1084 – I had no idea this video existed. Thanks for posting about it, Barbara. It’s interesting to watch with the lens of 30 plus years since my last SJSA canoe trip. It is great to be able to share that time of my life with parents and my son.

I was on that trip.

In terms of route the first 2/3 of it was the same as the Camsell Portage trip, a few years before. About the only information we had about the Firebag was the journal of a turn of the century trapper, and from talks with the people at the Metis settlement of Camsell Portage (which, is very near the portage of same name.) They and described using this as a means of traveling from Ft. Smith.

The route is dubious. It would make far more sense to go through Fort Chip and down the Slave, especially if you are putputting there in a 12 foot aluminum motorboat. The win would be coming back, if you were in a muscle propelled craft. Going up the Slave in a canoe is not trivial. See McKenzie’s journals. Portages reflect this. These seemed to be moose maintained paths between lakes when we could find them.

The first pictures there are on Wollaston Lake. We’d started in Davin Bay, and had the coldest dumping practice ever. Icebergs — or rather bergy bits. Pans a few feet across scattered on the bay, plus several pounds of cocktail ice cubes per square yard.

The ice was jammed up by the wind. So the first few points once we set out required sliding over the ice. Once we got onto Hatchet Lake we had no more ice.

The Fond du Lac river is wonderful. Lots of small rapids and some big ones to shoot. I think there are 5 portages on it. With what I know now, I think that two of those could be shot decharge.

Lake Athabasca’s north shore is a treat, with pink granite outcrops.

Uranium City is now a ghost town. I’ve done the Fond du Lac river 3 times. The first time UC was a vibrant northern community. This last time, it had, maybe 50 people in it. Local hospital, staff for the Sand Dunes park on the south side of the lake. Most of the houses are gone. Lifted up, put on a barge and taken to other communities on the lake.

The settlement of Camsell Portage has only about 30 people. We camped in their school — appreciated, as it stormed that night. And gave us pancake breakfast to send us on our way. Wonderful people.

Camsell Portage itself is a trek. It’s actually 7 portages, with puddles between. Some of them have serious up between. It’s about a 500 foot climb. We’d hoped to do it in a single day, but that pancake breakfast gave us a late start. We camped on the last puddle before the Tazin, and had our Homme du Nord ceremony.

Tazin River has Tethyliki falls — about 70 feet tall. The portage ends with an 80 foot descent over car sized boulders. Ogalthiki gorge is, I think 3 km long. Surprising good trail. Maintained by moose, I expect.

There was one rapid that we shot decharge, and probably shouldn’t, but the shoreline was more big boulders. One of the few rapids I’ve shot that I’d rate at class IV. There is a picture of Simon Jeynes and his bowsman in terror. Justin McCaulski? Bowsman is grabbing gunwale in one hand, his paddle in the other. Wouldn’t do any good to have both hands on the paddle, there is a good 2 feet of air under the bow. The canoe is sideways enough that I can see the entire inside of the keel line. Simon is also doing a white knuckle gunwale grip.

Details fade with time. Don’t remember much happening until Hill Island Lake where we branched off of the Camsell route. The next week was interesting.

Most of this week was puddle hopping. Some big puddles several km long. Some only a few hundred meters.

One day, Simon says, “We’re going to do a push. Today: Dumbbell lake — a small blob with a narrow spot halfway across it.

The portages that day were tough. We finally made camp on a disgusting spot where we had two canoes in the water to get far enough from shore to get water fit to drink.

The next morning Simon again set Dumbbell lake. Beaver bashing to get water into tiny streams. Cutting trails. Laying logs on trails to slide canoes.

Once again we camped short of Dumbbell. But this time was on a larger puddle with decent water.

The next day we made it into Dumbbell. But not until late in the afternoon.

Later, we reached what we called Star lake — it had 5 arms, several km long each, but only a couple hundred meters wide. We had camped a lake short of it, and an unmemorable portage put us into the lake in early morning. We had lunch at the other end, on the north shore in the sun.

The next portage was a long one. About 2 km. We hit the portage head at 1 p.m.

Boulders. Trees too close to get the canoes between. Swampy bits. Trees fallen across the trail. Mixtures of the above. (Boulders under swampy bits is particularly obnoxious. ) Late afternoon we stopped. Everyone was looking ragged. “Eat. Everyone eat something.” (This was a small group cooking trip.) Half an hour later fortified with gorp or granola, we picked up the canoes and went on.

And it got wet. And wetter. Soon it was a fen — islands of muck with tall grass, channels of dark water with bottoms made of ooze, and none of the channels went in the direction we wanted to go for more than a few dozen meters at a time.

There is a classic shot in the archives, of Jim Gerber up to his armpits in a swamp, dressed in his mosquito suit, dragging his canoe forward. Too mucky to paddle. Too thin to walk. We tracked, lined, swam in spots, forward. Yuck.

We finished that portage at 9 p.m. That’s double the time that a fast crew could do the Grand Portage which was 5 times the length.

***

We got to I think Myer Lake. Decent sized lake. Portage at the other end was interesting. Not sure what was different but the number of horse flies was astounding. Reach out blind from under the canoe and move your open hand, and you would hit them.

My canoe did an impromptu sketch,

“This is Horsefly 7725 requesting permission to land John Brown’s Left arm.”

“This is air traffic control, 7725. Negative permission. Already two flies down refuelling. Can you divert to Right Arm?

“That’s a roger, control. Diverting to Right Arm”

“This is control to Horsefly 2214. Advise that you are on a collision course with Deerfly K773.”

We were tired. It was funny.

***

The end of the portage was the Dog River. This was a sleepy little stream with undetectable current. Down for an hour or so of paddling. It opens onto the Slave, not very far up from the top rapid. We struggled upstream for a couple of clicks then ferried across, and pulled in at the barge dock at Fort Fitzgerald.

End of trip routine. Clean the canoes, split out school gear. Swim off the dock, and try to get the first layer of dirt off.

***

One of the boy’s fathers was up to meet his boy. He bought pizza for the group. An extra large each. We camped in the city park.

A big fraction of that group weren’t coming back. Many of them stayed up all night. Talking about the year. Talking about the trip. Talking about probably never seeing each other again.

Next day we started shuttling to the airport picking up flights back to Edmonton.