Alone Against the North (31 page)

After a sharp bend in the river, another rapid roared ahead—foaming water was crashing noisily over a rock ledge. The drop
was not much more than a foot, so I decided to risk paddling it rather than unpack everything and perform yet another portage. But when I plunged over the ledge in my canoe, the waves lapped right over the bow, flooding the vessel. For a few seconds, it seemed as if the flotation I had lashed inside the canoe would prevent the inundated craft from sinking, but the weight of the water proved too much—as if in slow motion, the canoe sank with me in it.

My lifejacket kept me afloat as I found myself swimming in rapids, gasping in the cold. I grabbed on to the flooded canoe with my right hand, while with my left I struggled to get a hold of my watertight barrel, backpack, and paddles. With my hands full trying to hold on to all my vital gear, I watched helplessly as my brown fedora—an identical replacement for the one I had lost in the waterfall the year before—disappeared into the swirling water. Kicking with my feet, I managed to swim over to a boulder in the river, beach my canoe on that, and then make several trips to shore to secure my gear. Besides my hat, I lost my fishing rod, bug spray, a few other small items, and a bag of dried apples—nothing I couldn't survive without.

THE MASTERCRAFT TORPEDO LEVEL
mounted with the .22 calibre rifle scope worked like a charm for measuring the waterfalls—despite the hordes of blackflies that devoured my face and hands as I set up the instrument. My face was smeared with blood from their incessant bites. Sometimes, if I inhaled, I would cough from having swallowed a cloud of insects. Even in the rain the mosquitoes still swarmed me. Meriwether Lewis had written of the torments caused by swarms of mosquitoes:

The musquetoes continue to infest us in such manner that we can scarcely exist; for my own part I am confined by them to my bier at least 3/4 of the time. My dog even howls with the torture he experiences from them.

The early explorers in the Lowlands had learned from their aboriginal counterparts to cake themselves in foul-smelling bear grease to protect against blackflies and mosquitoes. I preferred a long-sleeved shirt, a mesh bug net, and if things were really awful, insect repellant, which was however never very effective.

The highest waterfall I surveyed measured just over six metres, or around twenty feet, which meant that at the time of my first expedition, it was probably not quite eight metres, or nearly twenty-five feet. The waterfalls on the Again River number between five and nine, depending on how one classifies “a waterfall” (no universally agreed criteria exist). The number varies based on whether one counts “split falls” around rocks or islands as one or two waterfalls, whether upper and lower drops should be counted separately, whether “step falls” (a sort of cascade) should be counted as a waterfall, and whether an exceptionally fierce, steep rapid with a considerable drop should be considered a waterfall or just a big rapid. My preference is for a conservative scale, according to which the Again River has five waterfalls. Waterfalls can be classified into over a dozen different categories, including curtain falls, plunges, cascades, fans, horsetails, slides, ledges, and punchbowls. The waterfall I went over was a ledge waterfall, where water descends over a vertical drop while maintaining partial contact with the bedrock. The horseshoe-shaped waterfall at the start of the longest canyon on the river was a
plunge fall, where water descends vertically without contact with the bedrock. Two of the waterfalls, including the highest, were violent cascades, and the smallest was a “slide waterfall,” where water glides over bedrock while maintaining continuous contact. I photographed, measured, and recorded the longitude and latitude of each one—something no one had done before.

As fulfilling as I found such old-fashioned explorer's work, as I paddled, waded, and portaged my way downriver, I was conscious of my desire to finally be rid of the Again. I wanted to move on to new horizons. Like a siren call, some new temptation, perhaps the promise of another nameless river, would lure me elsewhere into the wilderness. As I sat in my canoe paddling, I started to daydream of faraway places where I could explore a river no other living person had ever seen. A sudden zeal to finish my work meant that my progress on the expedition was rapid—I pushed myself hard from sunrise to sunset. When I had reached the end of the river, I paused to empty my watertight barrel of provisions and fill the barrel with a supply of freshwater. (The remaining provisions from the barrel I crammed into my worn backpack.) Then I headed down the Harricanaw River to the salt water of James Bay, where I intended to remain for a few days.

I spent my time near the mouth of the Harricanaw making short forays into the sea in my canoe—once or twice getting caught in terrifying waves far from shore that nearly swamped the canoe—and on land sketching birds, taking notes, and enjoying the solitude. But that solitude came to an end late one afternoon when I hiked down to shore to fetch some drinking water from my barrel. My eyes were greeted with an unexpected sight—a flotilla of canoes was coming downriver. I stood and stared at the
canoes—it took a moment for me to appreciate that they were no mirage. There were six in total, each with two occupants. As they neared, I saw that it was a group of teenage campers, led by two adults. I stood on the riverbank, watching them as a wild animal might stand motionless and blankly stare at a passing canoe.

At the time, it didn't occur to me that the ragged appearance of a lone man deep in the wilderness, suddenly emerging from the woods, might startle them. I had neither shaved nor bathed in weeks; my mop of hair was dishevelled by the wind, my clothes were tattered, my pants ripped nearly to shreds from the portages. A hunting knife was stuck in my belt and my army rain jacket was draped over my shoulders.

They paddled up to the bank near where I stood, beached their canoes, and began somewhat timidly climbing up the slope to where I stood watching them.

“Hello!” said the first one, apparently the camp counsellor in charge. He was a bearded, jovial looking man of about thirty.

I nodded hello.

“We thought you might be a Cree trapper,” he said, as his young charges followed him up the bank, carrying their packs. The other counsellor was a woman in her mid-twenties. “But you don't look like one.”

“No, I'm not,” I said, warming up to the idea of being around people again. “Did you canoe the Harricanaw?”

“Yeah. We're from Camp Pine Crest. I'm Matt.”

We shook hands.

“I'm Adam.”

“You're not here alone, are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I take it you canoed the Harricanaw too?” asked Matt.

The campers had gathered round me in a semi-circle, curiously examining me as something of an exotic specimen.

“No,” I said, “I came down the Again River.”

They looked at me blankly.

“It's a tributary of the Harricanaw. Have you heard of it?”

“No,” said Matt. “All alone?”

“Yes.”

“Now that's something,” he said nodding appreciatively. “Well, we're going to camp here tonight. You're welcome to join us for supper. We've got plenty of extra pasta.”

Some of the kids looked at me expectantly.

“Thanks,” I replied, “I'd be happy to join you,” and, in fact, I was. As much as I like solitude, it was nice to be able to talk with people that could appreciate what I had just done.

That evening, we gathered around a campfire on what was a rather cold, windy night to eat pasta and swap stories. I regaled them with tales of my travels, unexplored rivers, hidden waterfalls, and snarling polar bears. They, in turn, told me about their summer camp and their three-week trip down the Harricanaw, which they took great pride in completing. And to their credit, any three-week canoe journey is no picnic. After dinner, I was astonished to learn that on their entire trip they never once drank tea. This seemed unthinkable: tea is the traditional drink of the northern woods, and some might say it is as much a part of the wilderness experience as the haunting cry of a loon, the crackle of a late-night fire, or a silent morning paddle across misty lakes. When I mentioned that herbal tea was the one luxury I prized above all in the wilderness, the campers all wanted a cup. We
boiled several pots over the fire that night. Their trip had been a vegetarian one, and the teenage boys, in particular, looking rather ravenous, were ecstatic when I gave them some bags of jerky from my own supply.

THE NEXT MORNING
, the campers and I went our separate ways. They set off to paddle to Moose Factory—which in fair weather was not a problem in their large, seventeen-foot canoes. Meanwhile, I remained behind on the coast, where I was to rendezvous with some of my companions from last year and cross James Bay with them.

This time things went smoothly, without any engine troubles or unexpected delays on sandbars. We did, however, stop to gather sweetgrass, a plant used in traditional Cree spiritual ceremonies. In Moosonee, as I was loading my canoe onto one of the Polar Bear Express' boxcars for the train ride south, a man strode up to where I was standing with an excited look on his face.

“You're Adam Shoalts!” he said, shaking my hand.

“Yes,” I replied, a little surprised by the attention.

“You're a legend,” he exclaimed.

“Not quite,” I laughed.

“I've read all about you. I've done a lot of canoeing myself, but you know, nothing like what you do.”

“Where do you canoe?”

“Around here mostly, the Moose River. I live in Moosonee,” he explained. “I used to be a professional cyclist, but I gave that up and moved here with my wife. I love the outdoors—hunting, fishing, all that stuff.”

“That's the life,” I said.

“I gotta ask you,” he said eagerly, “to show me your canoe. You've got to have some awesome gear.”

“Not really,” I gestured to my canoe lying in the open boxcar.

A horrified expression came over the man's face. He was apparently expecting to see something state-of-the-art. “That's your canoe!?”

“Yes.”

“How did you canoe here with that? That's not even an ordinary tripper canoe. It's so small. How does that thing get through rapids?”

“I bought it second-hand. New canoes are expensive,” I explained.

“But you must have sponsors throwing themselves at you?”

“No,” I laughed. “Not yet, anyway.”

When I returned home I discovered that the media's interest in my expedition hadn't died down. I had received more requests for TV appearances, magazine stories, and radio interviews. I accepted a few, but otherwise attempted to maintain a low profile. Wes had mentioned that he and his family were heading to Algonquin Park on a camping trip, and invited me to come along. I could never refuse any opportunity to strike off into the wilderness, so I happily joined them and forgot about the interviews. At night around the campfire, I entertained his young nieces and nephew with tales of man-eating bears and sasquatches lurking deep in the woods. I taught them how to make different types of tea from various wild plants, and I found myself wishing that I could remain in the forest and forget about the other side of life as an explorer—the paperwork.

Of course, that wasn't possible. I had several hundred unread emails in my inbox, maps to create, and my expedition report and photographs to submit to the Geographical Society. In my absence in the wilderness, some outlandish claims had circulated about the Again River. Someone had claimed that the falls on the Again River were already mapped—but that proved to be a simple case of cartographic illiteracy. Another person, with no background in exploration history, geography, archaeology, or common sense, claimed that the 107-kilometre, rock-strewn, rapid- and waterfall-choked course of the Again River, which terminates in a swamp, was actually a “major trade route.” Of the hundreds of rivers in the Hudson and James Bay watershed, no more than a dozen or so could be said to have ever constituted a major trade route—and they were well known. The Again was emphatically nothing of the sort.

I fully expected, and regarded as inevitable, that in an age of internet anonymity, someone somewhere would claim to have previously canoed the Again River. Of course, such a claim would make no material difference to my expedition. But, to my surprise, despite the intense media glare focused on the river, only a single person emerged who claimed to have previously canoed it—a testament to its utter obscurity. The lone individual, a seventy-one-year-old man, claimed that he had been part of a team of geologists who had canoed the Again in 1961 under contract for the Quebec government. The other geologists, he said, were now dead. When I spoke to him on the phone and asked why the Quebec government would hire geologists to canoe a river that was mostly in Ontario, he admitted they had only explored the lower, more tranquil half of the river, beyond
most of the dangerous rapids and all the waterfalls. Back in 1961, he had been a nineteen-year-old summer employee, and he had only spent that one summer in the area. He explained that the group had been dropped via helicopter at the river's halfway point and that it was just one of several they canoed. His memory, after fifty-two years, was rather hazy—he couldn't remember which river the Again flowed into and didn't recognize any of the waterfalls from my pictures. However, he insisted, the expedition's leader, the geologist Jerome Remick, had documented all their findings and work in an official report. I was sure that I had read Remick's dry report five years earlier, and that it said nothing of the Again River. But, to be certain, I obtained copies of it, both in English and the original French, and reread it. As I suspected, the report made no mention of the Again River, nor did the Again appear on the maps that accompanied it. Their work had focused on the rivers in the upper part of the Harricanaw's watershed, well south of the Again. Of course, I couldn't rule out the possibility that they had canoed the lower part of the Again and for some reason failed to mention it—but this seemed unlikely. I could only speculate whether this claim was an honest mistake—after all, it had been over half a century. At any rate, it was immaterial to my expedition and made no difference to me personally. I had done what I had set out to do five years earlier when I first began to dream of the river in my cluttered, map-lined study, and beyond that, nothing much mattered.