Day 2 (Jen)

Worth noting: Muskox at lunch, test shooting a bear banger, first class I rapids. Sunday, June 26/05

To add to Drew’s notes from yesterday, leaving Yellowknife was a bittersweet experience for me as I was leaving home a few thousand kilometers later than the rest of the group. The YK has been home for me for the last 8 months and on top of the frantic packing session at the Legion, I was trying to deal with all the last minute stuff involved in leaving home. My favourite part of yesterday was the downward spiral that the plane made as it moved to land in the lake. It was like the whole world was being turned on its axis – you couldn’t tell which way was up. When we touched down, the landscape of the Baillie River barrens looked positively lunar. Tonight we are camped a few kilometers down river from last night. There is a bit of a ridge rising behind our campsite and I took a quick walk before dinner. The landscape reminds me very much of Scotland . . . rocks, low bushes (I don’t think these ones are heather, must ask Tim), and views in all directions. During our paddles today we went over some whitewater skills with our paddling partners. Luckily I am with Levi – he’s a patient teacher with me, the most inexperienced of the group. Alie and Tim are together and Jenny and Drew in the last boat. At lunch we were treated to the sight of two muskox munching their way around the tundra. I think that we must have been silent enough because they didn’t get scared away by our presence. Tonight after dinner we went over some bear safety tips and familiarized the group with how to use the bear bangers and screamers. We shot off a test shot into the air – it would be enough to send me running, that’s for sure! (ed: much later in the trip, when we entered potential polar bear country, we had a heated debate about whether to test the bear bangers. Pro was to practice and see how they worked and make sure they worked, con was that the instructions recommended a thorough cleaning of the starter pistol after each use, which we didn't have the capability to do. Somehow, apparently none of us remembered that we had already tested it on day 2 - we should have checked our journal.)

Arctic canoe trip journal, day 1 (Drew)

Arctic canoe trip journal, day 1 (Drew), originally uploaded by Levi Waldron.

I recently received our completed group journal from my arctic canoe trip last summer, so I'm going to start posting entries from it here, along with pictures. On this trip, 6 of us (Jen McKay, Jenny Kingsley, Tim Irvin, Drew Gulyas, Alison Pick, and myself) paddled 1050km in the NWT and Nunavut over 54 days on the Baillie and Back Rivers and Chantrey Inlet. Here is our first journal entry. It starts off pretty tame, but there were some real adventures on this trip, startingaround day 20.

Arctic Journal 2005

Worth noting: no bugs, 1C, Arctic terns, several ducks, Tim found Muskox fur.

We are living the dream.

It is 11:45PM and the end of Day #1 in the Arctic. Today was smooth but oh did it take some hard work to get here. After a joyful gathering at the bus station on Thursday night (the first time we were all together as a group), we woke up to rain on Friday morning and a slight wrinkle in our packing plans. The Canadian Legion to the rescue. We took over their Bingo Hall and packed our brains out. We packed and repacked. Debated, conferenced, discussed. We considered all the angles and merits of every piece of food and bit of equipment. We purged and then retreated to Jen’s place to work on personal gear. The packing wrapped up around midnight and we were proud of ourselves for all we accomplished – including packing Blueberry Pie. (ed - Blueberry Pie was a very large canoe pack loaded with about 150lb. of food.)

Up early today to deal with the last minute details. We work on canoes, purge more items and tend to the details of our lives that will have to do without us for the next 50 days. Take out from the noodle house and then it’s time to fly. We are the third canoe trip to be dropped off the Air Tindi this year. The flight is cold but uneventful. Yesterday’s plane crash lurks on the shore, upside down beneath a crane but it doesn’t seem to be a bad omen because we are up, up and away. We take in the landscape and as the plane climbs above the cloud cover people drift off the sleep. When we emerge from the clouds 60 minutes later we can see the barrens, and as we continue north it isn’t long before we see the ice on the lakes. What an adventure we are beginning!

We set up camp and take some important quiet moments as individuals. We reconvene to talk group dynamics, camp chores and paddling partners. It is a productive conversation followed by dinner, a bit of tinkering with the boats and gear, and now camp is quiet and it’s time for sleep. Day one was a success, a dream come true.