Back on the river, we encountered our first riffles of fast water. We pulled on our helmets and practiced our paddle signals: “Go left,” “Go right,” “Okay?” and “Stop.” The ice began to follow us later that day. Transparent growlers, small pieces of ice detached from the larger freshwater bergs, rode the current without making a sound. We started twirling our paddles over our heads, like majorettes, to warn each other about them. We didn’t want to slam into their pointy sides.
IN CAMP THAT night, alone in my tent, I pulled handfuls of clothing out of my stuff sack, looking for my second pair of socks. The bag was half the size of my torso — heavy like a body — and held all of my spare clothes for the summer. I spread them out on my sleeping bag and saw how they reflected my expectations. My notions about the weather were embedded in the thickness of my long underwear and the layers I chose. There was no cotton, no shorts or T-shirts.
Less than forty-eight hours before that moment, we had been spread out in an apartment in Yellowknife, making the choices we would carry for weeks into the unknown. Fleece clothing, toques, socks, bug shirts, books, and toiletries flooded the wall-to-wall carpet. We stood two by two with three empty packs. A tent, two sleeping bags, two Therm-a-Rests, and all of the clothes, books, and toiletries for two people had to fit into each pack. We had to be ruthless. And given the Tetris-like feat it would be to pack and close those packs every day, our pack partners would stay fixed throughout the trip.
Drew held up a pair of fleece pants. “Extras for the tent at night?” he said.
“Chuck ’em,” Tim replied.
“If I only bring War and Peace, can I borrow a book from someone else?” asked Alie.
“I don’t want to trade for War and Peace,” said Drew, and we all laughed.
Jen sat with a collection of toques in her hands, mentally weighing their merits before choosing one in pale blue and a balaclava.
Levi laid out his clothes for the next day, and I agonized over my socks.
“Can I bring more than one pair of dry socks?” I asked.
“No!” came the chorus of replies.
I took out a collection of spiritual writings that I had inherited from Tim’s mum, flipped to the end of the first section, and carefully split the book down the spine with my knife.
I made room for forty rolls of print and slide film (resisting the digital revolution), a point-and-shoot camera, and an old manual SLR camera with two lenses. I carried a personal journal and a group journal with recipes, our menu, and plenty of blank pages for the group log. I jammed pens and extra lighters into every bag and pocket. Tim had the smallest pile of personal gear, including a pair of binoculars that he would rarely remove from around his neck. Levi had two prized possessions: a handmade paddling shirt with blue pinstripes, and a barometer. He didn’t keep a journal; he kept a weather log. Drew brought an old IBM baseball cap, courtesy of his dad, an executive at the company’s Toronto office. He had sewed white cotton flaps around the hat’s back rim to keep the bugs away from his neck and the sun off his freckles. Jen and Alie shared a passion for coffee, which they planned to make in Alie’s insulated French press mug. They had begun coffee calculations months before and had already stashed several bundles of it throughout our food bags. Their coffee carried the spirit of Sunday morning: no day would start without it, no matter how much distance we needed to make. Alie left all other books behind so she could bring War and Peace. She had enviable bibbed rain pants and an ultra-wide-brimmed hat. Jen’s big sunglasses looked great on her — even after they snapped in half and got repaired with duct tape — and they would protect her eyes from the north’s signature days of long light and bright reflections. Her prized possession, however, turned out to be the balaclava. In Yellowknife it seemed like overkill, but on the river, it provided warmth and kept bugs away from her neck and ears.
When we had finally settled the bags and laid out paddling clothes for the morning, I grabbed the cordless phone and headed outside.
I stepped into the warmth of the evening sun in Yellowknife’s Old Town, but the mosquitoes chased me back inside to cover up. I dragged my sleeping bag into the driveway and climbed under it to make my final calls.
First, I called Dad.
“Did you register with the RCMP?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Got your first-aid kit?”
“Yep.”
“Call me when you are out?”
“I promise, but promise me you won’t worry unless we are overdue — and even then we are probably fine.”
“Okay, dear.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too. Have a good summer.”
Next I called Mum and relayed the same information, a habit familiar to any child of divorced parents.
“I’m excited for you, Skunk,” she said, invoking my pet name from childhood. “Be safe, eat lots, look after each other, and have fun.”
“I will.”
“Call me when you are out?”
“I promise, but promise me you won’t worry unless we are overdue — and even then we are probably fine.”
“I promise.”
“I love you, Mum.”
“I love you, too. Have a good summer.”
I have made many of these calls over the years without thinking too much about what it might be like for my parents. It must be extra hard to say goodbye to an only child.
After hanging up, I stayed on a chair at the side of the driveway, sweating under the drape of my down-filled sleeping bag. From inside this sweltering cave, I made one more call. I hadn’t planned on calling Dalton. We had said goodbye in Victoria, and I wasn’t making any promises to him over the summer. I wanted to leave things open, to back away from the hint of commitment.
“Hey,” I said. “I just thought I’d call to let you know we are leaving tomorrow.”
“I’m so glad you called,” he replied. He sounded tired.
I didn’t have much to say. The mosquitoes had found my ankles, so I shared a few details about the bus ride and got ready to hang up.
“I love you, Jenny,” he said.
“Okay. Thanks. Have a good summer.”
THE CALLS AND packing choices were behind me now. I already knew I had made a mistake with that windbreaker. I pulled on soft, clean socks that cushioned my toes, and headed down to the kitchen. We always separated our sleeping and cooking areas to keep bears, who might be drawn to food smells, away from our tents.
“Come on!” called Jen. “We’re going to test a banger.”
Our bear-safety plan included a few pieces of equipment. First, an alarm made by stringing a trip wire around our well-sealed food cache and plugging it into a wallet-sized personal safety alarm; if the cache was disturbed, the wire would pull out of the alarm (we hoped), set it off, and alert us. Second, a plastic pistol that shot off bangers and screamers (like mini-flares) to keep bears back should they approach. Third, three cans of bear spray. We did not have a gun. It made perfect sense to test one or two of our fifty-odd bangers so that everyone would know how to use them. I couldn’t explain the grip of anxiety I felt as Jen unpacked the bear bag and pulled out the Ziplocs full of red and green cartridges.
“We don’t want to waste them,” I said weakly.
“We need to know how they work,” Jen replied.
“I just . . .” My voice trailed off as I imagined a bear zeroing in on our camp. Marking us. Circling for days, getting closer despite our repeated volleys of bangers and screamers. It would be my turn to hold the bear off, and I would reach into the plastic bag, powdery and acidic, only to find we had used every little packet of sound and light.
My irrational fear and mumblings of complaint continued as Jen jammed the cartridge in place and fired.
“There,” she said. “Easy.”
And she was on to the next thing, dinner, while I stood on the bank, trapped by my imagination.
ON OUR SECOND night, rosy twilight seeped through the w
alls of the tent, enough light to see the map, even though it was nearly midnight. It was time to give the trip some structure: how would we reach our geographical target, 1,000 kilometers away, and what did we want to get out of the experience along the way?
I sat beside Tim, who spent most of the meeting staring at the floor. He’d had moments of levity during the day, but now he looked exhausted. I hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by coming.
“We’re living the dream now,” Drew said.
“I think it would be good to go around and hear from everyone about their expectations for the trip,” Alie said.
Choosing the Back River as our destination had taken weeks of debate on the phone, in emails, and in an online chat room, where we devoted hours to discussing the features we wanted from our route. We listed the pros and cons of various rivers, such as wildlife, beauty, topography, and length. We researched cost and travel logistics and got recommendations for dozens of routes. In the end, the Baillie and Back rivers showed up on everyone’s lists.
“This is going to be a big challenge,” Jen said, “but I’m trying not to have too many expectations. I mean, it’s all so new. I don’t really have specific goals.”
I spoke up next. “I’d like to see some wildlife. I know we can’t control that, but if we take time to stop and look, that will help a lot.” I looked at Tim to see if he wanted to add anything, but he stayed quiet.
“As long as we keep moving,” Levi said. He knew me well, and realized I would prefer time to explore on land over long days of paddling to keep on pace.
We chatted about the animals we wanted to see and what it was like for Drew and Jen to be on the tundra for the first time.
“I also wanted to talk about group dynamics,” Alie said. “I think it’s really important that we are open with each other and don’t get into relationships that feel exclusive.” She looked over at Tim and me. “You guys are already really close — which is great. I just want to make sure everyone feels welcome around you.”
I found this a strange thing to bring up so early. It’s good to be proactive, but I didn’t like being singled out for something I hadn’t done yet. Alie was being sensitive, in a way. Just odd, given Tim’s state. If he wanted to share some stuff privately with me, I hoped that wouldn’t make us exclusive.
Silence fell. We waited for Tim, pretending that we weren’t waiting.
“As you know,” he started, “it’s been two months since my mum died.”
Tim’s voice barely faltered. He talked about his mum: how much he loved her and how much they had been through; Tim’s sister, Debbie, had died of cancer when she was twelve and Tim was nine.
After he finished, a high and hollow sound began outside. The six of us bent our heads, listening.
“Wolves,” said Tim.
The volume of their keening rose until the calls of the pack were unmistakable. We exchanged looks and scrambled out of the tent. The tundra stretched around us, pink under the circling sun, but the wolves were nowhere to be seen. They quieted. Tim threw back his head and howled. Several moments passed, then the wolves called again, one voice and another and another until they crested a minor chord. They must have been just over the rise.
TWO
FIRST MISTAKES
WILDERNESS HAS A pull on me, like a child yanking on my pant leg. I am always looking for fragments of the wild — combing the hedge for birds’ nests, searching the boulevard for insects.
I was lucky to have parents who let me wander on my own to the pond near our Ontario cottage when I was young. I watched and then tried to catch anything that moved. I still remember the slippery push of a bullfrog’s mouth forcing my fingers apart, a dragonfly hooked onto the thinness of my shoulder, a captured turtle in the washtub snipping at iceberg lettuce.
My early love of the outdoors stopped at canoeing, however. My father took me in his cedar-canvas canoe to paddle the streams and swamps of Algonquin Park, but that little boat bored me to distraction.
Canoeing was for adults. Supremely slow and quiet, a perfect place for that most hated adult activity — conversation. The monotony of canoeing only began to shift when I was allowed to take the canoe out alone, at age eight. Then I could spin my craft, fight its nose into the wind, and slip it out of sight into the trees. One day, I nudged the canoe up to a yellow lady’s slipper, and as I pulled the flower down to my nose, a mother deer and her fawn stood up. I realized then that a canoe could help reveal the world’s secrets; it could unlock the land.
I completed my first long canoe trip, with Tim, at the age of twenty-two. The two of us spent forty days exploring Northern Ontario’s lakes and rivers until my paddle felt like an extension of my body. Throughout university, I would visit the map library and trace northern rivers with my fingers: scanning the topography of the North, examining landscapes stretched by the Mercator projection. At twenty-five, I went to the Arctic for the first time and paddled for fifty days on and around Nunavut’s Hood River, that time with Tim, Levi, and three others. At twenty-eight, I was ready for the Back.
Leading up to the trip, I did my best to project confidence when talking to my parents and friends. Polar bears ripped me to pieces in my mind’s eye, but I didn’t let on.
WE SHOVED AWAY from shore on the fourth afternoon, and I braced my knees wide against the hull, preparing to give Drew the power strokes he would need to steer us through the next set of rapids. It was Drew’s first day in the stern. We’d already been through a few sets of swifts and small rapids that morning, but the next set would require more maneuvering.
We had all stopped to scout the rapids and don our helmets before committing ourselves to the river. We would do this with any stretch of moving water that wasn’t completely straightforward.
The river was growing. The shore ice was melting; small streams and tributaries joined the Baillie’s main flow. Waves and currents remained manageable, simple even, but we always had to be careful. The cold was our biggest threat.
We saw our next set from shore. An unobstructed chute led through a dark vee of smooth water. The vee piled into a row of standing waves, called haystacks, which are typical at the bottom of any rapid. They range from little bumps to powerful towers that swamp and flip canoes. These waves stood higher than any we had seen so far — big enough that we didn’t want to hit them head on.
Drew and I planned to power through the current from river right to river left, taking advantage of the safe passage down the tongue but skirting the wave train at the bottom. By staying left of the big waves, we would avoid being swamped while remaining in the forward flow of the river and staying out of the confused water at the river’s edge.
We waited until Tim and Alie hit the current.
“Are you ready?” I called over the rush.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Drew replied.
Drew sat straight-spined in the stern. A few wisps of orange hair stuck out from under his helmet. Wire-rimmed glasses, firmly tethered to a neck strap, sat on his freckled nose, and the high collar of a light gray turtleneck kept the wind and bugs out. His 5′10″ frame filled the seat. He sported a bright yellow life vest, an orange whistle and matching helmet, and rubberized gloves. Thanks to the outfit, Jen had nicknamed him the Safety Officer.
I barely knew Drew before we met at the Edmonton bus station with all of our gear. He had been recommended by friends and had paddled with Levi on Ontario rivers; he seemed a good fit. From the beginning, he was keen to take on food preparation and to help with any aspect of the trip, though he was new to map research, northern logistics, and expedition equipment. He was easy to talk to and comfortable in a leadership role, though the Arctic would test him on that. Drew laughed easily and made lots of jokes. He was quick to pose for silly pictures and eager to learn. I thought we would be well suited as paddling partners.
We pushed off.
My paddle bit the water as I strained to pull us forward faster than the river. To maintain our ability to steer, we needed t
o accelerate beyond the speed of the current. Drew pointed our boat left of the waves as we accelerated downstream. The river wanted to wash us into the haystacks, and Drew struggled to keep us moving across the current. It is the same race every time, every rapid. The river wants one thing, and we want something else.
I pulled hard to give us speed, but the tongue held us in its gravity. It swiveled our nose toward the waves. I bent my upper body out over the river and heaved on my paddle, trying to correct the angle. Drew pulled and pulled, but our bow was already at the foot of the first wave, which sucked us down and then threw us up in a crash of spray, shooting me skyward. The next rise sent me through a window of water, as polished as plate glass, that pooled around my knees. Our target swished by my left side as we bucked into the next wave — another lapful of water. Then I felt Drew pulling us left, heading for shore, turning us broadside. I sensed his terror, quickly followed by my own.
“No, no!” I screamed. “Forward, straight into it, forward!”
I swung my paddle to the starboard side and pulled us back into the waves. Now that we were in them, we had to ride them out. Straight ahead, full of water, became the safest exit. We rose up again and dropped back to the river. The waves mellowed — our boat teetered to the bank and stopped.
I didn’t know what to say. It was a mistake to miss our line and hit the waves, but that seemed like a simple miscalculation with the drawback of getting soaked. What worried me was Drew’s compensation. Riding big waves is one thing; trying to pull out of them is another. Our safest play was through the stacks. Did he know that? I didn’t want to challenge him, but I worried about the bigger water coming up.
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