Beyond the Trees

by Adam Shoalts

  That lasted about twenty minutes. Then my right wader sprang a leak and flooded. This was harder to ignore, but I chalked it up to one of those days we all sometimes suffer. You know the sort, when nothing seems to go in your favour. It was just one of those days.

  My progress against the bitter winds was painfully slow, and by the time I set up camp that evening I’d made it only about halfway through the island maze. I had to stop a bit early in order to take care of my gear. With both sets of my footwear, the hiking boots and waders, now soaked, I was in a dreaded predicament I’d so far avoided on my journey. My cargo pants and tent were also wet from wading and the rain. Further complicating matters were the nightly temperatures that were starting to drop down to freezing.

  To take care of things, I pitched my drenched tent without the fly, letting the wind rush through it to dry it out. My pants I strung up on a paddle and my hiking boots I placed on the overturned canoe to dry as best they could. I also had, as a sort of backup measure, baby powder in my first aid kit; I sprinkled it in my hiking boots to help absorb the moisture. Whether it’d work or not I didn’t know, but just now I wanted to believe it might.

  The more difficult question was how to get the waders dry. The best I could do was prop them up with rocks and let the wind inflate them. This worked tolerably well. Fortunately, stashed away in my backpack was a secret weapon I’d been saving: a pair of eighty-dollar waterproof Gore-Tex socks. These magical things I’d owned for years and had never used—judging it wise to save them for when it really counted.

  The rough days ahead, I had a strong feeling, were going to be that time.

  × 20 ×

  THE STORMS OF SEPTEMBER

  Frost blanketing my tent greeted me the next morning. Those terrible words—winter is coming—were in my head again. Ahead of me, beyond the island maze, lay the frightening expanse of Aberdeen Lake: over seventy kilometres of open water to paddle across in what were likely to be big waves and fierce winds.

  I began by pulling on dry wool socks, then putting the Gore-Tex socks over them as an outer layer to keep them dry. Next I strapped on my hip waders, which were still damp in the boots, although with my magic socks that didn’t matter. I wore three layers to protect me from the cold winds: my warm wool-blend base layer, my fleece sweater and cargo pants, and finally my outer rain pants, warm waterproof jacket, toque, and gloves.

  With the canoe repacked, I pushed off. Stiff headwinds slowed me through the remainder of the maze; it took me four hours to reach the vast expanse of Aberdeen Lake. I found it a rather bleak and desolate-looking place, with stony shores filled with dark grey boulders and smaller rocks. It reminded me of the islands in the High Arctic where my friend Travis and I had canoed together. Looking out across the waves, I sure wished I could’ve had Travis with me now. Facing these waves, a strong paddler in the bow would make all the difference. (I made a mental note of this for the purpose of future trips.)

  My plan was to hug the north shore: this might possibly expose me to more winds and waves, as well many bays, but the south shore had its own share of bays, and more critically, two gigantic peninsulas jutting far into the lake. Taking the south shore would therefore demand a lot more paddling just to get around those great peninsulas. So, for better or worse, I chose the north shore.

  With the wind chill it was below freezing. I kept warm by paddling hard, riding over whitecaps, following the bleak shore. Some ways up lay a chain of islands; I drove myself on with the thought that they’d at least offer some respite from the wrath of the open lake. Wave after wave my canoe glided over, rising and crashing. In the fierce winds, my canoe at times seemed to barely move forward at all. I’d have to pick a point on shore—a jagged boulder, or pile of rocks—and keep my eyes on it to reassure myself that I was still moving forward.

  By early evening I’d reached the islands. Things here weren’t much easier, since the winds were still howling, but at least within their sheltered reaches the waves weren’t dangerous. I camped on shore near the end of the island chain and at the start of a wide estuary. Some river I didn’t know was draining into the lake here, creating mud flats extending far out into the water. Crossing seemed difficult, but that was a problem for the morning. In the meantime I made camp as the sun sank below the horizon. With the nights growing steadily longer, I no longer had the tactic in my arsenal that I’d used on Great Bear of paddling by night and sleeping during the day to avoid the winds.

  * * *

  To cross the estuary a strenuous portage was necessary, as I couldn’t drag my heavily loaded canoe across it, nor could I avoid it without paddling back some ways around islands. It was a slow start to the day, sweating as I sunk into the wet clay, hauling everything a kilometre to water deep enough to paddle. On the bright side, it let me stretch my legs before getting into the canoe.

  Once I was across it, I was back on the lake facing waves. For safety I kept as close to shore as I could, but too close and the surf was a little much. Frequently there were considerable bays along the north shore; some of these I chanced cutting across. It was a little bit dicey, given the waves were generally massive; I rode over whitecaps while paddling as fast as my arms would allow. What gave me the most worry was that a sudden uptick in the winds might catch me far offshore in the middle of a bay. The hardest parts were rounding rocky points, where I was most exposed to the wind.

  I managed to cover fifty kilometres over thirteen hours of paddling; when I finally stopped for the night I felt grateful to be back on dry land, even that desolate shoreline. After months of daylight it was a little strange to see sunsets and real darkness again. The night seemed darker than ever as I sat alone on the stony shore, watching the last glow of red dip below the horizon. Without the midnight sun and the singing and chirping of the little shorebirds, things felt pretty lonely.

  The following morning dawned almost calm, allowing me to escape from Aberdeen Lake. I soon passed into the smaller narrows leading to the third and final expanse of big water. Navigating these relative narrows could be difficult, given the low shorelines of gravel and rock that blended into the hills and high ridges lying back from the water. They’d be even more difficult to navigate for the majority of the year when everything was blanketed under snow and ice—the time when traditionally most arctic travelling was done. But what told me I was on the right track was the sight of ghostly rock cairns overlooking the far shore—these were inuksuks, real inuksuks, ancient stone pillars pointing the way. I knew they were centuries old at least. Unlike the stereotypical southern “inuksuk” that has proliferated beyond all bounds over recent decades, these real ones didn’t have arms and were composed of hundreds of small, carefully stacked rocks, as opposed to giant boulders. It was obvious that considerable labour had been required to create them.

  It was another forty-one kilometres of paddling through smaller lakes and channels before I reached that last big expanse of water. Halfway through, though, a gale rapidly materialized and pinned me on shore. These were the strongest winds I’d seen yet, rendering any kind of travelling impossible. It forced me to make camp early above a pebbly beach. My tent I carefully angled into the wind, securing it with extra guy lines and rocks piled on top of the pegs. The fierce winds did let me dry out some gear that had become wet from waves splashing into me. My clothing I spread out on the ground and pinned down with rocks. While letting everything dry, I found some crowberries to snack on.

  Since there was little else I could do, I decided to call it an early night. But just as I was about to crawl into my tent, which was shaking rather violently in the wind, I spotted in the far distance specks moving inland along the horizon. Climbing a small hill for a better view, I saw it was a muskox herd. I counted about twenty of them, moving at a surprisingly fast pace. This made me a little anxious; I hoped they didn’t come in my direction. If I could, I would have repacked my canoe and moved on to get away, but the gale kept me trapped where I was. On the other hand, there wasn’t an
ywhere I could go that muskox couldn’t go too. I watched the herd until it disappeared among the hills, reassuring myself that the muskox had been heading away from me. The only other wildlife about were flocks of snow geese that seemed to congregate in the narrows, but these didn’t frighten me all that much.

  The next day I was up at four a.m. to take advantage of whatever morning calm I could. Three hours of hard paddling brought me through some smaller lakes and then to a swift-flowing channel where a great bald eagle was perched on a boulder hunting fish. I zoomed along as rapidly as I could, admiring the eagle’s enormous wingspan as it took off toward the penultimate lake of my journey—a frightful expanse of frigid water that stretched beyond the horizon under grey skies.

  I took the north shore again; it had served me well across Aberdeen Lake, and I hoped for a repeat of that success. Across these new dark waters rose a mountain shaped like a giant tidal wave, a tsunami frozen in stone. High slate-grey ridges and stupendous rock outcrops, ancient beyond conception, marked the distant shore of a bay I’d have to round. Closer in, lining the near shore I intended to follow, were dark cliffs, boulders, and stony beaches.

  A mere seven thousand years ago, none of this land would have been visible—it was all at the bottom of the ocean, aside from the mountain summits, which just crested the saltwater as bleak little islands. Melting glaciers had at that time caused sea levels to rise, creating a vastly enlarged Hudson Bay, known as the Tyrell Sea. As I paddled under the unbroken grey skies through the remnants of this lost world, it looked like a desolate moonscape of rock and gravel, with hardly any hint of living things, no grasses, willows, or other vegetation.

  In places my curiosity about the rocks was such that I couldn’t resist going ashore to inspect them. Some were hundreds of millions of years old: ancient Precambrian rocks blasted by unknown eons and exposed in their present state during the last ice age. A little farther along a flock of snow geese passed in front of some grey mountains. Against the cliffs in the haze they looked almost like something prehistoric.

  I couldn’t see across the lake, the distance was too far, but large swells were rolling in from the south; fortunately my canoe rode over these without trouble. I kept paddling steadily, keeping my eyes fixed on the barren ridges towering in the distance.

  Some hours later, I was surprised at the sight of a deserted fishing camp. Beneath grey cliffs stood a handful of ramshackle, collapsing structures of rotting plywood and weathered timbers. The wind had largely died, leaving a strange calm hanging over the land; the only sounds were the lapping of swells coming in from across the lake. Amid the desolation of the gravel and rocks the decaying structures assumed a rather eerie air.

  By the close of the day I’d reached midway down a giant, rocky headland nearly cutting the lake in two. The skies had stayed overcast all day, and now they looked increasingly stormy. The stony shoreline offered few appealing places to sleep, and the sight of three muskox grazing higher up on some grassy hills induced me to push on a little farther. At last, under a light rain, I halted to make camp on a decent enough spit of sand and gravel. I had to haul my gear a ways inland to reach it, but once everything was set up, it felt comfortable enough for one night.

  * * *

  Cracks of thunder jarred me awake. A lightning flash illuminated the inside of my tent. I counted the seconds until the next burst: the storm was somewhere to the north, but a little too close for comfort. Another flash of lightning lit up the sky; it seemed the mountains north of me had been struck. I crouched to minimize the amount of my body touching the ground, which I always did when camped in lightning storms—that way, if you do get struck, less of your body will be grounded and your survival chances will be better.

  Eventually the sky’s fury passed away, and I lay back down to sleep.

  By four a.m. I was awake again; my internal clock telling me it was time I was paddling. The morning calm was when I made my best distances, and I needed to take full advantage of it. It was September now, so I couldn’t afford to miss it.

  My task was to round the remainder of the giant headland I’d camped on. The end of this point, jutting far into the lake, promised to be a stormy, dangerous place. Paddling up the rest of the headland I sometimes cut across smaller bays, saving me time from hugging the shoreline. Crossing one of these bays I saw specks in the distance moving along the opposite shore. As I neared I began counting them—over thirty muskox.

  I gave myself a break on the relative calm to drift in and watch the herd. At one point a big bull, with giant horns, galloped at a smaller one, driving it off. This performance the large bull repeated several times, giving me unpleasant sensations about what it might be like to be on receiving end of one those charges. As I drifted a little closer the bull came toward the water and snorted at me, though I was in too deep water to having anything to fear—well, anything to fear from muskox.

  An hour of hard paddling later and I’d made it around the point. The winds had increased steadily, which made paddling exhausting, but fortunately the waves weren’t too big. Still, once I rounded the point, I had no choice but to make a long detour back up along its opposite side to a place where I could safely cross over to the lake’s eastern shores. In perfectly calm weather I’d have chanced crossing the open water to where I needed to get to, but not in the high winds of September.

  The detour was a long one, but I was rewarded by the sight of some graceful long-tailed jaegers flying by. They’re striking white and black seabirds with long tail feathers that dangle behind them like streamers on a kite as they soar across the water, hunting fish.

  The jaegers weren’t the only animals moving over the windswept shores. With excitement I spotted a family of three caribou, two adults and a young calf, trotting along on a ridge. On those rocks grow hardy lichens that the caribou feed on.

  The wind had continued to increase, but once I’d traced the headland up to a point where it was only a kilometre across to the lake’s eastern shore, I figured I could safely manage the crossing. The wind was blowing from the east, which meant I’d have to paddle into a headwind the whole way, so I rested awhile to gather up my energy. In the middle of the crossing I’d be about a half-kilometre from the nearest land. This wasn’t much compared to the bigger crossings I’d done earlier, but in the stiff winds it sure felt like more.

  Hard strokes brought me across the bay to the far shore, where I found the most chaotic jumble of boulders I’d ever seen. Boulders and rocks beyond counting smothered every inch of shoreline, extending up a low ridge far inland—leaving not a speck of soil anywhere for so much as an arctic willow to grow on. This went on for kilometres, a wasteland of rocks that looked impossible to even walk across without twisting both ankles. But nearly everything has an upside, and the raised, rocky shore helped shelter me from the increasing winds.

  When I reached the end of the bay I had to turn into the headwinds, which had grown almost impossibly strong; at times my furious paddling did nothing but hold me in a standstill, like a hamster on a treadmill. I would have camped, but the shoreline remained an endless rocky waste, with nowhere to stake down a tent.

  So I pushed on, using up the last of my strength to cross another, mercifully smaller bay. The winds were howling now—I needed to find somewhere soon to put in before conditions turned any worse. A little farther on was a small bit of tundra grass amid the boulders. I headed for it.

  Under ordinary circumstances, it probably wasn’t what most people would call an enticing campsite, but after kilometres of exposed rocks, to me it looked like a patch of paradise. I made camp quickly, securing my tent with extra guy lines to hold it against the gales. Across the lake were beautiful mountains sloping up gracefully to exposed summits, their lower flanks a blaze of fall colours.

  With the tent up and time on my hands, I decided to hike inland to scout things out. There turned out to be nothing but ancient windswept rocks, so I figured I’d better head back before the weather turned any more
severe. My ultimate fear was a wind gust would catch my canoe and carry it into the lake while I was gone, or waking up in the morning to discover that it had vanished in the night on a gust. I’d heard of this happening once to an unfortunate party of campers, though there were eight of them, so they could divide the two who’d lost their canoe between the three other boats.

  Fortunately my canoe sat overturned just where I’d left it—but the sight of the damage to its hull, especially a big patch wearing alarmingly thin, wasn’t very comforting. Ahead of me still lay dangerous rapids where hitting a rock could puncture the canoe and spill me into the icy, turbulent water. I knew that these very rapids had drowned past travellers. I piled some rocks on my canoe to help secure it in the winds and stashed my other gear underneath it. Meanwhile my tent was shaking, the poles nearly buckling from the force of the winds pounding down on the tent’s sides. The gusts were freezing, and to keep my gloved hands warm I waved them about. I felt better after I’d boiled water in the shelter of some boulders, making hot tea and a freeze-dried meal. Tea really can make any scenario better.

  The winds remained fierce all night, and this time the dawn brought no relief. With dismay, I stood on the rocky point and looked across the stormy waters at the whitecaps. A flock of snow geese passed overhead, apparently heading south for warmer climes.

  All day the wind raged, fierce and cold, without a single break. Unlike earlier, here, given the rough shorelines and the strength of the winds, it wasn’t possible for me to press on by wading and dragging the canoe with rope. All I could do was wait.

  Lying in my tent that night, I thought I heard sandhill cranes making their eerie calls in the dark. Of all birds, it’s the cranes’ strange-sounding calls that have the greatest documented range, remaining audible for miles away. The sound of these calls echoing across the windy and forlorn, darkened landscape was really quite something. But I couldn’t be sure if I heard them at all, or if it was merely some trick of the wind.