Chapter 1, Learning to Canoe

With ice piled high on the shaded shores of the Mackenzie River and the jagged snow line on the mountains not yet retreating beyond the valley, we knew we were pushing the seasons. Lake Athabasca might still be frozen when we arrived, and almost certainly Great Slave Lake would still have ice, but we were ready to take the chance. We wanted every day possible to enjoy our summer. We didn’t want a race; we had in mind something like a picnic.

I thought of my friends at the sawmill where I had sweated for five months earning money for this trip. They were still trapped by their desires and fears into spending eight hours of their lives every day doing something they didn’t really enjoy. And here I was, out on the river as free as the wind.

Because the mountains in Jasper National park were too beautiful to rush away from, we were unconcerned about making miles. Also, we were not yet used to canoe camping although we had extensive hiking and backpacking experience. Slowly I learned to organize thirty days’ worth of food so I could find everything easily. Pots and pans found homes in the right packs, and a system for packing and unpacking the canoe emerged, but on these first days setting up and breaking camp was a long and involved process.

Brule Lake, near the park boundary, gave us our first taste of rough water with wind blowing down the lake so hard that sand flew off the numerous sandbars. In shallow water the choppy waves began teaching us what our canoes could take and under what conditions we could control them. Our canoes splashed bravely through the crashing waves straining to keep moving against the wind. Later in the trip, we looked back and laughed at the apprehension we felt in the moderate waves of Brule Lake.