on a level patch of moss and lichens, still snacking on the abundant cloudberries, I thought to myself that the taste of bakeapples was the finest thing in the world.

  * * *

  I awoke the next morning to a strange haze hanging over the land. At first I thought it might be fog, but as I packed up my gear I realized it was something else. The haze had a faint smell of smoke about it, which told me that somewhere far off to the south, in the land of the trees, there must be forest fires. The winds had carried the haze north across the tundra, perhaps from hundreds of miles away.

  This thick haze combined with the absence of wind gave the glassy lakes and silent, rock-strewn hills an odd feel, almost as if I’d drifted into some timeless world. The calm weather and eerie haze lasted for days. These windless days were also unnaturally hot, which made the clouds of blackflies extreme whenever I landed on shore. My wrists were badly swollen from numerous itchy bites; even my eyelids had red sores on them. Lying inside my tent beneath the surreal haze and midnight sun, strange cries would pierce the silence—young gulls along the lake, which make the oddest cries.

  When the haze dissipated on the wind, it would reveal what looked increasingly to my mind like a fairy-tale landscape: vivid green hills with ancient grey rocks and boulders beyond counting scattered about, with the odd little stream crashing a path down the rocky hillsides. I could picture dinosaurs walking about amid the lichen-covered rocks that were eons older than even those giant reptiles. More and more, it seemed like a land time forgot.

  The unnaturally calm weather I knew was but a brief interlude from the terrifying high winds of the arctic tundra. I knew full well the power of those winds sweeping off Hudson Bay in late summer—that they’d been clocked at nearly two hundred kilometres an hour, that they had trapped canoeing parties for ten days or more on the barrens with relentless gusts that made paddling impossible. I’d heard stories of bush pilots and search-and-rescue aircraft whose planes were grounded for weeks by the power of the gales. Nothing filled me with greater dread than the thought of those great gusting winds as I paddled across icy lakes. But while the dead calm reigned, I intended to make the most of it. I pushed myself twelve hours a day to try to get as far across the tundra as I could before the weather turned bad, as inevitably it would.

  On August 3 I passed through a narrow, rapid-filled channel connecting Point Lake to Lake Providence, wading the rapids and leaping from boulder to boulder. The next day I was at it again, paddling through the haze across more lakes and confronting more rapids in the narrow connecting channels.

  The first of these rapids was large and came in two sets. I managed to wade up both of them cautiously, sparing me a lengthy portage over rock-strewn terrain. A third rapid followed soon after; this, too, I waded through along the edge. But a fourth stretch of long, powerful rapids defeated my efforts to wade it. I concluded I’d have to make a painstaking portage of about a half-kilometre over rough terrain of willow thickets, boulders, steep hills, and finally soggy marshes to get around it.

  This portage was extremely exhausting, given the intensity of the blackfly attacks combined with the unusually warm weather (about nineteen degrees Celsius). So when it came time for my fourth load, the canoe, I had a mind to try getting it up the rapids with a combination of wading and lining, which I figured I could do now that it was empty. Anything, it seemed, was worth it to avoid the nightmarish string of obstacles in the long, pathless portage.

  In this roaring, dangerous rapid, I banged my shin hard against a rock ledge concealed beneath the swirling, foaming water. Wedged in a crevice formed by the ledge, I struggled to free my leg and get out of the rushing torrent back to safer ground, ignoring the pain. Pulling back and forth on my boot, holding on to the canoe, and struggling to maintain my balance in the rapids, I finally got free and made it to the safety of the bank. “Well,” I said to the canoe, “that one’s really going to leave a mark.”

  Exhausted, I reached the end of the rapids, repacked the canoe, and paddled across the nameless lake I’d arrived on, passing by a grizzly on shore that ran off at the sight of me. Then I made camp near a willow thicket, my body aching from the labours of the day, my shin swollen, and myself utterly exhausted.

  × 15 ×

  ON ROCKY SHORES

  The week of hot, hazy, windless weather ended abruptly on August 5. Frigid air came over the land, bringing with it rain and strong winds. The sudden cold weather seemed to miraculously dissolve the clouds of bugs, leaving the air clear and letting me breathe freely without a bug net. I could hardly believe it. On the downside, the stiff winds could make travel hazardous.

  Fortunately I was setting out on a series of smaller lakes, so for now anyway I’d be more or less protected from any big waves. My plan was to paddle through the chain of lakes—some were small enough that I could cross them in mere minutes—and then portage to the next one, totalling several dozen in all. This would eventually take me out of the Arctic Ocean’s watershed and into the Hudson Bay drainage basin, after which all the rivers would be flowing eastward, the direction I was headed, allowing me to travel much faster—exactly what I needed if I were to complete my journey before the weather rendered canoe travel impossible.

  To get to the Hudson Bay watershed, however, was easier said than done. I had a long way to go, with no trails to follow and topographic maps that left something to be desired. The maps showed many of these lakes as connected by streams, whereas in reality there was nothing but impassable boulder fields linking them.

  On August 5 I managed to complete four separate portages, passing through a total of six different lakes—each similar to the one before, surrounded as they were by rocky, hilly tundra. The strong winds were mostly blowing southwest, which actually helped propel me rapidly across the lakes. My feet, though, were drenched from portaging over sodden moss and rain-soaked dwarf birch, as I’d switched back to my hiking boots now that I was done with wading. I wanted the extra ankle support for the rugged portages.

  The uneven ground made portaging vastly more difficult than would be the case on a hard-packed surface with a trail to follow. But I was simply grateful that the cold and windy weather had driven off the bugs, and for the bounty of delicious wild berries that allowed me to snack anywhere I liked now. Through the steady rain I transported each o
f my four loads across dense willow thickets—a favourite haunt of grizzlies—and around rocks to the next body of water. Some portages required different methods: one marshy section I wore my waders through; others, I changed into my hiking boots to better jump from rock to rock across dried-up creek beds filled with big grey boulders.

  Another day brought me across another eight lakes and another eight portages separating them. My barrels were getting a little emptier, such that I actually began to carry the lighter of the two simultaneously with my backpack. This cut the number of loads from three to four, and trips back and forth over the rocky hills and marshy valleys from seven to five. In other words, a one-kilometre portage was now no longer a seven-kilometre ordeal, merely a five-kilometre one.

  Crossing one little nameless lake I saw two heads moving across the choppy waters. I assumed they were caribou, which regularly swim across lakes and rivers. But as I paddled closer I realized it was actually a cow moose with a young calf. I wondered what were they doing north of the treeline. Moose don’t normally roam about on the arctic tundra like caribou do. Then it occurred to me that these moose were likely driven north by the forest fires that had been raging somewhere to the south. Hopefully the rainy weather would allow them to return home soon.

  By early afternoon I’d reached Starfish Lake, the first lake large enough to have a name on my maps for some days. It was not quite ten kilometres long, and I battled stiff winds all the way up it. From Starfish Lake I hoped to advance into a much larger body of water over sixty kilometres long known as Courageous Lake. Connecting these two lakes was a hypothetical stream drawn on my topographical map. I wasn’t so naive as to believe such a stream actually existed in anything like a navigable state, but on some level, everyone has hopes and dreams—and mine were now principally that such streams might really exist, like unicorns or leprechauns. Otherwise, I’d be in for yet another long and arduous portage.

  The winds were fierce as I approached Starfish Lake’s southern shores to search for any hint of a stream. The choppy waters complicated my paddling efforts, since to pivot and paddle along the shore meant allowing waves to hit the canoe broadside. A spill into icy water here would test my fire-making skills to the utmost. Cautiously I angled my canoe diagonally as I weaved in toward the rocky coastline. The “stream,” I could see, was just a dried-up, boulder-filled creek bed. I’d have to portage.

  But where and how to land the canoe? Waves were pounding into the rocky shoreline, with no sand beaches or soft soil visible anywhere for me to glide into. The last thing I wanted was to drive the canoe into the masses of jagged rocks along the lakeshore, smashing the canoe and tossing me into frigid waters. I looked in vain for anywhere to safely land. There was nothing. So that settled it: I had to take my chances. To execute a landing in waves onto a shoreline composed of great jumbles of jagged rock would take perfect timing and manoeuvring. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, but sometimes you just have to go for it.

  I edged closer to the rocks, letting the waves carry me in. It was critical that I time my landing between waves. When I was as close as I could safely get, I let a final wave pass by and then made my move: drawing a stroke of my paddle to first drive the canoe forward and then two more to sharply spin it parallel to the rocks.

  I had only seconds to jump out before the next wave rolled in and slammed the canoe against the rocks. I made my dash, getting both feet onto the rocks, which were slick from the rain and waves. Then I grabbed the heavily loaded canoe to hold it steady, but a wave jostled it into the rocks. Fortunately it was the side that took the impact, and its tough design was in little danger of any damage there—it was the underside that worried me, where the ice and rocks had been by degrees grinding it thinner.

  Moving as fast as I could, I pulled out my barrels and backpack, then lifted the canoe up onto the rocks. Finally, after I’d secured everything, I turned around to consider where I’d landed. Tall shrubs of leafy green willows screened my view of what lay inland, so I took the pole as a staff and set off to scout which way to head for my portage. So far the portages hadn’t been too bad. I felt optimistic.

  Pushing through the willows, my heart sank: what I saw looked like a nightmare. A vast boulder field—its enormous slabs heaped and tumbled every which way like rubble after an earthquake—stretched as far as I could see in the direction I had to head. To hike across it without a heavy pack would be hard enough—to do it with four loads in high winds seemed rather hazardous. It was the perfect place to twist an ankle, or fall and smash my face off a boulder. Outside the chaotic boulder field, things were scarcely any better. The uneven ground was cloaked in almost impenetrable dwarf birch thickets at least chest high. Neither option was a good one, but I opted for the birches. It was already early evening and I didn’t have time to delay.

  With my backpack strapped on, I slung my lighter barrel over one shoulder and set off into the thicket. It was my fourth portage of the day, so I was at least suitably warmed up for it. The cold wind also ensured that there were no bugs to torment me.

  It took a few dozen steps before I gave up on the idea of making it through the thicket. The bushes were too easy to trip over, and concealed beneath them were more boulders. Back I went into the piles of rubble—ancient Precambrian rocks, billions of years old, covered in lichens. By comparison they seemed easier, as long as I made sure of my footing. I stepped across yawning cracks between the great slabs, jumping from one oddly rectangular-shaped boulder to another, climbing up and down, enjoying the full cardio workout.

  I had about a kilometre of this to do before I’d reach the next lake—or rather, more than that, since the obstacle course meant I couldn’t travel in a straight line. After a while I tired of climbing boulders; plus, the birch shrubs seemed to have thinned somewhat, so I veered back into them. They didn’t prove much thinner, but I decided to try my luck in them anyway. I plowed through the tall bushes, pushing them aside with one hand as I trudged along ground that sloped up then down, with deep pockets strewn all about. The thickets made navigation trickier, since I couldn’t see much in them, but I knew which direction to head and kept a steady course.

  When I grew tired of struggling through tangled birches I crossed back into the great boulders and then back again to the birches, as my fancy dictated. Sometimes, I find, simple variety is encouraging when portaging.

  Eventually, lying beyond haphazard piles of rocks and boulders everywhere, I caught sight of blue water ahead. I pushed on over the last stretch and was delighted to discover, amid a wilderness of desolate rock, a patch of moss, crowberries, and dwarf Labrador tea just big enough for my tent. It’d make a nice soft bed for the night. I set down my two loads beside it and turned around to fetch my next one, the heavy barrel.

  Zigzagging around the various obstacles, coupled with the thickets and the uneven ground, made hiking back and forth time-consuming and physically draining. By the time I headed back for my final load, the canoe, it was getting late, but I hoped with hard effort to get it across, so as to be fresh and ready for an early start come morning. Given the obstacles, I’d have to carry the canoe over my head. But that would restrict my vision, which is not a thing to be lightly dismissed when there are no trails to follow. I needed to be able to look up to pick out a path of least resistance among the rubble and shrubs. Further complicating things were the gusting winds. Still, I began gamely, lifting the canoe up to my knee and then tossing it over my head. I made it five steps before a wind gust caught the canoe and threw me into a boulder. Clearly jumping from rock to rock with a canoe over my head in high winds would be more difficult than it seemed.

  I unclipped the water bottle from my belt, took some sips, and rested for a bit. Then I ate a granola bar that I’d stuffed into my pocket. Feeling fortified, I lifted the canoe again, gripped it tightly, and moved forward as best as I could. I headed for the colossal rubble fields. I figured I’d rather climb among the rocks, where I could at least see my feet, than plow into b
irch shrubs that concealed everything below the waist and made tripping easy.

  After a few hundred metres of weaving amid the boulders my energy and strength were too drained for it. Sooner or later, another gust would knock me over, and I might topple five or six feet off a rock slab, smashing my head off a boulder. Thus, I decided to cut back into the pathless birches, in the hopes of simply dragging the canoe behind me among them. Dragging was painstaking slow and exhausting, as the thicket was, it turned out, not easy to plow through with a canoe. Frequently I had to rest; it’d been eleven hours so far of paddling and portaging, and as much as I disliked the thought, I realized my canoe and I were going to have to spend the night apart. I laid it beside a big willow bush and tucked it in as comfortably as I could, promising to return first thing in the morning.

  On the far side of the portage, I settled in for the night on my little patch of soft moss amid the ancient boulders. It was a fine campsite, surely one of life’s greatest pleasures.

  Since the tundra is riddled with hummocks and holes, there’d been many nights when I had to sleep on uneven ground. In other places it was difficult just to climb back down to the shore to fetch water for boiling or driftwood for burning. Filling a pot with water, too, could be easier said than done when the water was difficult to access due to immense jumbles of rocks that extend far out from shore, with just little pockets of water—too small to scoop from—in between the rocks. In less desirable sites, too, I might sleep in willow thickets that made it easy to lose anything I’d unpacked. But here everything was perfect. The tundra was covered in short little plants and mosses, wonderful for spreading things out on and looking over my gear, and there were nice slabs of flat rocks for cooking on. My pole, meanwhile, I converted into a clothesline by jabbing it into some rock crevices, and I’d strung my wet clothing up on it. (My rain-jacket, the lighter of my two jackets I’d brought, was clearly becoming old and worn, as it was no longer keeping me very dry.)