The Thelon and Elk Rivers

In addition to the regular first aid and survival gear necessary for any canoe trip, Lynda and I carry a VHF radio that we can use to talk to aircraft. If you buy or rent one of these units for your northern trips, familiarize yourself with the local air schedules, the frequencies that the planes use, and general radio protocol. I also carry a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) sold by ACR Electronics, Inc. (http://wwwacrelectronics.com/) that is strapped to the back of my life jacket in case we capsize and lose our gear. These units should be mandatory on canoe trips rather than the much cheaper EPIRBs that seem to be the common choice of American canoe camps. The signal from the EPIRB is not coded and a general, rather than specific, search is immediately initiated. This unfortunately usually involves launching a Canadian Armed Forces Hercules transport planes—at a cost of about $10,000 per hour—that assess the situation and then usually call in rescue helicopters at an additional cost of about $1,000 per hour. My feeling is that it is false economy to buy the cheaper EPIRB and in fact last summer I am personally aware of two very expensive searches that were initiated when EPIRBs were set off. The cost of these two rescue attempts would buy a lot of PLBs!

This year I took a GLOBALSTAR satellite telephone (USA http://www.globalstar.com/ CANADA http://www.globalstar.ca/) along to try out. WOW is all I can say!—every canoe in the world should have one of these. About the size of a portable phone in your house, I was able to do a series radio interviews from the river without ever losing the signal or re-charging the battery and the quality of the phone conversations is as good as any land line. If you are interested in hearing the about 85 minutes of live-from-the-river taped interviews about our trip, contact me at layman@rongenet.sk.ca. The cost is $12 US funds (17 Canadian) plus $4 US funds ($6 Canadian) for shipping (money orders only please).

Maps
The following 1:250,000 NTS Maps are required for the Elk-Thelon trip and can be obtained from A World of Maps (see contact information below):

75-H Rennie Lake75-I Beaverhill Lake

75-P Hanbury River65-M Clarke River

66-D Tammarvi River66-C Beverly Lake

66-B Aberdeen Lake66-A Schultz Lake

For winter planning purposes get the following 1:500,000 VFR Navigation Charts:

Air 5030 Yellowknife Air 5036 Bathurst Inlet

Air 5037 Baker Lake Air 5031 Rankin Inlet

Contacts

1. Northern Dene Airways, Dave Webster, Stony Rapids, Saskatchewan, 306-439-2020
2. Athabaska Airways, La Ronge, Saskatchewan, 800-667-9356
3. Whitewater Inn, Stony Rapids, Saskatchewan, 306-439-2188
4. Baker Lake Lodge, Boris or Liz Kotelewetz, Baker Lake, Nunavut, 867-793-2905
5. North Star Tours, Faye, Churchill, Manitoba, 204-675-2852
6. A World of Maps, (800) 897-9969 OR (613) 724-6776, bgreen@worldofmaps.com, http://www.worldofmaps.com/
7. R.C.M.P., Baker Lake, 867-793-2922
8. R.C.M.P., Stony Rapids, 306-439-2185
9. Horizon's Unlimited, Ric Driediger, 306-635-4420, ric.crco@sk.sympatico.ca, http://www.lights.com/waterways/crco
10. Nunavut Tourism Office, 800-491-7910, 867-979-6551, http://www.arctictravel.com/sites
11. Northwest Territories Arctic Tourism Office, 800-661-0788, 867-873-7200, arctic@nwttravel.nt.ca

For a text only MS-WORD version of this story, and Bill Layman's other arctic canoe stories, go to http://www.churchillrivercanoe.com.