August 14- August 24

Starting into the braids of the Mackenzie Delta at Separation Point, felt like breaching the ends of the earth. Everything beyond here was muskeg; land half sponge, mud half sand, all shifting and floating around a few, deeply rooted formations. This was where Alexander Mackenzie had dismissed English Chief and the locals’ advice to follow the east channel to Inuvik and instead headed into the middle of the second biggest Arctic Delta in the world.

I was fascinated that his journal accounts mentioned the trees stopping several miles further south than where they grew today. I imagined the Boreal Forest marching northward, just as the trees in Arizona are climbing mountains, trying to survive the heat. Changes which mobilize entire populations and communities.

Journal entry 8.15.22 Grey cabin, Red trim river r ~31 km to Inuvik
Seen: mamma grizz, 2 cubs, tundra swan, loons, terns

“Woke to drizzles so we dozed until 11. Saw 2 dragonflies cast final ripples as they succumbed to death but remained atop the water. Overcast and cool all day. Above the Arctic Circle, add a layer.

So many loons, funny calls. All states and color of maturation.  Half fuzzed, stark black little loonlet bobbing as it learns a changing center of gravity.
Tired from 50 km. Shoulders sore from pushing heavy water (sluggish crawl, maybe 4.7 mph if we put our cores into it, more often around 3.7.) My hands shake when I become still.

Grateful for hunting cabin with open but bug net porch and tin roof. Rain patters after quinoa and tomato paste dinner. I leave a note to the owners thanking them.

8.16.22
Humdinger of a day. Paddled out in good spirits, excited for town, winding among the hunting cabins which are way nice. Someone must have got a moose because 5 or 6 bald eagles (only 2 mature), seagulls and ravens were gathered around guts in the shallows.
Eagles’ funny little chitter.
Humans out at their camps move about purposefully, smoke rises. Preparing for winter?

Tired rolls in as goofy to compensate for oozing slow waters. Headwind on the last straight of way into Inuvik.

“Today was 30 years long.” -Neon

We’d hoped to stop in Inuvik for a night to situate ourselves but between the Highway Tourists and businesses, all the rooms are booked solid a year in advance. The only people we knew there, the other canoeist duo, were pacing stressedly around on their phone, [shadowed by his Very Good Dog 11/10]. They’d come up on a tight work vacation deadline and had expected that putting their truck on the barge, it would arrive on ‘schedule.’

It felt like more of a commerce and industrial town, like Norman Wells. Buses and swarms of people surged through the few restaurants and brand new information center, like a heartbeat of humans flowing; the locals who were all just collecting their monthly checks, would lounge, loiter, gather, and watch then scatter at the next group and do it again. After eating a delicious gyro and laughing with some locals, we decided our needs and nerves would be better served by paddling on. 

The gents at the gas station let us fill all our dromedaries as we were uncertain how much fresh water we’d be seeing from here on out. By 9 pm we were paddling past the ubiquitous crew of boys swimming. A pack of young huskies delighted to pace us along the bank for about a mile.

We stopped in the ruins of a trashed fishing camp, just on the edge of cellphone reception and posted up for a storm the next day. Sat that out, keeping busy with munching anything our hearts desired out of the barrels, phone business, banking, the utter pleasure of being able to take a phone call and chat with a friend after her back surgery, travel plans, heartfelt effusions of emotion, talking through strains in relationship. Business as usual.

The next day we came upon Reindeer Station. This was the place Sharon, back in Fort Smith, had talked about growing up before being forced to relocate to Inuvik. I had to agree with her, this seemed a much more wholesome place, with fresh water pouring down from Caribou Hills rising lush, several hundred feet behind the well tended settlement of lovely little cabins, a central kitchen and gathering area, fire rings, smoke houses, and a wooden outdoor dancing floor. On the other side of a wild hedge grown entirely over some other mystery, stood the ruins of a gable house, hollow window frames peer dustily through a tattered porch. 

We had hoped someone would be around but as always, also enjoyed exploring on our own; though, that only sparked further curiosity, which of course sent me to reading. Canada’s Reindeer Project (typically Canadian understatement in the name) A saga of herding over 3000 animals, featuring a Reindeer King, and storms the likes of which you and I could never imagine?! [A book about it would magically appear on my doorstep in Banff about a month later.]

Amidst increasingly finicky winds, we next landed at the Sand Hills. Here a family kindly leave their cabin unlocked for wayfarers to take refuge. There was a notebook on the table along with playing cards, chairs, a kitchen, and anything you might want, assuming you had brought everything you need.

We waited out a dull, damp day on the premise that we still didn’t totally understanding the weather forces. Admittedly,  the opportunity to sit dry and watch the weather and river through a window, with mug of tea in hand and flipping through the log book, just seemed all around more appealing.  It was mostly a record of various family visits, projects undertaken (they have to jack up the foundations of the house as the ground moves), animal footprints seen, water levels, references to traditional antidotes, best spots to gather driftwood for fire, etc.

Our favorite were the heroics of Chubby, presumably the dog. Amidst the family entries there were also friends and strangers. I added tic marks of two more paddling pairs who’d come through this season and was amused to find Bill ‘One Gallon’, a friend of Backtrack’s and a quadruple Triple Crowner who has done more paddling than backpacking, had signed through some years ago.

By that evening’s calm we felt restored, dry, and ready enough to see what lay ahead.

Journal entry 8.22.22 River R ~3km past Swimming Point

Windy day, sometimes a battle, clawing our way, groveling into our Lord and Punisher the North Wind. Kindred to our Patron bikepacking Saint, Our Lady of Perpetual Uphill.

Once we’d stopped for lunch and I put on a second pair of socks and Tuk’s Tooque, felt better. Also the sun began peeping between clouds and we’d cheer, then it came out fully.

Crux of the day came at the narrowing and 90* bend at Swimming Point. I can see why herds would come here to cross, where the cliffs swoop gracefully like a slide into the curve of the water, so long as you stay out of…right where we ended up, a strong calf could make the crossing.

Which is now hoarded by a rigid gas extraction complex backed by bunk houses that look like prisons hulking at the top of the peninsula, blocking it off for other’s use. This is one of the reasons I didn’t want to end in northern Alaska. 

Water swamping as the bow slaps where the current is pushing against its own refraction and roiling. I shout directions, Neon drives, perspective amidst frothy peaks and rooster tail is dicey. I think about Gay, about newborn Emmett, about Owen and Kian and we dig ourselves out with our water spoons.

Past the worst of it we pull off at Holmes Creek to east Snickers bars and attend basic needs. We’re swept and stand there chewing, staring at the water. The Dumit (the coast guard boat which came out to replace the first one which had lost an engine) comes chugging around the bend and we have an absolute hoot when they come dip in to the very river mouth we were standing at.

We put on a display of our “stately old man bellies” (ie-patting our rain jackets stretched over PFDs) and mimicked a phi-silly-ophical conversation with each other about our Calvin Ball-esque competition with things that don’t know we are racing. Anyway, we always win in the end, even if they get there first.
They toot their horn and chug on.

Most of my notes from this section are to do with Bird Drama. Awkward teenage eagles with leg feathers sagging as it stands in mud on the river bank (instead of perching on a log like a couth eagle), squabbling parents (loon call is eerie and lilting when it comes rarely. When they are going at it for the 5 hours of sunrise…less enchanting), and flotillas of chics. I’m telling ya: threesomes, group bathing, domestic disputes, turf wars, bullies; step aside reality TV!

Around us, the tundra rolled plump, rollicking above the river banks, affording folded views into the dermis of sodden earth. Some places were 12 m of draped mosses, vines, and fortified by tree drift caught in the tangle. We were peering into the contents of the strainer of the carbon sink. 

From it I was always able to procure firewood and kicked one up whenever we stopped for any amount of time, remembering the Gauchos in Patagonia. I enjoyed that my hair was the same auburn color as the tundra taking on its autumn tones. As one who lives adrift, these little moments of feeling blended in and complimentary to a landscape is balm.

For some hours my attention was drawn an inscrutable distance to the first Pingo pimpling up on the horizon, Aklisuktuk. The shallows became wide with sand and mud so we stay about 500 m from the shore unless prepared to scrape bottom across bog. Mostly we muster on, now seeing the last solid ridge to the sea. The river mouth to the Beaufort of the Arctic Sea.

In the evening hour, the wind which had torn around the shallow braids toward the outlet, suddenly died. We’d been planning to camp in the shelter of the cliff but you don’t let a gift of stillness at a river mouth go to waste! A family in Inuvik had told us of a historic beluga hunting camp and fishing camps along this coast. They’d said we were welcome to those spaces, though lamented that we’d likely missed this year’s hunt. The father told of ones past, said that he’d heard there were even some women spear hunters!

On our last night we made camp in a shallow, grassy strip abutting the base of the tundra, amidst driftwood and willows. Walking the beach at low tide, I found whale vertebrae and a Russian Coke can. Neon and I spoke of Then and Now over dinner of Pad Thai generously sprinkled with cashews. Of the cast of characters and interactions which got us here and also the costs. Mostly it was revelry, taking that night to ourselves.

I sat up until the sun was ready to tuck in. I went out and had offered a ritual of praise and thanks. I stood perched on a rock in the shallows, beneath an arbor of celebration. Summoning names of those living and gone, then extending the invitation further, to all the forces which had welcomed us along the way and helped get us here. In that long, pink light, I felt myself in vast company. I was an iota, in a rumble of pleasure and affirmation suffusing the spans of space. I faded to darkness along with the sky.

The next morning, as per our routine, Neon popped out of the tent first and came back to Make Report that somewhere in the night, the Dumit Coast Guard boat had snuck up on us YET AGAIN and was anchored one small island out to sea. We could see their tower and instruments hard at work. We wondered if they could see that we were not wearing pants.

Neck in neck, racing to the very end. I told myself. As we heaved and hoed the fully loaded canoe across sand of unpredictable consistency, where the tide had receded while we slept. 

We paddled in awe across a glassy surface. Low clouds blended sky into sea, tricky to the perspective except when gentle spats of rain textured the surface a few hundred meters out to sea. Keeping to the coast, waving to the errand fellow as he leap frogged our steady progress in his speedboat, stopping at the different docks.

I kept checking over my shoulder for some fast moving front to come roaring in, unable to believe the serenity upon which we glided. Through conscious remindings, loud joyous whooping, and a fair amount of singing, I stayed present. Amongst ever larger whale bones, a twin set of pingos, and Arctic lakes still sparkling I felt curiosity and contentment in abundance.

We crossed a final small bay and landed on a pebbly inlet beach which turned out to be a most fortuitous place to end an expedition.