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DESTINATIONS
Paddling Canada's Subarctic
A Selection of Rivers
By Bill Layman
The Thlewiaza River
There are lots of rapids on this river but they are all pretty easy if you have fair to moderate whitewater skill. Lynda and I paddled all but one short violent section that we had to line. The biggest hazard on this river is the final two days of paddling on Hudson Bay to get to the Inuit community of Arviat, from where you can head south on daily scheduled flights. Hudson Bay is very dangerous and several canoeists have been swept out to sea and drowned in the attempt to paddle it.
My advice is to pre-arrange for an Inuit with a large boat to pick you up from the mouth of the river. This river was an area that the nomadic Dene traveled in their search for Idthen — caribou — and you can still see many of their campsites along the way. As the river winds its way in and out of the treeline through sandy esker taiga country, the scenery is spectacular; it is a great river to introduce yourself to paddling more remote and longer true barrens rivers. Of all the rivers Lynda and I have paddled this is without a doubt our overall favorite - and we will be back on it for sure.
 Read Bill Layman's article on the Thlewiaza
The Coppermine River
There is lots of great whitewater (Class II to Class III rapids and some Class IV rapids in certain water levels) throughout this trip and for my money it is what most recommends this river. The last two days you are in a canyon and there is no easy way to portage the rapids so you need strong whitewater skills.
You can start your trip by driving to Yellowknife from Edmonton, Alberta on a paved highway (all but the last 50 miles is gravel) with a series of great campgrounds along the route or you can fly in on daily scheduled jets. You will have to arrange for a float plane trip to get to your starting point, and trip's end finds you at the Inuit community of Kugluktuk where you can catch a scheduled flight back to Yellowknife.
Read Bill Layman's article on the Coppermine
The Kazan River
There are few rapids to paddle on the Kazan and all are easily portaged if you so choose, but there are several very big lakes to cross. This river was the home of the inland Caribou Inuit, whose ancestors now live in Baker Lake and Arviat, and you can still see their campsites everywhere along the river. If Lynda and I were to go back again it would certainly be for the history and the absolute solitude; we didn't see another human in the 32 days we were on the river.
Read Bill Layman's article on the Kazan
The Thelon River
The prime reason to paddle this river, which flows through the Thelon Game Sanctuary, is the wildlife — from caribou and musk oxen to grizzly bears and wolverines — it is all there. Sheltered as it is in a treed river valley you are less likely to be windbound and you always have the shelter of the trees in bad weather. With virtually no rapids or big lakes to paddle (unless you choose to paddle all the way to Baker Lake across Beverly, Aberdeen, and Schultz Lakes) this trip is a"float" so portaging isn't a worry. Much has been written about the Thelon; its history is the history of the Inuit and the Dene and the European explorers and trappers — and all of it is fascinating. And it is this history that will see us paddling from Rennie Lake to Baker Lake this summer.
Read Bill Layman's article on the Thelon The Hood River
Wilberforce Falls, the highest waterfall above the Arctic Circle, will fill any paddler with awe. The uniquely blue-green permafrost runoff, pure enough to drink untreated, plunges 184 feet in two dramatic stages in its
inevitable surge to the Arctic Ocean — a mere 20 kilometers below. Between the falls and the nameless lakes that make up its headwaters, 240 kilometers to the west, the Hood River flows over Class II and Class III rapids across the westernmost corner of Nunavut Province.
Last August I joined five paddling friends in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, to paddle the length of the Hood River. Jammed into a Twin Otter floatplane with our three canoes and gear, we watched as the trees below us slowly disappeared. We were north of the treeline and entering Canada's newest province, an unprecedented concession to native property rights. At times I felt like the peregrine falcon chicks we spotted during our longest portage, exposed to the elements and at the mercy of the river. To leave their nest perched above the rapids, they had to learn to fly or drown in the roiling water below.
— Sproule Love, GORP Editor |
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Article copyright © Bill Layman, 2000. Photograph copyright © Bill Layman, 2000.
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