After floating for an hour we came upon a group of 28 canoes. Kids singing ‘If I Had a Million Dollars’ by The Bare Naked Ladies, as they paddle around us. Laughing. Singing. It is an outdoor school run by river guides, some guys from west of Rocky Mountain House. They’re interested in our trip and invite us for dinner at their next camp at the Devil’s Elbow rapids. We would have gone much further today but it seemed like a great opportunity to meet some interesting people, so we accept their invitation. We pass notorious whirlpools unscathed and arrive at Devil’s Elbow a little before two, and tie into a gravel beach about 500 metres below their camp. We have lunch, wash the boat, have a nap. A rare day of rest. Steele: At 1800 hrs we walk through the forest to the rough camp. The best part about being on this river is that only those in canoes, or our lone sailboat, can get to many of these places and it’s quiet but for the sound of the wind in the tree canopy, and of course, the river and the chatter of kids. We’ve been invited to have dinner with the camp, Kraft dinner, with Vitamin K (ketchup), salad and cake. The kids set up camp, manage the latrines, do the cooking and wash up, with supervision, but they do it all. J brings his guitar. We walk into one of the best-organised camps I’ve ever seen. There’s a huge fire, kids are everywhere happy cooking, cleaning, whittling, making macramé bracelets (boys and girls) and there’s no technology in sight. They’re anxious to hear about our voyage and J and I each chat with different groups of kids. They’re so happy. These kids, teens in the angst years, and they’re so happy. The river is making all of us feel so clean and well and happy. After dinner we all gather in a huge circle and I’m asked to talk about our trip, and I tell them about the Red River Métis. J talks about our destination and answers questions. We’re then all asked by the leaders to one-by-one go around the circle and say what we are grateful for that day. The kids are grateful for each other, over and over again. They are grateful for our conversations with them they tell us. I tell them that I am grateful for their invitation, but most of all grateful for my river partner. I say it out loud. He is patient and kind and he keeps me safe. He never loses his temper, is fun, and peaceable, and most of all, I tell them, he shares this magnificent dream, the river.
shuddered as we crossed Lake Abraham – so blue, Mediterranean in colour but icy in temperament. When I awoke from my nap inside the tiny cabin, Miss Moose was tipped far to the side and I had to brace myself across her cabin—I pushed my legs against one wall and my back against another and held on to the mast pole inside. I looked out to the deck and saw J struggling with the sails, the lines (I haven’t learned their proper names yet, are they shrouds?). I heard him swearing, fuck you! at the wind and I was almost afraid but I knew that with his 30 years crossing oceans he knew what he was doing. Yet J is not a cursing man and it’s startling to hear him swear so much and this is such a tiny boat. Yes, he knows boats and wind and sails, still, the mountain lakes with wind tunnels off the Rockies are not the Pacific Ocean. Wait until he sees a prairie storm. He’s never been this far east in the country before. He has never seen lightening clouds roll fast over the Great Plains, nor has he heard their fearsome thunder, the beginning of a tornado ... And we are a little boat with a metal mast, the perfect lightening rod on the flat. I try not to think about tornadoes. I try not to think about my dead niece Courtenay, lost at sea in a hurricane in 2007. Never found. Lost between Hawaii and home. I try not to imagine how terrifying it must have been for her and Chris in their last days, hours? I cannot. I cannot. I am afraid. Moorage: the far side of Lake Abraham Dinner: Spaghetti Carbonara
When the wind blows at a certain angle, a whistle, or more of a flute sound, is created by a keyhole shaped hole in the boom where the boom vang attaches. It is quite a nice tone, similar to a pan flute, and the tone changes like an overblown bugle. It almost plays taps sometimes. Suzanne thinks the flute sound means we’ve taken on a ghost passenger. She imagines our ghost as a young wanderer with blond dreadlocks, a nose ring, and wearing loose clothing like the kids used to wear in Thailand! We navigate two Class II+ rapids without any problems, which, according to our river chart, is as extreme as any rapids are going to get. I tweak the oars, wear leather gloves and take the rapids sideways. A very good day. We made 59 kms. Along the way we came across three canoes with men, each fishing. Happy, happy men. One of them wore a cowboy hat with a huge feather. We passed them, then they us, and then we them again. One of the fishermen had caught a fish, had it in his hand, and it wriggled free, flopped down the beach and into the water and swam away. They laughed. A jet boat passed us twice. Steele: We sing gospel songs. ‘Shout salvation as I fly...’ ‘Every child of God is just like an automobile’ ‘Michael rowed the boat to shore’. At night as I cook dinner J installs the snap shackle, or the snapple shackle as I call the brass fitting he has bought for my dyspraxic hands. With the snapple shackle I can help lower the boom safely and not cry with frustration as my hands fumble and shake. Thirty years ago J asked me to marry him. I said no. He was a lost boy I thought, and I was so found. Now we have switched places. When I said no we went our ways. I married F. He married H. And now this. How strange. How perfectly strange. We fit. He is the engine, I am the dreams. Moorage: Somewhere on the upper reaches of the North Saskatchewan Dinner: Jen’s Moroccan soup Day 8 3 August Devil’s Elbow N 52° 23’ 50” W 115° 12’ 26” Hilberry: Left Ram creek at 0930 hrs after pancakes with maple syrup and jam.
Day 7 3 August 2015 N 52° 6’ 14”
W 116° 23’ 59 ” Warm and dry Hilberry:
Left our spot below Nordegg Bridge at 0930 hrs. S sets the GPS tracker. There’s a light 5 knot Easterly blowing which continued all day sometimes rising to 15 but mainly light. It tended to swing Miss Moose around broadside and sometimes backwards but it was hard to tell because the current, of course, had an effect as well. We bottomed out a few times which was a bit rude, and once we pulled into a spot we got stuck into the shallows but were easily pushed off. The river is deep aquamarine blue and the deep water is recognisable by its blueness. Otherwise it’s green and filled with rocks. When we hit them, we cringe. I row hard. Overall, as far as navigating the shallow channels, Miss Moose does pretty well, and the knowledge that it’s just going to get deeper is reassuring. 3
3 It doesn’t and this is a HUGE part of the story, the terrifyingly low water levels of climate change.
50 on site review 49 :: shorelines
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