THE SIX OF US are skilled canoeists, however I started to surprise if Mark and Eck had taken the time to ensure their life vests have been adjusted correctly earlier than they rammed into the primary set of rapids on our journey. The chilly river water can collapse a person’s lungs because it sucks the warmth from his physique. I fought to dismiss such ideas and focus on serving to my companion management our personal canoe. Instantly Mark and Eck have been in deep trouble. They’d been establishing their strategy to the rapids once they hit a rock. The canoe turned sideways, shipped water, and swamped. Wealthy Thompson and I watched in horror from the second canoe as our companions have been swept downstream till they disappeared within the roaring water.
A person couldn’t final quite a lot of minutes in that chilly quick present. This near the Arctic Circle, the Coppermine River doesn’t get a lot hotter than 40°, even in midsummer. We have been deep within the Northwest Territories, and if something critical occurred, the one assist we might count on can be when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police got here searching for us if we didn’t attain the village of Coppermine by August 2, almost two weeks away.
There was nothing Wealthy and I might do to assist, so we took the rapids on the aspect reverse the place our pals had swamped. It wasn’t a tough shoot from the left, and we went via simply. One other, smaller rapids lay forward, and from my submit within the stern I might see no signal of Mark, Eck, or their canoe. Someplace behind us was our third canoe with Dick Tupper and David Simmons.
It wasn’t till we obtained via the second rapids that we noticed our pals ashore. They’d beached their canoe in an eddy greater than a mile downstream from the place they’d swamped. Each males have been dancing out of their garments and making an attempt to test their canoe’s cargo on the similar time.
Wealthy and I lower into shore, adopted intently by the third canoe.
“We’re all proper,” mentioned Mark, shivering. “Assist us test these things.”
We started emptying soggy bundles: one meals bag, two Duluth packs, and an army-surplus ammunition field that contained two of our cameras. Wealthy moaned. “Two of the cameras are soaked. There’s a thousand bucks shot to hell. At the least you guys are okay. We nonetheless have Dave’s digicam to take footage of the remainder of the journey.”
We arrange camp on the spot and constructed a fireplace so Mark and Eck might dry out. Later, accompanied by swarms of bugs, we went fishing on the foot of the rapids.
Mark had made only some casts when his rod snapped right into a curve and the tip jabbed on the water. As I watched, I forgot my starvation, the soreness from the day’s 21 miles of kneeling and paddling, and the blackflies that clung to my headnet and crawled up my pantlegs.
“Laker!” Mark yelled, beaching his catch. “It’ll go twenty-five kilos straightforward.”
Instantly the weeks of hardship we’d endured appeared worthwhile once more; in any case, we have been in the future nearer to Coppermine, the place the river empties into Coronation Gulf on the Arctic Ocean. However then I appeared upstream from Mark and his fish, and I shuddered to assume how shut he and Eck had come to catastrophe. Judging by what I’d learn and heard, a few of the rapids we nonetheless needed to run would make the one we’d simply come via appear tame.
WE WERE SITTING in entrance of our tents consuming steaks from Mark’s trout within the sunshine of an arctic summer season night time when—because it had for the previous 25 days—the discuss turned to our meals provide and what number of miles we would be capable to cowl the subsequent day. Ever since we’d left the neighborhood of Yellowknife on the north finish of Nice Slave Lake, we’d been measuring our rations in opposition to the gap that remained between us and Coppermine.
The concept for the month-long journey had begun at Kooch-I-Ching, a youth camp at Wet Lake in Quetico-Superior canoe nation on the Minnesota-Ontario border, the place the six of us had canoed collectively since we have been boys. Now it was 1974 and we have been all 21 aside from Wealthy Thompson, 22. I’m from New Canaan, Connecticut; Wealthy is from Worldwide Falls, Minnesota; Mark Smith is from Cleveland, Ohio; Dick Tupper, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Mike (Eck) Ecker, Cincinnati, Ohio; and Dave Simmons, St. Louis, Missouri.
We’d wished to take one actually powerful journey collectively earlier than we completed faculty and took on the duties of careers, and—for Wealthy at the least—marriage.
For us, the best custom of wilderness canoeing and survival exists within the unspoiled arctic; that’s why we selected the Northwest Territories. Choosing a route grew to become an issue, nevertheless, because the Territories cowl 1,300,000 sq. miles that stretch throughout the roof of the continent from the islands of Hudson Bay to the McKenzie River delta and the Yukon, 2,000 miles away. Over this huge space, retreating glaciers have gouged the channels of an online of rivers that wind via excessive mountains, lowland plains, tundra, and the treeless rocks of the uncovered Canadian Defend. A stream that’s quick and slender in a single place typically followers out in one other to type a complicated sequence of broad, seemingly currentless lakes.
At first we wished to check ourselves on a stream that has by no means been canoed, however the Yellowknife-to-Coppermine route was a compromise, and it had the benefit of recurrently scheduled airline service for our return. To our data, no group had ever shot all of the rapids of the Coppermine, and that alone can be problem sufficient. To some extent we might be capable to reside off the land, and there can be the added enjoyable of catching pike, grayling, and char that had by no means seen a fisherman.
Wealthy’s cousin is a minister in Yellowknife, and David’s older brother had canoed the Hood River within the Territories in 1966. Eck started writing to Eric Morris, a wilderness adventurer who’d canoed the Coppermine River from Level Lake to Coppermine with Canada’s Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau.
On blue-speckled maps we traced a route via a maze of waterways and portages. From Yellowknife we’d observe the river of the identical identify upstream for 320 miles to Level Lake. From Level we’d run the Coppermine River downstream for 250 miles to its mouth on the tiny settlement of Coppermine on Coronation Gulf.
In just a few days we constructed a crude trailer to haul our secondhand 18-foot aluminum canoes the 1,700 miles from Wealthy’s house in Worldwide Falls to Yellowknife.
We compressed a mountain of drugs and meals into bundles that we portioned among the many three canoe crews. Wealthy and I’d take one canoe, Mark and Eck one other, and David and Dick the third. There’d be no journey captain: main choices can be made by voice vote.
After we reached Yellowknife on June 21, we checked in with the Mounted Police, gave them our itinerary and subsequent of kin, after which checked on return air fares for us and our canoes from Coppermine.
Yellowknife, like the cruel land round it, blazes with life throughout the lengthy days of the transient summer season. We noticed many younger folks, some lured by the prospects of jobs in oil exploration or companies that serve it. We have been instructed that Coppermine would shrink again to its regular inhabitants of 6,000 by winter.
On June 24 we mentioned goodbye to Wealthy’s cousin, the Rev. Gary Sartain. He had agreed to deal with Dave Simmons’s automobile and mentioned he’d fly over us a few times to see how we have been doing. We pushed off into Affluent Lake, about 16 miles from city.
OUR HIGH SPIRITS didn’t final lengthy that first day. We hadn’t completed any particular bodily conditioning, and we have been all extra off form than we’d realized. I had blisters on my arms inside an hour, and my knees have been sore regardless of the shirt I’d rolled up for a kneeling pad. We quickly hit the primary portage, a half-mile path round some rapids at Affluent Lake.
“I’ve obtained to sit down down a minute,” panted Dick as he dumped a load of drugs on the finish of the portage. “I’m too younger to be a heart-attack sufferer.” No person argued.
We used the trip-and-a-half technique of portaging from Affluent to Bluefish Lake, then from Bluefish to Quyta: three of us would carry the canoes all the way in which throughout. The opposite three would pack a part of the duffel midway, then return for the remainder of it. Meantime the primary group would return to retrieve the primary load of drugs. We have been touring upstream, so every portage was uphill, normally alongside a boulder-strewn course parallel to the Yellowknife. A slip might simply have meant a damaged leg.
Pushed by a powerful tailwind, we coasted up most of Bluefish with paddles within the air, however the respite wasn’t sufficient to ease our disappointment at our bodily situation. We unlimbered our spincasting outfits at Quyta, and our sagging spirits rose when Dave coaxed a seven-pound pike into hitting a red-and-white spoon.
“It’s solely the second fish I ever caught,” he mentioned.
Wealthy and Eck caught a few smaller pike on spinners, and our first shore dinner consisted of fried fish, rice, soup, and bannock bread we had premixed earlier than the journey.
By the fourth day we had traveled almost 50 miles, and our ankles have been sore from the boulder-hopping portages. For a few days we crossed a burned-over space, the place portaging meant tripping over charred limbs and kicking up clouds of ashes with every step. Wherever the portage route was obliterated by the burn or we needed to go too removed from the river, we used the “caravan” technique, through which we stayed collectively and made two journeys, Indian-file. Typically the portage marked on the map didn’t agree with what we discovered and we needed to choose our personal manner over virgin territory.
Our lips have been dry and cracked, and our pores and skin was windburned. Regardless of using headnets, our faces have been puffed and swollen with welts raised by the clouds of blackflies, mosquitoes, horseflies, and moose flies. At night time the flies gave the impression of rain on our two nylon tents. Throughout the day I discovered myself praying for a headwind so the damned issues would at the least keep out of our faces and crawl round to the backs of our heads.
Pulling our canoes up the Yellowknife’s rapids grew to become a grim routine that was particularly exhausting on our leg muscle mass. Waist-deep within the chilly water, we fought for footing on the slippery rocks, making an attempt to govern the strains so the canoes pointed upstream as we dragged them in opposition to the present. Typically the bow would swing out too far and the upstream gunwale would start to catch water as the person on the strict painter tried to pull the craft to shore earlier than it swamped.
AFTER FOUR DAYS of grueling journey we sighted two males—one about 20, the opposite about 50 or so—cooking lunch in entrance of their vivid yellow tent. The 2 Canadians instructed us they’d left Yellowknife 4 weeks earlier and that they have been retracing the steps of John Franklin, an English explorer who’d led an expedition from Nice Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean in 1820.
Franklin mapped the Yellowknife and Coppermine rivers and a part of the coast alongside Coronation Gulf. In 1845 he returned to the Arctic Ocean by sea in the hunt for the Northwest Passage. Franklin was by no means seen once more, and it wasn’t till 14 years later that the bones of some members of his occasion have been discovered, together with paperwork exhibiting that Franklin’s ship had develop into icebound.
In Franklin’s day the village of Coppermine was solely a tenting space for Eskimos on searching and fishing forays. The location and the river had been named in 1771 by one other Englishman, Samuel Hearne, who got here to the realm in the hunt for copper and different minerals.
The 2 Canadians instructed us that they weren’t optimistic about with the ability to observe Franklin’s overland route for much longer. Later I learn in Sports activities Illustrated journal that one other occasion of six canoeists had tried to retrace Franklin’s path the earlier yr (1973) however have been compelled to surrender far in need of their objective. One member of that occasion conceded that ghosts make poor touring companions.
Once we obtained beneath manner once more I mentioned to Wealthy: “We have to be doing this proper. It’s taken us solely 4 days to journey so far as these two guys did in 4 weeks.”
Early within the journey all of us started to undergo from what Mark referred to as “expedition choler”—irritability and sudden moods of melancholy. Typically you couldn’t put your finger on why you felt so down.
I keep in mind one night, for instance, shortly after we’d taken Icy Portage, a detour away from a very troublesome a part of the Yellowknife, via a sequence of 9 lakes. We had carried our gear over a half-mile of boulders after which via muskeg swamps. As soon as, we misinterpret the compass and needed to flip round and return a part of the way in which. The subsequent night time I used to be desirous about Icy Portage and the a whole lot of miles of water and tough rapids that lay forward of us. Wealthy was gobbling down his meal of fried grayling and rice. The fish was one I’d caught with a gaudy salmon fly and a mixture fly-and-spinning rod.
Wealthy simply ate my fish, I assumed, and he took completely an excessive amount of rice. Wealthy started licking his plate to get the salt, as all of us did to fulfill our fixed longing for seasoning. I stalked away from the hearth and sat on my own till the mindless, darkish temper handed. All of us had related moods, the worst being once we needed to sit out a whole day windbound, listening to rain and sleet slap at our tents. It seldom got here to phrases, nevertheless, for we quickly realized to acknowledge these moods in ourselves and in one another. Our security depended an excessive amount of on teamwork for any variations to spring up amongst us. As soon as we entered the Coppermine’s rapids, there can be no time for petty arguments.
Wealthy’s boots gave out in early July. First one sole got here off, and he hopped over the portages sporting one canvas sneaker and one boot. Quickly the opposite boot got here aside, and the remainder of us started to understand the truth that we’d chosen high-quality cowhide boots with sewn-on moderately than glued soles.
As our provide of blended nuts and different treats ran out, our primary eating regimen grew to become oatmeal, rice, potatoes, and fish. We have been by no means utterly full, and Eck and I, who have been the heaviest members of the occasion, started to drop pounds noticeably. We figured we’d every shaved 25 kilos from an authentic 200. The others every appeared to be 10 to fifteen kilos lighter. Our jaws ached for lack of one thing powerful to chew (some gum may need helped).
We regularly talked and daydreamed about wealthy meals, and our fixed starvation and fatigue could have contributed to the methods our eyes performed on us. Typically every stump and rock appeared like a bear or moose.
I assumed I used to be seeing issues once we met our first moose, a younger bull cavorting within the shallows of Clam Lake. When he noticed us he ran throughout a rocky level and swam to the far shore.
We noticed some extra moose and scattered flocks of geese and swans, however not a lot wildlife after that—a beaver splashing off a rocky bar, an arctic fox, some eagles (principally goldens), a lone grizzly bear and two cubs, and one caribou. We additionally noticed what gave the impression to be a sled canine, most likely left by Eskimos.
Wealthy’s cousin, the Reverend Sartain, flew over us as soon as as he’d promised, waggling his aircraft’s wings a few instances, and flew on. One other aircraft got here by later, circling low to ensure every part was okay with us.
Although Dick had a bout with a sore throat, by July 1 we have been all in fairly good bodily form. Our meals have been removed from satisfying. We caught just a few lake trout and grayling, however we have been past the conventional vary of pike. Timber, together with firewood, grew to become scarce. We did have a butane camp range, however it took too lengthy to cook dinner something, and gathering firewood grew to become a nightmarish job, typically involving lengthy aspect journeys with the canoes in the hunt for lifeless branches from the few stunted alders.
Ever since our mixup in path at Icy Portage, all of us grew to become fanatic about understanding precisely the place we have been on the maps, which we saved sealed in plastic and tied to the gunwales of 1 canoe (the backup set was stowed in a pack). Wealthy grew to become the official mapreader.
ON JULY 13 we confronted the roughest determination of the journey. In accordance with the map we have been solely somewhat greater than 4 miles from Level Lake. From then on we might be via with the upstream haul and will focus on the downstream portion of the journey and the famed rapids of the Coppermine River.
However between us and Level lay a protracted stretch of small potholes. We might both portage-and-paddle our manner via, or we might take the longest portage of our canoeing careers—greater than 4 miles via nation we’d by no means seen earlier than.
“I say we make it multi function lengthy stroll,” Eck mentioned, wanting up from the map. “Any manner you slice it, we’d have at the least a two-mile portage and doubtless much more. Why not go huge and do one thing we’ll all the time keep in mind? I feel it might be an effective way to finish the previous three weeks of portaging. From then on, we are able to cease breaking our backs and benefit from the journey.”
Mark wasn’t so certain.
“Look,” he mentioned, “why ought to we stroll proper previous potholes the place we might journey? I can’t see it.”
The lengthy stroll received out when it got here to a vote.
We have been up at 4:30 the subsequent morning, and at 6:30 we heaved our gear onto our backs as a substitute of into the canoes. We break up up into two events: Eck, Dave, and I carried the canoes, and the others shouldered the primary load of packs. After 20 minutes of strolling, Dick, Mark, and Wealthy dropped their bundles. Meantime, Eck, Dave, and I walked 10 minutes, then put the canoes down and returned for the remaining packs as our companions got here for the canoes. Then the entire course of was repeated.
The terrain was pretty stage, and we discovered solely a few marshy spots. However because the hours handed, I felt as if my load was hammering me into the bottom.
For the primary time in almost a month, we have been away from the river and the numerous lakes. Between the potholes that we skirted, the closest huge water was a blue wash in a panoramic view of ridges and plains. Right here and there have been sparse clumps of bushes. Off within the distance a storm was constructing, and I felt very small and insignificant.
After 5 shifts of trip-and-a-half portaging, we lastly reached Level Lake. We stripped and jumped into the chilly water for our first baths in two days.
Lunch was a celebration of types, and we sat round congratulating one another.
“Take a look at it this manner, Mark,” Dick mentioned. “At any time when somebody tells you a couple of furry journey, you’ll be able to say: ‘In case you assume that’s unhealthy, it’s best to’ve been on our four-mile portage within the Northwest Territories.’”
POINT WAS 50 MILES LONG, and we wished to cowl as a lot of it as we might whereas the climate was nonetheless good, so we pushed off as quickly as we’d rested a bit. We tried to rig sails with canvas and paddles, however the wind was in opposition to us, so we went again to paddling. At midnight the arctic sundown was spectacular, mirrored within the rippled water. There have been no bugs. Finally we’d outrun the northward unfold of the hatch! At 1:30 a.m. we pulled in, arrange camp, and dragged our aching bones into our tents. In all we’d lined 24 miles—an excellent day’s work.
Dick noticed a cabin on the afternoon of our second day on Level Lake. By way of the binoculars we might see that it was a tin-roofed cabin with an outhouse and a seaside.
“Perhaps it’s the one Dave’s brother talked about,” I mentioned. “He will need to have crossed this manner when he canoed the Hood River in sixty-six.”
“George mentioned we’d be welcome to cease,” Dave mentioned. “How about it?”
There have been no arguments.
The cabin turned out to be wellstocked with pancake combine, stale crackers, and jam, so we helped ourselves.
“Right here’s George’s identify!” Dave mentioned, thumbing a visitor e-book he’d discovered. “Are you able to think about? George stopped right here when he got here via.”
After a pancake supper, we performed bridge and cribbage at an actual desk. We’d been getting on one another’s nerves, and a few previous magazines and the sports activities pages from two-year-old newspapers gave us one thing recent to speak about.
After the primary night time’s relaxation we’d had beneath a roof in weeks, we once more stoked up on pancakes. We left $12 and a notice of thanks for the cabin proprietor, cleaned up the place, and left.
We’d paddled about 12 miles and have been in Redrock Lake once we noticed some huge splashes of coloration about 1½ miles off our course.
“Appears to be like like huge tents,” Dick mentioned, pulling out the binoculars. “They seem like circus tents—the Large High has come to the Northwest Territories.”
We took a vote on whether or not to exit of our manner and cease. Time was operating out; it was July 17, and we’d instructed the Mounties that we’d be in Yellowknife by August 2. We had greater than 250 miles to go. However all of us craved contact with different folks, and the pancake binge on the cabin had solely whetted our need for a extra various eating regimen. The aspect journey received arms down.
The colourful tents proved to be a fly-in fishing camp for Ward Airways. On the camp have been three males our personal age: the airline proprietor’s son Kim Ward, Rick Newcombe, and Blair Wooden, all from Edmonton, Alberta.
“Welcome to the Redrock Hilton,” Kim mentioned after we’d launched ourselves. “We’re the one ones right here. Preparing for a celebration of thirty that’s on account of arrive in just a few days. You’re welcome to remain the night time if you need, and there’s loads of meals.”
For the subsequent three hours we ate. Friendships ripen rapidly to this point North, and the six of us pitched in and helped the three Canadians dig rubbish pits and put together the camp. All of us took sizzling showers, washed garments, and wrote some letters that our hosts supplied to mail for us. A supper of chili and lake trout stretched our stomachs.
THE NEXT MORNING, after a big breakfast of ham, recent eggs, toast, and peanut butter, we paddled off. Once we hit the primary marked rapids of the Coppermine, we didn’t take time to correctly look issues over earlier than we began the shoot that swamped Mark and Eck and ruined two of our cameras. From then on we have been extra cautious. We most likely would have been much more cautious had we recognized that one other occasion of skilled canoeists had suffered a tragedy in these similar waters, farther downstream.
As we moved alongside, the Coppermine started to unfold out between low marshy shores. In a single low spot we noticed a younger bull moose. Dick and Dave paddled over and obtained inside a canoe size of it, and the animal confirmed completely no concern.
“Clearly attracted by essence of goat,” shouted Eck, sniffing his personal dirty sleeve.
A howling, chill wind compelled us to take a layover on July 25. We had loads of meals however have been all the way down to our final spare tent pole, and our garments have been almost shot. We figured we had about 5 days of canoeing forward of us, however the wind didn’t even start to let up till the second day.
On the twenty sixth we went fishing to interrupt the monotony.
To our shock, a hefty arctic char slammed Mark’s spinner. I noticed the fish stalk the lure among the many rocks. It jumped a few instances after which ran till the strain of the straining rod and the drag of the reel wore it down. It was a stupendous six-pounder with a blue-green again and pink, orange, and cream markings.
Wealthy introduced in a 10-pound lake trout, and Dick added a one-pounder. We didn’t get beneath manner once more till the morning of the twenty seventh. There was ice on the tents once we took them down, and we wore our raingear as windbreakers beneath our life vests. Some tough going lay forward.
Now steep gorges squeezed the river into 20 miles of quick water. There we noticed a grizzly sow and two cubs, and a lone caribou in an icefield.
We beached on the head of Rocky Defile rapids, one of many river’s most notorious, to look it over from a excessive cliff. For 2 hours we studied the water, making an attempt to select landmarks we’d be capable to acknowledge from the water and to memorize the sample of V’s that indicated submerged rocks.
Wealthy and I have been to undergo first whereas the others remained on the cliff to observe. The water was ice-cold, and if we swamped we most likely wouldn’t reside 5 minutes. Wealthy knelt nicely again from the bow so it might journey excessive. The standing waves on the prime have been the most important I’d ever encountered, and the water whipped round enormous rock “haystacks.” We saved to the left across the first huge stack, then slowly labored our manner towards the precise shore. We shot via the rapids earlier than we had time to consider it. The others made it with out critical incident.
The rapids have been nearer collectively now, and we shot all of them: Musk Ox, Sandstone, Escape, and several other others not marked on the map. Nobody else has ever completed all of them, so far as we all know.
Nevertheless, we had to attract the road at Bloody Falls, the place the river disappears right into a gorge. It’s an enormous set of rapids and a near-impossible shoot, although an previous trapper supposedly made it as soon as in a freighter canoe. We selected to portage round Bloody.
Beneath the falls the Coppermine turns into a broad sandy delta with a sluggish present. Cabins started to indicate up alongside the financial institution as we approached city. At 4:45 on July 29—36 days and 77 portages out of Yellowknife—we beached at Coppermine.
Coppermine is a sleepy little village with a Hudson’s Bay retailer, a government-run nursing station, a Mounted Police workplace, some small homes, and lots of Eskimo kids. The youngsters appeared over our shoulders as we unloaded the canoes and adopted us as we walked over to satisfy Max Hyde, the native Mountie.
Later, after we’d pitched our tents within the yard subsequent to Max’s workplace, the Mountie in his very exact accent instructed a narrative that raised the hackles on my neck.
“Don’t suppose , however a fellow died again there at Rocky Defile rapids a couple of week earlier than you got here via,” he mentioned. “Appears a celebration of 4 from Minneapolis tried the run. They have been all alleged to be professional whitewater canoeists. Their boat swamped, and considered one of them was carried off. Drowned. He wasn’t sporting his life preserver on the time. Two of them stayed there, and the fourth fellow made it, on their own, right here to Coppermine for assist. The physique hasn’t proven up but.”
I turned away. I’m not particularly non secular, however I used to be starting to assume that regardless of our preparations and precautions we could have had some further assistance on the 600-mile journey.
This story is republished because it initially appeared within the August 1975 challenge beneath the title “Six Towards the River.”
