The Thelon and Elk Rivers

An up-and-coming moose

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The middle Thelon—from the Hanbury junction to Beverely Lake—is well into the Thelon Game Sanctuary. It is a broad, fast-flowing river with no rapids of any real concern.

This is the best section of the river for wildlife viewing—from wolves to musk-oxen to caribou to moose to grizzly bears, to arctic hares to sik-siks—it is all here. The guide of a small group we met had been on this section ten days earlier and had witnessed "la foule"—the migration of the entire Beverly caribou herd—and estimated the caribou in the tens of thousands. One of his clients, a young first time customer from Albany, New York, happened on a huge grizzly bear within 50 feet of his tent one night when he went out to relieve himself!

Much of the middle of the river is sheltered in a well-treed narrow valley—the so-called Thelon Oasis—so the chances of getting wind bound are slim. Even if you do you can make up miles in a hurry on a good day—12 hours of hard paddling could easily see you move 50 to 60 miles. As you float by the Gap—a mountainous rock formation that towers hundreds of feet above the river—you begin to feel as if you are on a mountain river somewhere in the Rockies.

Then suddenly you cut through a narrow opening and are thrust back into tundra shoreline interspersed with sand beaches and eskers. Other sections of the river wind through thinly layered sandstone S-turns. Floating by these sheer walls, we were reminded of the Anasazi ruins we had seen during winter trips to the American southwest.