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- Corneille Trip 2007
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- Just a small rapid?
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- The “demi-charge”
For most participants on the canoe trips, rapids were the best part of the trip. They were exciting and broke up the monotony of paddling for miles on end. While the original voyageurs would not likely consider rapids all that much “fun” – given their precious cargo – the staff and students at the schools usually wanted to give them a go. According to tourism Saskatchewan the top four rivers for rapids in that province are the Churchill, the Fond du Lac, the Clearwater and the Cree. For the Alberta alumni these will all sound very familiar.
What was your most memorable rapid? Which trip? Send us your story.
June 18, 2018 at 2:14 pm
First canoe trip: Fond du Lac.
This was the Bad Olde Days when steersmen were handed a long paddle, and told, “you sit in the back.”
I had some canoeing experience from scouts, and about 2 hours practice on the Rocky Mountain House Race. After the very light weight tandem boats, the 22 foot Selkirks were a challenge.
Fortunately I had some time to practice. That year we started at South End, a native community at the south end of Reindeer lake. We were 12 days getting to Gulf Mineral Mine’s exploration camp, and two more days to get to the top of the Fond.
My first rapid was at the exit of Wollaston. The Fond is about 20 feet wide there and maybe 2 feet deep. The rapid was a simple syrup spout dropping a few inches. I was underwhelmed that this would be marked on the map.
I was a newbie, so looking at the map wasn’t one of my privileges. But Rod Voss and Bud Brooks would refer to sets of rapids. I finally understood this to mean multiples. At least two, and often as many as 5. And indeed the next rapids fell into this pattern.
We scouted few of these on the upper river. Most were small ledges or boulder gardens, and the gap between elements of the set was small — hundred meters to half a kilometer.
Redbank falls took the group by surprise. Rod and Bud had gotten complacent, and were shooting everything. I wasn’t very good at motivating my crew, and so I was tail end charlie by a considerable margin, couple hundred meters.
Trying to out clever the other steersmen, I was close to the north shore. There was less wind here, and I figured that I was gaining thereby.
The canoes ahead had vanished. I hadn’t noticed, because the north edge of the river had a fair current and lots of rocks. I zipped by 50 feet from shore, and missed 4 rocks in 10 seconds alternately left and right by margins measured in inches. At the bottom of this exciting bit was deep water.
We were in a wide bit of river. Really a small lake maybe a kilometer across. I could see two of the canoes heading for the far shore, and three more still, but bailing.
Turns out Redbank falls is a 3 foot drop over a ledge, and all 5 of the other canoes had buried their bow in the big wave at the bottom and had 3/4 swamped. (This was still the years of “Run that son of a bitch right down the middle!”)
No one had dumped. Two canoes went to shore to empty out. After a bunch of “How come you’re all dry?” I gained a bit of respect from the crews.
***
Lost a lot of it the next day. Rapids came in sets, right? Bud said after the next set we had to face Thompson Falls, a12 foot ledge.
So we shot a small riffle. I was looking for part 2 of the set. Again I was way behind. Much of this was due to ‘running order’ Bud and Rod wanted a good 50 to 100 yards between canoes. But they didn’t stop to regroup. As tail end charlie this put me up to half a km behind each set. I got to the point that I just accepted that I was on my own.
Anyway was paddling merrily in the fast water between rapids and one of the crew pointed out that everyone was on shore yelling at us.
I realized there was a horizon line in front of me.
Hard pry. “Paddle.”
I got the boat heading at right angles to the current, making best possible speed.
We were moving downstream.
FAST. I put more angle on the canoe, aiming 45 degrees upstream. This, my physics brain said, was the best compromise between fighting the current and making progress toward shore.
We were still losing ground.
“Harder. Power strokes, guys.”
Muscles burning.
We were getting out of the main current.
We were actually making ground up stream.
“Ok normal power. We’re safe.”
A set, I found out, can be just one. This was Thompson Falls.
On a later trip I met a gal who was solo canoeing the Fond. She enjoyed shooting the falls enough she was portaging uphill to shoot it again. Little canoes can do that.
June 19, 2018 at 10:10 am
The Granite River in 1966 was a formitable foe. Bailing like mad with a rain hat was semi successful in keeping us afloat.
June 24, 2018 at 1:36 pm
Three years later I was doing the Bloodvein with John Corkett as brigade leader.
We came to one rapid. The portage around it was long, nearly a mile. The rapid itself was short, but below it was fast water in a canyon for the rest of the mile.
We really didn’t want to do the portage. Fire had come through a few years before and the trail was a mass of pickup sticks. We’d be there the rest of the day.
There were 3 ledges that each spanned about 2/3 of the width of the river. The one at the top was on the left , then one on the right. The right one had shot a strong current into soft rock and had carved a 100 foot circular notch in the wall of the canyon.
The third ledge was just down stream from the notch.
To my relatively inexperienced eyes (this was only my 4th canoe trip, and only my second with much in the way of rapids.) I didn’t see how it could be done. I could see how to get past the first two, by taking each one as close as possible, but all the water that wasn’t foam on the second one, went straight into that notch.
John tried to explain to Clint Kelly (our third steersman) and me.
I was skeptical. “Show me. If you get through I’ll follow. Otherwise I’m portaging.”
John showed me.
Like I figured he skimmed the first ledge as close to the left as he dared, and then steered hard left. He crossed the right ledge well off the tip, and was in the left side of the current jet that went into the notch.
He had seen what I had missed. Most of the water swirled around in that notch. The water took him around the notch, and he came out pointing somewhat upstream at the top of the notch, but below the first ledge.
From that point he did a ferry across the current spun around and missed the tip of the third ledge by a good 6 feet.
My turn.
I didn’t get as far left as John did. That wall came up with express train like speed. I was cranking hard, and my bowsman was prying for all he was worth.
The wall current grabbed us and spun us. I think I could have touched the wall with my paddle.
The rest of the rapid is a bit blurred. Being further outside in the notch swirl, I came out further to the right as I entered the main current. We went over the tip of hte ledge, took a few gallons of water over the bow as we did.
Alas the canyon kept me busy. I didn’t see Clint come through. That rapid was all the kids could talk about for the rest of the day.
June 24, 2018 at 1:53 pm
Simon Jeynes, Murray Davis, Colin Belton and I took a canoeing course one summer. This was to get some formal credentials, something that the school was criticized for after Temiskaming.
The four of us didn’t figure we had much to learn.
We changed our mind. Sure much of the 2 man canoe technique wasn’t applicable. But a lot of it was.
Some time later Simon and I put that to the test. We were doing the Churchill with a batch of grade 10s. Up to Birch Falls we had shot everything, including a bunch of rapids that SJ never shot.
We portaged Birch, and camped at the bottom. Looking at the map that night, I pointed out that the rapids actually straddled an island, and while the main channel was on the south, there was another channel on the north.
At this point in SJ history we were moving away from the ‘get the trip done as fast as possible. Don’t worry about teaching skills, that’s not what we’re trying to teach.’
So the next morning we paddled over to look at the north side. Looked fairly easy. So we tracked up it.
Once at the top, I asked Simon if we could shoot it, to maintain our unbroken streak of shooting everything. Simon gave us all the choice of shooting or tracking back down.
That was a no brainer.
As navigator it is usually my privilege to shoot first. “Show us where not to go!” cried John Gee.
The north channel gets far less water than the south one. Current was light.
I started down, and went through a notch in the top ledge. It was only a drop of a few inches.
The next ledge had three notches in it.
“Backwater”
“Lightly”
We were motionless in the river, backing just as fast as the water went forward.
“That one looks shallow. Let’s look at the middle.” I put a bit of angle on the canoe, and we drifted sideways.
“Bowsman, this one look deep enough?”
“I think so.”
“Weigh-up”
Our speed picked up as the water carried us forward. Ploop. Thorugh the notch.
This was the first time, but far from the last when I would use a backferry in a rapid to gain time: time to scout. Time for the canoe to be carried by the water. (The water went around the rocks. Why couldn’t we?) Time to move into water going where we wanted to go. Time for the bow to rise up over the wave instead of smashing through it.
June 25, 2018 at 5:51 am
I was with Paul Nordahl, Simon Jeynes (I think…), and an alumnus, Rob Savin on the Camsell trip. This trip starts at Wollaston Lake, goes down the Fond du Lac, portages out of Lake Athabasca at Camsell Portage into the Tazin River, then down the Tazin to the Taltson, to Great Slave Lake, then across the lake to Yellowknife.
There were two rapids of note. Both on the Tazin.
Many rapids on the Canadian Shield are a places where the river has cut through an esker. An esker is the riverbed of a river that ran under the glaciers. The river melted rocks out of the ice, and deposited them on it’s bed, so the river created a long skinny hill under the ice as the glaciers melted.
When the ice is gone, water pools on the uphill side of the esker, and eventually breaks through. The resulting river down stream is full of rocks ranging from inches to feet across. This is the source for most boulder garden rapids.
Small rocks are easier for the current to move, so often these rapids have big rocks near the top. Where the river empties into the next lake, the river fans out getting wider and shallower.
We’d been shooting small boulder gardens all day. Current in boulder gardens is generally fairly slow, so if you have a good backferry, you can pretty much stop anywhere, ferry to shore. We were scouting from the boats. (Stand up, look carefully…)
Most of the time.
This one was fairly long, and didn’t drop much. Map said a few meters. Spread over a kilometer of rapid this promised a good ride, but mostly one of manoever, not of speed. Wasn’t even big rocks at the top, except near the shore. Channel was deep.
For once I wasn’t first, but last. This was Paul’s testing trip, and he decided that he was doing rapids first, and I would be tail end charlie. I didn’t mind, except it made getting rapids pix hard.
“Running Order!”
50 meters apart. Far enough apart that if someone got into trouble, the canoe behind could take evasive action, close enough so that you could use their moves as guides to your own, or at least as clues as to what to expect.
Paul led off, followed by Simon, then Rob. I brought up the rear.
A hundred meters later I knew we were in trouble. The deep channel meant low friction. The water was moving FAST. Faster than my backferry. There were rocks between us and the shore. To have a chance at stopping we’d have to turn end for end, and to a forward upstream ferry to get rid of the velocity. I wasn’t sure if we could land even power stroking upstream.
I backferried gently to give the people in front more room, and called to Rob to do the same.
Paul kissed a rock, hard. His canoe lurched but didn’t dump. He was perched.
Simon struck, started to pivot sideways. He got several people out of the bow, which lightened the bow enough to move forward a few feet, then loaded them back in. He had visions of anohter canoe slamming sideways into legs.
Rob Savin saw two canoes taking up the best parking spots, so he hugged the right shore and found his own parking spot.
I now had three targets to miss.
“Bowsman! See those two big rocks ahead?”
“Yeah”
“We’re going to park between them”
“Backwater lightly”
I started to backferry.
Now a backferry is confusing for the bowsman. You want to move the bow away from the object you are heading toward. My bowsman tried to pull us toward the gap.
“No bowsman, the other way.”
He continued.
“Dammit, do what I tell you!”
He turned and glared, but did as he was told.
“Backwater hard!”
A backferry is hard to maintain at power. The stern wanders harder than I can draw or pry. But 3 strokes doesn’t usually get you in trouble. Here the water was shallow and much slower than it had been. We gently wedged between the rocks. Simon was 20 feet to my right and a bit ahead. Paul was a 60 feet ahead. Rob, a hundred feet behind, and against the right shore.
We walked the next hundred meters tracking our canoes over the fan of rocks, and camped on the next island.
June 25, 2018 at 8:47 pm
Otter Rapids was frisky that year.
One thing about it: It’s dead easy to scout. Good portage trail, and you can walk out on the bridge and check it out.
I was with Jason Coates.
“Let me try it. We’ll take the gear over first.”
“You really want to do this?”
“Worst case: we get wet. It’s a warm day.”
I offered to my crew that anyone who wanted could walk. No takers. They all wanted in.
We set out and about 200 feet in I realized that the waves were a LOT bigger here than they were 20 minutes ago as seen from the bridge.
“Backwater.” Three strokes took the forward weigh off the canoe.
“Backwater lightly” A light backwater means you have a little longer to rise over the waves. Everyone is paddling so if you need power there is no imbalance as someone comes in late.
“Weigh up.”
“Give way lillydip”.
Oh dear. That next wave is going to be a big one.
Crash! 20 gallons landed in the lap of the bowsman like a wet newfoundland dog.
“Steady stroke. Paddle to the bowsman, not the waves”
“Bowsman, slow the stroke a bit!”
Crash! This one was just a big wet retreiver.
I didn’t like the set of the current toward the shore.
“Give weigh lightly”
I put about 20 degrees of angle to the current and we eased out from shore. More than 20, and a wave could turn us sideways. As it was we took two over the port guy just behind the bowsman.
I had about 5 inches of water at my end. Stern rides lower so splash water finds it’s way to my feet.
We were far enough from shore.
“Give way lillydip”
“Keep the stroke.”
I had about 2 inches of freeboard at the back. The canoe was getting unresponsive, leaden, to steering. We still had half the rapid to go.
One more wave came in. Not from the front. From the back. With a thousand pounds of assorted soggy canines, the canoe didn’t rise. We cut through the next wave, and at my low freeboard end it just poured over the gunnel.
“Guys, we’re going down. Keep the stroke.”
We passed under the bridge with only shoulders up showing. The rest of the canoe was under water.
“If we do this right we can pull into the eddy at the bottom, and claim we didn’t dump. Keep a slow steady light stroke.”
The current swung us toward the point guarding the eddy. I had visions of boys squished between a canoe full of water and a hard place.
“This is your captain. We have to abandon ship. All passengers and crew will exit on the starboard gunnel. Do not run.”
We got out with enough ease and grace that the canoe didn’t even roll over. We swam into the eddy, the canoe was rescued by another boat. Most of my crew didn’t get their hair wet.
June 25, 2018 at 9:11 pm
Firebag.
This trip shares much of the route of the Camsell, but instead of taking the Tazin all the way to the Taltson, we cut off at Hill Island lake.
But this story was still on the Tazin.
Four canoes on that trip. Simon Jeynes was running the trip, and Jim Gerber, Mike Flynn and myself were the other steersmen.
There are two ways to get from the lake at the height of land on the Camsell (puddle really…) to the Tazin. When we did the Camsell, we followed Camsell’s route and did a series of puddle hops and dropped into the Tazin.
This time we portaged into Tazin Lake.
The west end of Tazin Lake has a dam to divert water to the power station that supplies Uranium City, and the communities of Fond du lac, Stony Rapids, Black Lake, and the uranium mine at Rabbit lake.
Downside of a dam: Might not be much water on the downhill side.
Basically we got what leaked through.
Initially two guys from each crew tracked it. All the other gear was carried. After half a kilometer we could put the food box in. Another couple and we could put the rest of the gear in. Soon we were paddling again.
The Tazin rapidly gained more water from the highlands of Camsell’s Portage.
We had a good crew. We’d done the Fond with no mishaps. But Mike Flynn had badly twisted his ankle doing Camsells. Enough he was using peeled pine tree as a walking aid.
Came to this one rapid. Grade III+? Grade 4? There are some good pix of it in the archive. I took one look and said, “Decharge or portage”
The portage was grim. Boulders. Big ones. Kind of portage where you lose grade 7’s in the cracks. Fortunately we didn’t have the Little People on this trip. If we took canoes over it it would be a case of everyone getting a place and moving the canoes hand over hand.
Mike was uncertain about shooting it. Simon was candid: “I don’t want you shooting it with a bum ankle. You’re going to have to use your feet to stay on your seat.”
Jim declined to shoot it.
Simon and I took all 4 canoes. I took the two Selkirks, (traditional 22 foot canoe) Simon the Francis Hopkins (new Mariner canoe) and the David Thompson, our ratty 26 footer. Each canoe had their regular bowsman.
I have a picture of Simon in the Hopkins coming off a wave. Only a third of the canoe is touching water. The canoe is banked hard enough I can see the bottom of the canoe.
Each of us had a plan when we started.
The water laughed at our plans. Once in their, you went where the water did. Or rather the foam. The world was blue sky and white water. Tried to side slip.
Right. Nothing after our initial plunge through the V at the top was in our control until we got to the bottom.
I think I have a picture of Simon grabbing the gunnel.
First run I came out just barely afloat. Managed to get to shore without rolling it, but it was close.
Second run: To give the canoe lighter ends, I sat on the rear seat, instead of the stern plate, and my bowsman sat on the second seat. This makes steering a pain, but it is incredibly stable. And steering wasn’t very effective anyway. We knelt, locked our ankles under our seat, and after picking our starting line, crouched and stayed ready to brace.
Still came out the bottom with water up to the bottom of my seat.