Along the way, many pelicans. We’re sure they’re laughing at us, the big pelican (for surely our sails look pelican to them) that keeps hitting rocks and sandbars. We go through huge flocks of Canada Geese; I count over 500 and they squawk, honk and panic, whereas the Pelicans look at us through half-closed eyes, as if to say, Whatever. We see only two people on the river today. The first in days and days. An old guy comes up the river with his gold panning sluice barrow in the back of his little skiff, another guy stands by a campfire. Neither wave. Gold is secret here. Our kicker, Little Smokey, has died and I’ve phoned a mechanic in St. Paul to try and find another outboard motor. We didn’t really want one but now know we need it for emergencies and for bad weather. The sudden prairie storm of a week ago frightened us. We are like a lightning rod in the middle of a flat body of water and we need to move fast when a prairie storm comes upon us. We make contact with an old guy named Ron who knows the river and who has a motor he’ll sell us. He tells us there are river cabins we can stay in along the way. We’ll be into St. Paul tomorrow, we’ll have to hitchhike 30 kms from the river to get there. So many settlements named on our maps have disappeared. I read to J as he rows. Kipling’s Just So Stories , Marjorie Wilkins Campbell’s 1949 The Saskatchewan River , and Aristotle’s Ethics . We give up on Aristotle after 5 pages. The translation is terrible and we prefer not to think too hard on this river. I feed and feed him as he rows for 9 hours straight. For dinner we have risotto and do dishes in the dark. As we go to sleep we hear the sounds of the beaver lodge we have moored next to, the kits making weird growly, kittenish sounds, and the parents slapping the water with their tails. We fall asleep in one another’s arms. The coyotes howling and howling. Moorage: Somewhere on the North Saskatchewan where the wild sunflowers line the banks of the river Dinner: Risotto Day 21 16 August N 53° 11’ 57” W 109° 1’ 5” Hilberry: Headed out at 0900 hrs, came upon a flock of pelicans sunning themselves with their wings open like cormorants. Finally got a favourable wind and was able to sail for a good portion of the day. I didn’t
try putting up the mainsail, as the wind coming straight down the channel swings us back and forth causing the Genoa to jibe regularly which is easy to deal with. I lower the keel to be what I think is around 6” just to help her track, and if I have to cross the channel to avoid rocks or shallows it greatly improves steerage. Sailing down the winding river channel is wonderful. Never knowing what is around the next bend. Compared to ocean sailing where one’s destination is often visible for hours, or days, here, the landscape is constantly changing and it is kind of like being on a ride at fun land! The old oxen trail runs alongside the riverbank. I see that wolfwillow has filled in. S loves the wild sunflowers, and we both admire and rate the beaver lodges for their design! That one’s a shack, that one’s a Hilton hotel, we might say. A few thoughts on rowing: As my back gets stronger I’ve found my rowing technique is improving. The first few days my lower back was very sore which caused me to sit back and use my arms more. This caused more stress on my shoulders and moved the stroke of the oars in the water out of centre so that they entered the water at 90° to the boat, and pulled together as they went back. This requires more effort and less forward thrust of the boat. By reaching forward using my back with arms fully extended, the oars enter the water forward of the oar locks, then the first part of the pull is with just my back, leaving the arms extended. Once the back is fully straight, then pull with the arms. This creates a nice arc of the oars in the water, with the arc centred fore and aft of the oarlocks. It requires much less strength, and moves the boat faster, especially when trying to stay in the fastest current. It is often hard to tell visually when the boat is leaving the fastest stream, but one can feel the slower moving water on one side of the boat by how easily that oar moves through the water. The result being that the oar in the faster stream will pull much harder which will turn the boat into the slower water. At this point the boat will start to spin which is usually best to let it go around 270° until the bow is pointed into the fastest current, and then row the boat down into the stream that way rather than try to pull madly in the slow moving water as you will just be moving the boat further into slow moving back eddies. The weather has storm clouds to the east and sun to the west. The temperature and
winds go through extreme changes all day and in 30 years of sailing, I’ve rarely seen my Windex do complete 360°s as it regularly does on the river. Steele: The mystery of rowing on the river remains a mystery to me. So too do directions. I am the navie, the navigator, but often when I point left (starboard) it’s too late and we hit rocks, when I say east or west I get my directions mixed up. I take to using a pen and labelling EAST WEST on my left and right hand respectively. My dyspraxia comes to the fore and over and over again I guide us into shallows or worse. My rowing is even more dire. Still, Skip, as I have come to call J, doesn’t lose his temper. He is patient and kind. Eventually I will learn Starboard and Port. But it will take me weeks and weeks. Also, I’m getting much stronger. In the first days I could not lift the water jug from the hold. Nor could I move the food totes and had to ask J to do all of that. I notice I can lift the water jug now. I can light the cook stove without his help. I can run the little outboard motor. I am learning. Tonight, J climbed up the banks of the river to see the wide prairies — he has never seen the great plains. Peering over the lip of the river valley he saw a dozen combines working into the night. Bringing in the harvest. And the wide prairie, so flat, flatter than anything he’s seen. It as if he had drawn back the curtain of scrub and deciduous trees that line the riverbanks, as if we have been living in an eighteenth century underworld just us two, while above us the twenty-first century carries on. This is the old world. That is the new. Rarely seeing anyone for days on this river, and I am reading to J while he rows. David Thomson, the Hudson’s Bay men, the Northwest Company men, Henday and Pond, we can imagine a river as it always was. Though then, of course, there was water. I think J sometimes imagines himself one of these men, especially on rowing days when navigation is tough and the winds are against us. Curiously, I am taking the role of Métis wife. Especially when I lead us into a new community and ask all the questions and get information and help and advice, just as my ancestors did. Especially that I cook and feed him as he rows and sails, and when I navigate. I never tell him this though. Moorage: North Saskatchewan, mid-river Dinner: Black beans and rice
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