The Blue Canoe, a technical journal for solo canoeing in the arctic
The Beaver plane tied up at the float base on Back Bay in Yellowknife, the morning I flew north, July 4, 2022
The sky was blue. Robin’s egg blue. White clouds scudded across her face. “I’ll be up there soon,” I said to myself, and smiled. I stood beside the owner of the float base, Steve Jeffrey, as we watched the pilot and another man tie my canoe to the struts of the Beaver’s floats, and finish fueling.
“What do you expect to find out there,” Steve asked, gesturing north.
“Treasure,” I said, and he replied, “There is no treasure out there…above ground. It’s underground in the diamond pipes. Used to be gold.” Yes, Yellowknife was founded in 1934 after gold was discovered. Three mines operated near town until the early 2000s, extracting over 15 million ounces of gold. More recently, industrial grade diamonds were discovered, and have replaced gold as the largest industry, next to the Territorial Government that operates from Yellowknife.
Yellowknife is the end of the road. Located on the shore of the Great Slave Lake, the deepest lake in North America, and the second largest lake in the Territories, you can always find the lake on the map of North America. Its shape resembles a goose, or a swan, flying east. Coming to Yellowknife, and going out to the tundra beyond, brings you into the attic of North America, full of old things, as well as secrets. In the case of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, it holds the largest wilderness left in the world. Some would argue about ‘the largest wilderness’ but other contenders like the jungles in South America and Africa, the Siberian outback, Alaska, still have people living in them. Since the 1950s, when the Inuit were moved off the land into settlements, there are no full time residents ‘out there.’ The rivers and creatures have the tundra to themselves. There are visitors, yes, and I’m one, but we don’t stay long. We pass through. As a solo canoeist I’ve been going north of Yellowknife too many times to pretend it’s for vacation.
Overview: Hello, I’ve recently returned from a five-week solo journey in the tundra, canoeing the Baillie river and a portion of the Back river north of the arctic circle. Not a place many travel to, especially in summer when the black flies and mosquitoes are murderous. It’s known as ‘the Barrens,’ supposedly because it has little to recommend it, or as a Scottish freind from the Highlands referred to it, “….that featureless place.”
My blog will last a month: a record of a journey centered on the skills required to undertake such a trip, plus a few insights and stories to help bring alive this “featureless place.” Over the past four decades, I’ve taken Rilke’s dictate to heart: if something is unknown to you, or scares you, go toward it, instead of away, and make it a friend. I’ve made canoeing in the arctic home. I’ve found treasure. If you’d like to travel with me, I promise not to exceed one or two pictures a post, and not to exceed a thousand words in each post.
