On our third night we camped directly across the river from the ugly, sprawling pulp mill at Hinton, Alberta, and prayed the wind would continue to blow the vile odors from the pulp mill away from us. As I watched the dancing flames of our camp fire, I remembered the lucky chance that had brought the three of us together on the Pacific Crest Trail two years before. Each of us had lost a partner so we began hiking together and calling ourselves the “Good Luck Guys.” Doug, so outgoing, friendly and enthusiastic; Byron, unpredictable, easygoing and unconscious of what others thought of him—they were the best of partners. These guys, whose thoughts and ideas were naturally akin to my own, doubled and redoubled my joy of adventure.
Next morning, not yet sure how many hours we needed to paddle the thirty’ miles a day necessary to finish our trip before winter, Byron pulled out his map and measured a thirty-mile day. Thinking the distance looked not too difficult, we paddled leisurely through the morning, running little rapids and basking in the sun. But by noon we realized we had covered fewer than fifteen miles. All afternoon we paddled steadily finishing the supposed thirty miles late in the evening. I felt a little discouraged about thirty-mile days, but after digging out the river report, I found, to my relief, that we had actually paddled almost forty miles. This discovery greatly boosted my spirits as on foot, twenty miles is a long distance, but we had easily covered forty miles on our fourth day.
No doubt not knowing how far a day of canoeing would take us shows some of our ignorance and lack of experience in long distance canoeing. Some might ask, “Why would three inexperienced canoers tackle 4,000 miles to learn to canoe? True, we knew little about canoeing, but we were experienced in wilderness travel and thought that if we couldn’t handle a rapid, we would portage around it, and of course we could handle the day-to-day flat water paddling. I never questioned whether I could canoe 4,000 miles, but I had questioned if I could afford the trip and when I should go. Always though, I had confidence in my ability to do what I chose to do.
When rain began the next day, I thought it just a passing shower and kept – paddling without covering anything. By the time I realized it was for real, everything, including me, felt rather damp. I stopped, covered my bright red canoe with a bright red spray cover, slipped on my red rain pants and raincoat, and pulled on my red hat—unplanned color coordination. Under the dripping clouds we joked about April showers bringing May flowers and, after a long and involved discussion, realized it was already May 1. Lunchtime brought a burst of sunshine just long enough for us to eat lunch, load up, and head out into the renewed downpour.
Tired of canoeing in the rain, we knocked off early although we had trouble finding a place to camp because of three to four feet high ice packs along the shore. After cruising along the shoreline, we found a spot where ice sloped right down to the water. I climbed onto the ice preparing to skid my canoe along the ice to an inviting flat spot under some sheltering trees. Then Byron started jumping up and down on the overhanging ice where I was standing. After four or five good solid leaps, the ice broke leaving me standing up to my shins in ice water. I swore mightily and jumped out, laughing at the ice in the cuffs of my pants. If I hadn’t laughed, I might have cried, so I said, “Just what I needed after a cold day on the river. What the hell were you trying to prove?” His reply—“I was just testing the ice to make sure it was safe for you to be out there.”
Later the cuffs of my pants drying by the fire caught fire, and as I leaped over to save them from cremation, I burned a hole in my glove and melted the lid to my water bottle. Everything seemed to be going wrong. My mood plummeted. Wild thoughts whirled madly in my mind as I sat silently staring into the flames. Rain and ice had drowned my ambitions and motives. As the sun slowly sank below the horizon, sending a brilliant flash of light between the clouds and cold still earth, my spirits sank with it. Depression clamped on my heart shrouding any glimmer of hope just as the dark, black clouds covered any signs of the twinkling stars. As the fire slowly burned to coals and then died completely, I slipped off to my sleeping bag, pulled the hood over my head, and drifted off to sleep.
During the night the clouds blew away along with my doubts and misgivings leaving a world bright, shiny, and covered with frost. The sun over the trees set all the crystals of frosty ice on the trees and grass dancing and shimmering with a clear silver light. My depression vanished with the light, so I jumped up and walked to the shore ice feeling like dancing and shouting “Hello” to the morning. My little red canoe seemed eager to continue the journey, and so was I. After my usual breakfast of oatmeal with liberal amounts of honey or sugar and lots of raisins and dried apples, I was off down the River.
Although the sky clouded over in the afternoon and we paddled on through shower after shower, my raingear kept me completely dry. Mother Nature has a way of throwing a nasty situation at you yet also providing something to laugh at while you suffer. As hailstones and rain driven by a strong wind were battering us, Byron pointed to shore with his paddle where two moose watched our little fleet. They had taken shelter under some pushes and looked at us as if to say, “Aren’t you guys being a little silly?” We had to admit we were, so we followed the mooses’ lead and took shelter under a nearby bridge until the hailstones stopped falling.
A flaming hot fire provides the best cure for a cold rainy day. We saw an inviting spot to camp as we floated by, but when we tried to paddle back, we began to appreciate the strength of the current. The spot‘s towering spruce trees and rippling creek made it well worth a little effort. We built a huge fire, a John Muir fire that lit the tops of the trees and warmed the whole grove. Our beaver neighbors didn’t come join us, but later we heard them swimming and splashing and slapping their tails in the creek. They had chewed through most of a cottonwood tree over three feet thick. Beavers were plentiful in this area, and we saw them and evidences of their work every day.
Our muscles were hardening after a week on the river although we had been in good shape before we left; Doug and Byron from planting trees and I from piling boards at a lumber mill. Still, paddling eight hours a day does take a little getting used to, and we were beginning to feel at home in our little crafts. I was bonding with my canoe and seeing it as a magic carpet taking me to the Arctic.
As the river increased greatly in size and current, so did the pollution. At Hinton, where a pulp mill dumped its malodorous sewage, the river changed from an emerald green to a stinking brown in just a few hundred yards. The river might have recovered had it not been for every town dumping sewage into it. Foam filled all the eddies, and the shores had garbage strewn along them for miles before each town. It really hurt to see a river treated like an open sewer.
Just below Fort Assiniboine we saw other canoers for the first time. They were just out for Sunday afternoon recreation, and we were surprised to see how easily we breezed by. Covering 35 miles a day was almost too easy. 5
We had considered tandem canoes but were now very happy going solo. We could go more or less as we pleased, pack our gear as we pleased, paddle at our own pace during the day, and be independent. The solo canoes enabled us to get along. Our theory for group happiness involved reducing the causes of friction. Fewer things to share or do together resulted in fewer problems. The key phrase is ‘have to.’ We often paddled side by side for miles and shared equipment and food. But we didn’t ‘have to.’
Next day the weather repeated itself with a cold, clear morning. We shook frost from our sleeping bags, broke ice in our water bottles, and cooked breakfast huddled around a fire or snuggled in sleeping bags. As the sun rose high enough to strike the river, the air warmed rapidly causing us to take off our shirts and apply suntan lotion. By noon, clouds magically appeared, grew, and multiplied until the sky grew dark, and we had to scramble for spray covers and raincoats. Just as they came, the clouds disappeared in the evening, and we prepared for a clear, cold night.
Few people have bedrooms as lavishly decorated as those where we slept with a living canopy of big spruce trees. We gazed on the grandest show one will ever see anywhere with sunsets and sunrises, the eternal twinkling of the stars, a moon sailing grandly over the mountains, falling stars, and the northern lights; where could one see anything more marvelous?
And what more reason did we need to be here than the uniqueness, an opportunity to live simply, to live each moment for its own sake, to confront the bare essentials, and to be in close contact with nature. Don’t you sometimes feel an irresistible urge to wander when you see a mountain or a river; don’t clouds beckon to you as they drift by, don’t you ache to feel sweat pour off your brow as you near the summit of a tall and craggy mountain, don’t the farthest parts of the globe draw you like a magnet, aren’t you happiest when you are moving? The future was ours, and we were free men for a summer and eternity.
Often our campsites provided entertainment as well as accommodation. One night three beaver came out as the sun set and began to work, carrying sticks from an island across the channels to the shore, their dark heads cutting long vees across the still water. Naturalists teach that beavers slap their tails only when they are alarmed, but these beavers obviously hadn’t heard that. They seemed to slap their tails often for sheer joy. When we did scare them, they frequently dived silently without slapping their tails.
Next day could only be described as magical with glorious sunshine and big, fluffy white clouds drifting across the blue sky throwing huge shadows on hills and water. Large splashes of green dotted the hillsides as trees began to sprout leaves. Everywhere grass greened, spring wildflowers bloomed, and songbirds trilled their delight. All cares and problems disappeared; worries and doubts fell away, making every paddle stroke exactly the right thing to be doing at that moment. My canoe seemed to feel the magic too as it chortled and danced through the waves. As I lay in my warm sleeping bag that night, every star seemed so close I could touch it. A loon laughed a wild and piercing laugh, a beaver slapped its tail across the river, and I knew I must be about the happiest man on this wonderful earth.
After several days of either a strong headwind or rain, I asked Byron, “Which would you rather have? Rain or a headwind?” He promptly answered, “What? We can’t have both?” And we had both all day, both rain and headwinds. The wind’s most annoying characteristic occurred after we had paddled to a hairpin turn bucking the wind, had gone all around the bend, and were still facing the wind.
My open canoe, in contrast to Byron and Doug’s decked ones, sat higher in the water making it more difficult to move against a wind. The decked canoes sit lower in the water but don’t have as much cargo capacity, are harder to pack, and have a less roomy seating area. However, their decks and rudders were an advantage in rough water. The one factor that determined my choice of canoe had been price—half the price of a decked one.
Cold and wet, we gratefully pulled into a grove of fir trees and built a huge fire. We much preferred camping under coniferous trees because they provide good, easy-to-light firewood and often some dry spots under their sheltering branches. Also, pine needles make luxurious beds with a woodsy aroma.
As the heat warmed our bodies and dried the dampness in our souls, eternal optimist Doug said, “Remember the Pacific Crest Trail? All the good times we had on that trip? I want to do it again. Remember the blisters and the Mojave Desert? It’s fun to think about them now. And remember the feelings when we stepped across the Canadian border? We are lucky —we have the chance to let it happen again.”
Byron added, “Yeah, it’s hard to believe we’re out here together again. I had some doubts for a while but look, here we are sitting by the river around a fire. I just want to enjoy this summer to the fullest. It’s going to be great. I can feel it in my bones.”
I answered, “Well, I had faith in you guys. I just know that we three can do it.”
The fire, with its pulsating, dream-inducing fascination, held our attention as we thought deep thoughts impossible to express. My dreams—what were they? Who was this person called Mike Rieseberg? Most of what I knew about him were reflections of other people’s opinions. I hoped that as I traveled down rivers and across lakes I would find a little of myself.