Beyond the Trees

by Adam Shoalts

  Anything it seemed was a comfort in those tense seconds that I expected a charge to come. I made myself as small as possible, huddling and pulling my knees up to my chest—when the bull plowed through I didn’t want to be caught lying down. Maybe with luck I could jump aside before one of his horns caught me.

  Just then another snort erupted from outside the tent; it sounded mercilessly close. I think the creature was actually sniffing around the edges of the tent—though I didn’t dare unzip the door again to peek. Next I heard its hooves stomp as it trotted around to the other side of my tent.

  This was at least an improvement, as that was the side my canoe was overturned on. Now at least there was some barrier between us, even if the canoe wasn’t much of one.

  When the sounds of hooves hitting the ground and grunting ceased, an unnerving silence followed. I chanced a slight unzipping of the door on the side nearest the canoe, only to zip it right back up again. The muskox was still right outside, just beyond the canoe, still glaring straight at the tent. I tried to guess what it was thinking—maybe it’s an old bull with bad eyesight, that’s mistaken my grey tent for a fellow male muskox, and now he thinks the tent is here to challenge his dominance of the herd?

  I sat still, not daring to make a sound. In other encounters with animals outside my tent, I’d shout to scare them off, but that was always under the assumption they were skittish and had just timidly wandered into my camp, whereas there was no mistaking this muskox. It had come right up the hill, aggressively snorting. I sat there for what felt like an eternity (but I think was probably much less), preparing myself to jump out of the way the second the tent began to collapse from the muskox’s charge.

  A second later I heard galloping hooves and loud snorting—the charge had begun.

  Only it sounded like it was going the other way. Quickly I unzipped the door to see: there was the muskox, galloping noisily off in the opposite direction, down the hill toward the lake. Then he splashed into the water, making what seemed to me like a very ostentatious shaking of his head, before charging off down the lakeshore and out of view.

  For some reason I had a sudden urge to break camp immediately, having decided not to sleep in any later. I wasted no time in doing so, and was soon paddling as far away up the lake as I could.

  * * *

  Two long, hard days of paddling brought me across the huge expanses of Aylmer Lake and then Clinton-Colden Lake. There were some large and somewhat stressful open-water crossings that I had to make, but the relatively light wind allowed me to manage it. Meanwhile, except at midday when the north winds picked up, the strange haze from the distant forest fires remained. It felt like paddling through a kind of twilight zone—during the worst of the haze, the sun was only a faint orange orb, dimly visible.

  What caused me somewhat more consternation than the haze was the no-less-than fourteen different muskox I counted wandering the shorelines. In the haze, their great curved horns, shaggy coats, and odd appearance was accentuated, making them seem as though they’d wandered out of some fantasy land. I kind of half wished they’d wander back into it, for the time being at least, so that I might sleep easier. I found it difficult to sleep as peacefully as I was accustomed to after the experience of the night before. Still, it wasn’t the night that held real terror; it was the day. Nothing scared me as much as the high winds and whitecaps on the exposed lakes. These posed a far greater danger than any wildlife did.

  Bird life was becoming scarcer now; although I saw mergansers, arctic terns, loons, and Canada geese, many of the songbirds and shorebirds had already sensed the change in the weather and begun their migration south. The result was a much quieter land than what the cheerful singing of the birds had made for in the spring. The caribou, or reindeer, for they’re the same species (reindeer is what the animals are called in Europe), seemed curious about me, sometimes pausing to stare at me as I paddled by.

  By August 15 I’d reached the last of the big lakes and begun a series of four portages across a collection of smaller lakes, which would take me across the great divide of Canada’s North—the last watershed divide of my journey. You wouldn’t know it to look at it: there’s no dramatic mountain range, no roaring torrent. It’s just a flat spit of tundra with boulders and rocks and a little willow-choked stream. On one side of the divide all the water drains north to the Arctic Ocean; on the other the water flows east, to Hudson Bay. And it was east I had to go.

  The four separate portages between various small lakes totalled only about a kilometre, but with my four loads (I was back to four after the resupply) the actual distance I had to cover on foot was, again, seven times that—after which, I’d have crossed the great divide of the North. (These portages are known as “Hanbury’s portage” after David Hanbury, the naturalist and explorer who’d passed this way in 1899.)

  Aside from the jumbles of rocks and some uneven ground, I found most of the terrain easily navigated. When I’d finished my last load across the final portage, sweaty and bug-bitten, it did feel like a watershed moment in my journey. I’d begun nearly three months before in the Bering Sea watershed, and now I was on my way to the tides of Hudson Bay. There were still, at minimum, another eight hundred kilometres in front of me before I could reach the end, but I took heart in the knowledge that it would all be downriver from here.

  × 18 ×

  CANYON COUNTRY

  By August 16 the change in the seasons had become clear. The caribou were heading south to the trees; the geese and most other birds would soon follow. The leaves of the bearberries had begun to turn red, and the willows were fast fading to yellow. Soon the whole tundra would be a blaze of autumn colours, with chilling frosts, shorter days, and bitterly cold winds. Looking at the crimson and yellow hills outside my tent, I thought to myself, “It’s all very beautiful.” Then I thought, “I really need to get a move on.”

  I was perched on a small rocky ledge overlooking a little river where I’d camped the night before. I’d almost reached Sifton Lake, a star-like labyrinth of long, twisting bays easy to get lost in. In my backpack I had a photocopied government report of a canoe journey that had started from Sifton Lake and ended at the little community of Baker Lake, my own end point. A floatplane had dropped the party at Sifton Lake on August 2, 1972. It had taken them forty days to reach Baker Lake, arriving on September 11.

  If I could equal their pace I’d finish my journey by September 25. Again, though, there were two of them per canoe and only one of me; plus they’d started two weeks earlier in the season. And if bad winds held me up I might not arrive until October—at which point winter would have also arrived, and with it blinding snows, gale-force winds, hand-numbing temperatures, and lakes icing up.

  The details in their report weren’t all that encouraging about the winds after mid-August:

  It is advisable to plan the trip for July ending during the first two weeks in August to assure the best weather. After mid-August, the weather can be very unpredictable and the party may be forced to abandon any schedule to wait out stormy days. Winds are the biggest factor to contend with on the Barrens. Without the trees as a wind break and over the wide expanses of the 193 km of open lake a party may be windbound up to 10 days at a stretch.

  In other words, since I was only just beginning the route and it was already August 16, I could expect dangerous winds the whole way. Their report had also helpfully noted that:

  Winds can build up very rough waters…swamping in heavy waves or violent rapids could prove fatal. With little wood fuel for a fire to dry out wet clothes canoeists must be very cautious in their movements.

  Now more than ever I thought of the tortoise and the hare as my guiding philosophy. The late season and bad winds were beyond my control. But, I reasoned, I would put in longer days, slow and steady, cutting down on sleep if need be.

  Hard paddling brought me clear across the spidery bays of Sifton Lake, which was surrounded by rock-strewn boulder fields in many places. Beyond that, in all
directions, lay thousands of lakes gouged out by ancient glaciers.

  Leaving Sifton Lake, I arrived on the Hanbury River (named for the same Hanbury alluded to earlier): a river with violent whitewater, numerous deep canyons, falls, and cliffs. It’s a dangerous river, and one perhaps not best attempted alone and late in the season. The river’s fast-flowing, turbulent narrow stretches alternate with many sections of big, wide-open lakes where wind would be an issue.

  Thunderstorms and overcast skies marked much of the first part of my advance through these maze-like lakes of the upper Hanbury. Fortunately, the storms occurred mostly overnight when I was warm and dry inside my tent. I avoided camping on any high rocky areas, of which there were many, setting up my tent in low-lying, willowy areas whenever I could find them.

  The route next took me toward violent rapids and dangerous waterfalls. These required multiple portages to evade. The last of these portages was a long and difficult one; the total distance I had to trek on foot to avoid impassable rapids and falls was about a kilometre and a half, which, as usual, took four loads and seven trips to complete. The trek alternated between high, windswept rocky outcrops, which often involved careful scrambling to climb and descend (especially with a canoe in the high winds), and low-lying, swampy areas where blackflies still reigned.

  But there were cloudberries scattered across the still-green tundra like little yellow-orange jewels, which I feasted on happily. The crop of these berries is brief; soon they’d begin to fade away.

  More windy lakes followed, and more big rapids. When I’d crossed another big, round lake and arrived at the start of a second narrow stretch of turbulent river, I saw my first opportunity to save some time and get a leg up on things. (I thought I’d been too cautious the day before when I’d first come to rapids and falls, and probably could have shortened the lengthy, gruelling portage with some wading, lining, and paddling between the worst parts of the rapids.) At first it looked like I was in for another kilometre-and-a-half long portage, to avoid dangerous, unnavigable rapids. I’d strapped on my backpack and hiked for about a kilometre along willow-covered hills, keeping an eye on the roaring river below. But then I noticed that, between two major sections of violent whitewater, the river didn’t look too bad: just minor rapids, swifts, and rocky sections. I figured I could paddle these parts or else line and wade them, and thereby greatly lessen the length of the portage. So I scampered down a steep hillside to the river below, scouted things out again, assured myself it could be done, then left my backpack on shore. I’d pick it up in the canoe when I came down through the swifts and boulder fields above. The only catch was to make sure I didn’t paddle too far and get swept down into the massive, foaming cauldron of water below.

  It was a little tricky in sections, given the extensive rocks and currents, but I zigzagged around them and cut across to the opposite shore above the dangerous, seething stretch of water. Here I portaged over a steep hill to get around the thundering rapids, resuming my travels safely beyond them.

  Now the river passed through more variously narrow and wider parts, the latter more like lakes where the wind gave me some stiff opposition. But I paddled hard, and aided by the current, continued downriver through rocky rapids, coming eventually to the most startling sandy hills and deserts I’d ever seen—looking more like the Sahara than northern Canada. It was a strange landscape, with windswept sandy barrens that extended for kilometres.

  But the river’s course was highly variable; beyond the sand barrens were green hills rapidly changing to red and yellow with the fall colours, and ancient, weathered rock outcrops. With the shorebirds gone it sounded strangely quiet, adding to the sense of desolation within the river sections that were dominated by sand barrens. As hours passed in silence, I’d feel less lonely whenever I spotted some lingering ducks or tundra swans. The sight of a bald eagle soaring overhead cheered me up, as did the return of vegetation along the river.

  The cloudberries were nearly done now; their bright orange berries quickly fade to sickly yellow and turn to mush. But there were still plenty of arctic blueberries, and these I ate as much as I could. I made camp on a small lake the river passed through, on what I considered a very attractive little tundra site above some rocks. A warm cup of tea was my reward after what had been a long, hard day of portaging and paddling.

  The following morning I awoke to fierce, cold winds of the sort that would normally rule out any kind of canoeing. Given the circumstances, I resolved to push on as best I could. A very exhausting paddle brought me across a three-kilometre-long lake-like section of the river I’d camped on. But given the extreme winds, it felt more like a thirty-kilometre paddle. Fortunately this wide section emptied into a canyon that helped shelter me from the howling winds. The canyon had nothing but minor rapids in it, allowing me to travel quickly down through it with no trouble.

  Perched nearby this canyon were two little metal-sided cabins. These had been there for some time, as they were mentioned in the 1972 report as belonging to federal government water scientists (who accessed the river by floatplane). I had neither time nor inclination to investigate them as I whizzed by below in the canyon on the swift current. The fast-moving water brought me to a big, windy, and wave-tossed expanse known as Hoare Lake. This was the last significant lake I’d pass through for some time; afterward the river narrowed for a long way. As such, I was eager to get through it as quickly as I could, to escape from the big whitecaps that had been a constant cause of anxiety to me while crossing dozens of exposed, windy lakes over the past several weeks.

  When I entered its waters a gusting northwest wind was sending big waves rolling across its expanse. It’s always hard to judge the size of waves—frequently I find they turn out to be bigger than they looked from a distance. Seated in my canoe, paddling near shore where the river emptied into the lake, my eyes searched the water, trying to determine which way to head and whether I could safely cross in such fierce winds and waves. Hoare Lake is shaped like an upside-down T; I had to get across it and down the stem of the T. Crossing the open lake would mean having the waves hit my canoe broadside, which didn’t sound too encouraging. There was a good chance, too, that the wind would overpower my paddling efforts and carry me down to the far end of the lake, away from where I needed to reach. But if I didn’t cross, instead tracing out the shoreline, that would mean paddling into powerful headwinds, draining my energy, and eating up valuable time.

  The best plan, it seemed, was to paddle into the headwinds only a short way and then pivot, allowing the force of the waves to do the work for me—carrying me across the lake until I could peel off and head for the stem of the T. It would be much safer than trying to beeline straight across.

  My plan set, I devoured some jerky and dried fruit, drank some water, and tightened the Velcro straps on my gloves. To steer in the waves, I was using my straight-shaft paddle, as I found the bent-shaft one was effective only on calm water. Setting off against the howling winds I began by using the land to my advantage. There was a long island in the lake whose lee side blocked me from the worst of the big waves, so I set my course diagonally up the island’s shore. Once past it, I was into the whitecaps.

  “Here we go,” I said to the canoe, drawing powerful strokes to launch it forward into the waves. The canoe’s bow rode over them, reaching into the air, then back down as we plowed through each swell. It was exhausting, but I didn’t have to make it far—a few more strokes and I made my move. Timing it between surges, I executed a quick pivot, turning to ride the waves. Now I could paddle easier, letting the wind carry me swiftly across the lake with me steering.

  The final bit would be the hardest: I’d have to temporarily turn broadside into the waves to make the dash up into the north bay (the stem of the T). The waves jostled me a bit but I paddled hard and steady, stroke after stroke, until I was out of the heart of the lake and well up into the safety of the bay where the waves were smaller. A few more minutes of hard paddling and I’d left the lake
behind and was heading back down the Hanbury River’s narrow confines.

  It was a relief to be back on a closed-in river. I zoomed along as fast as I could, running rapids whenever they appeared. But the wind was not to be placated. It grew stronger and stronger, roaring across the rocky hills and wide-open tundra. The wind was so fierce it soon overpowered the river’s current and my paddling, to the point where I was actually just spinning round and round in the river, like a corkscrew, as even the combined force of the current and my paddling could no longer make headway against the wind.

  This called for a new strategy. I landed on shore to rest and rethink things. To overcome the wind I’d need to shift everything I could up to the bow of the canoe, concentrating the weight near the front. This would help the bow sit lower in the water, thus catching less of the wind, and the extra weight front-loaded would make it easier for me to propel the canoe downriver against the wind. At least, visualizing it on the bank, that’s how I figured it’d work.

  I shifted everything I could to the front, and shoved off from shore. This proved the difference I needed, and I was able to keep paddling despite the tremendous gusts. But hard paddling, even with the strong current, was necessary just to keep the boat going downriver. If I tried to drift, the wind would just push me back upriver or into the banks.

  The river’s course eventually brought me to a desolate scene of expansive sand barrens, where the sand swirled on the force of the winds. In the distance loomed great sand and rock hills, which looked in my imagination like some stark post-apocalyptic landscape. The grey, dismal skies only added to the effect of these sandy deserts that stretched as far as the eye could see. From the satellite imagery I knew one of the sandy plains extended nearly four kilometres, with still other desert wastes lying beyond it. The permafrost in these regions, I figured, prevent trees from growing while the relentless winds strip away any thin topsoil, exposing the sand.