Alone Against the North (15 page)

Brent looked at me. “What will you do?”

I paused. “What I set out to do. Find the nameless river and explore it.”

“But you never set out to explore the river alone. You were supposed to do it with Wes, and he's not here. And neither is anyone else.”

I didn't answer.

“No one will think less of you if you come with me,” said Brent.

“But I'd think less of myself.”

Brent shook his head in despair. Not knowing what else to do, I told him the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's harrowing Antarctic expedition, in which nothing went according to plan. Shackleton's ship,
Endurance
, was crushed by pack ice and sank. He and his crew survived on floating ice for weeks, then sailed in tiny, open lifeboats to a miserable rock island. They knew that if they remained on the uninhabited island for long, all would perish. So Shackleton loaded up one of the lifeboats and, with five other men, pushed off into the sea to seek help, leaving the rest of the crew behind. After enduring massive waves and furious gales, they came ashore on another desolate, mountainous island. On the far side of this island was a whaling station. Shackleton, along with two of his men who could still stand, staggered off into the mountains, crossing them to reach the whaling outpost. Unwilling to rest until he rescued his crew, there Shackleton rounded up another ship and wasted no time
sailing off to retrieve his men—saving them all. The Shackleton family motto, which had formed a great impression upon the explorer, and from which he derived his ship's name, was “By endurance we conquer.”

Brent was so taken by this story that he unfolded his pocket knife and carved “By endurance we conquer” on the wall of the cabin. For a moment I thought he might be newly inspired to carry on.

“Does that mean you're not going to quit?” I asked after he finished carving.

“Hell no!” he exclaimed. “I just like the motto.”

I set about making preparations to press on alone. Everything that was superfluous had to be discarded: this included Brent's half of the food rations. Going upriver alone meant it was essential that I travel as lightly as possible: otherwise, with only myself to pull the canoe, I'd never make much headway. Since bears were much more likely to stalk a lone traveller than two people, I loaded the shotgun and slung it over my shoulder. I sharpened my hunting knife and stuck it in my leather belt. I placed dry tinder in a waterproof bag and stashed it inside my jacket's breast pocket. I pulled up the collar on my old, torn jacket, over which I wore a lifejacket. With a bandana tied around my neck and my fedora pulled over my dishevelled brown hair, I felt ready for anything.

Bad weather hindered the pilot's flight and delayed his departure. He didn't arrive until ten hours later, landing a short distance down from the cabin on a wide stretch of unobstructed river. This time, the pilot was a grizzled old-timer who had spent decades flying in the north.

We paddled the canoe, loaded with the gear Brent was to take back with him, toward the bobbing float plane, while the pilot brought the plane to the pebble shoreline so we could load it up. The sky was overcast and the sun was sinking below the horizon. It remained as windy as ever.

The old pilot had misunderstood Brent's conversation on the phone—he thought we were both leaving with him. I explained that I was staying behind.

“But you can't stay here alone,” he said gruffly.

“I have to.”

“There's more bad weather headed this way. I saw it on the radar.”

“I'm prepared for anything.”

“It's too dangerous to stay here alone,” insisted the pilot. I could see the fear in his grim face, thinking no doubt as he did that it was his responsibility to dissuade me from almost certain death.

“I have work to finish.”

“What work is worth risking your life for?”

The pilot's words had no effect on me: I had made up my mind to stay. I trusted in my own abilities and told myself that my best asset was my mind: as long as I remained calm and level-headed, I could overcome any situation. Seeing that I was determined to stay, the old pilot nodded his head and shook my hand.

“Well, you're a brave man. Good luck to ya.” He glanced at the darkening sky. “We've got to get going. Another storm is on the way.”

Brent, looking a bit ashamed, mumbled “good luck” to me, then wasted no time climbing into the plane. The pilot climbed
in after him and started the engine. He then had to manually start the propeller, whirling it until it spun into a blur. He glanced down at me, standing on the pebble shoreline, waved a last farewell, then got back inside the cockpit. I took a few steps back from the roaring plane: the pilot steered the craft out into the middle of the river, rapidly building speed. It skidded along the water and in a few seconds became airborne. The plane disappeared into the overcast sky as the roar of the engine faded into a faint buzz, like a big mosquito, and then after a few more moments, all was silence.

I was alone.

[ 6 ]

ALONE

The Canada that lies back of your civilization, the wild, fierce,
land of desperate struggle and untold hardship … is …
the heritage of the born adventurer. In this austere and savage land
men are sometimes broken, or aged beyond their years.

—Grey Owl, The
Men of the Last Frontier,
1931

M
UCH WEIGHED ON MY MIND
as I paddled back to the old goose hunting shack in the fading light. Pitting oneself alone against the northern wilderness wasn't a challenge to be entered into lightly. Virtually none of history's great explorers operated alone—many in fact did comparatively little of the hard labour involved in exploring. Henry Morton Stanley, like most explorers of Africa, always had porters and servants to carry his baggage and equipment, cook his meals, make his fires, and pitch his tents. On his journey through the Canadian subarctic, John Franklin required voyageurs to paddle his canoes, start fires, and take care of the hunting and fishing. Samuel Hearne, strong and resourceful as he was, relied on his native guides to provision him with food, shelter, and fire. Rare was the explorer who did an expedition single-handedly, and even aboriginal people as a rule travelled in groups. Huddled by my campfire that night, I racked my brain to think of a solitary explorer for encouragement.

I remembered what Bill Mason, a veteran wilderness canoeist, had said of solo travel:

I would be irresponsible in encouraging people to canoe and camp alone if I didn't also point out the dangers. I have always been aware that any mishap that renders me immobile will almost certainly lead to my death unless I am on a well-travelled route.

Here in the blackfly-infested Lowlands, I definitely wasn't on any well-travelled route. Mason had admonished those who would risk a solo trip to:

Think about the possibility of injury even from routine actions, such as picking up and carrying the canoe over a muddy trail, chopping wood or running rock-studded rapids. Close your eyes and imagine yourself pinned helplessly between your canoe and a rock in the middle of a rapid.… When you are chopping or splitting your firewood, imagine sinking the axe into your foot.”

I did what Mason suggested and envisioned these scenarios—none of which seemed terribly encouraging. Mason had concluded: “Six is just about the right number of people.… It is also considered the safest number for travelling on a remote wilderness river.”

Those who dared to take on the North Country alone usually did so only after months of careful planning and preparation—psyching themselves up for the rigours of an
absolute and all-encompassing solitude. I had no such luxury—I was thrown into the situation. Regardless, I had made up my mind to press on for the sake of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and more than that—my keen sense of curiosity to know what was out there inexorably led me on.

THE MORNING OF MY FIRST DAY ALONE
dawned with a thick fog engulfing the river. It was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Having spent another unpleasant night in the shack, I was eager to be off. Before me lay 153 kilometres of upriver travel, most of which would have to be done by wading through the water against the swift current, dragging the canoe behind me with rope. The river bottom would be treacherous, full of rocks and crevices. To slip and hit my head would be a death sentence. As it was, it would be a race against time upriver; my only hope of avoiding hypothermia was to travel as fast as possible, without interruption. I put on my warmest sweater and replaced my fedora with a toque. As for polar bears, there was little to be done except to sleep with one eye open and keep the gun close. My thumb still ached terribly, but despite feeling sick and knowing that I now had to do alone what was supposed to be done with a partner, I remained confident.

What buoyed my spirits partially was the knowledge that other explorers had overcome greater odds. As far as impossible odds went, nothing could rival what legendary mountain man Hugh Glass endured in the American West. Described by a contemporary who had travelled with him as “bold, daring, reckless and eccentric to a high degree,” Glass was, he went on to say, “a man of great talents and intellectual as well as bodily power.
But his bravery was conspicuous beyond all his other qualities.” In 1822 Glass, then a hardened woodsman in his forties, joined an expedition ascending the Missouri River. Scouting ahead of the main party one day in late summer, he was attacked by a grizzly bear. Glass managed to get off a rifle shot before the bear pinned him down and began mauling him. Not one to surrender, the mountain man repeatedly stabbed the enraged grizzly with his knife. Two of his companions arrived just in time to finish off the wounded bear with their guns. Glass lay unconscious on the ground with injuries that were so severe—his rib cage was exposed through a gaping wound in his back, he had a deep gash on his head, and his leg was broken—that any hope of his survival was given up. Two men volunteered to remain behind until he died. They wrapped Glass' body in a makeshift shroud then divided his gun, knife, and other possessions between themselves, leaving him for dead.

But incredibly Glass came to, finding himself alone, unarmed, without provisions, and suffering from a broken leg and festering wounds. The nearest outpost of civilization—Fort Kiowa—was well over three hundred kilometres away. A lesser man would have given up. Not Glass—furious that he had been abandoned, he set his own leg, patched up his wounds as best he could and—unable to walk—began to crawl. For six weeks, he dragged himself onward, living off roots and berries, until he reached the Cheyenne River. Glass then cobbled together a crude raft to drift with the current, eventually reaching the fort. There he vowed vengeance on the men who had abandoned him. After a lengthy recovery, Glass succeeded in tracking them down, but in the end he proved as magnanimous
as he was indefatigable. He spared their lives and took no action against them.

I TOOK MY FIRST
solo wilderness trip at thirteen. After some pleading, I had succeeded in convincing an uncle I was staying with to take me to the nearest wilderness and allow me to strike off alone. I didn't sleep a wink that night, thinking a bear was going to devour me. As I grew older, I moved on to solo trips canoeing rivers and snowshoeing across frozen lakes. One night on a wintery sojourn north of Lake Huron, a pack of wolves followed my trail over an ice-covered lake. Despite the minus-thirty-degree-Celsius temperatures, I was soundly asleep, buried under several layers of blankets in my sled when howling shattered the silence. Thrilled and excited, if a little alarmed, I grabbed my axe and built up my fire. Then with a birchbark torch, I struck out onto the lake, catching a spellbinding glimpse of the wolves as they disappeared into the night like phantoms. But none of these adventures could compare with what I reckoned would be at least another three weeks of not seeing another human being. I had always been a bit of the solitary sort, but this was pushing it.

I set off from the alder-covered island into the thick mist, paddling as hard as I could upriver. Within about twenty minutes of my departure, the swift current grew too strong for paddling. So, reluctantly, I wedged my paddle inside the canoe and plunged over the side to begin towing the vessel. Leaning on the canoe for balance, I splashed my way up to the bow in knee-deep water and took hold of the rope fastened to the canoe. Every step was precarious—the river bottom was lined with slippery rocks. To
maintain warmth, I dared not stop once started, pushing onward as best I could. Fortunately, the sun, which we had seen little of over the past few days, began to peek through the clouds, warming my chilled frame. A short distance upriver, on an eroded bank I noticed a large burrow in the soil—the home of a wolverine or possibly an arctic fox.

My plan was to penetrate some forty-four kilometres up the Sutton River until I reached a fork where a tributary stream, the obscure and little-known Aquatuk River, joined the Sutton. Then I would branch off up the Aquatuk, following its meandering course some thirteen kilometres until coming upon the mouth of a nameless tributary that drained into it. This nameless tributary was the river I was seeking—the plan was to explore its hundred-kilometre-long course, dragging my canoe if necessary the whole way to its headwaters. Once there, I'd turn around and paddle with the current back to the Aquatuk, then onto the Sutton, and finally out to Hudson Bay again, where a pilot could land. Aside from near the mouth of the Sutton, the rivers themselves were too shallow and rocky for any float plane to land on.