Paddling to the World Series

In case you have not noticed, the Toronto Blue Jays are back in the World Series. They were there last in 1993. We listened to the game here tonight, on the radio, and the Dodgers took it so there will be one more game, game seven, played tomorrow night in Toronto. And although I pay almost no attention to any major-league sports during the rest of the year, I do enjoy listening to World Series baseball games on the radio. Probably because it brings me back to my roots, the Cubs, Wrigley Field, 1969, but most of all to a memorable overnight paddling trip in sub-zero weather, a trip mostly inspired by R.M. Patterson of Nahanni River fame.

In 1992, on the eighteenth of October, Kristen and I were here, and as freeze-up loomed we were feeling a bit stuck. Our faithful 25 horsepower Evinrude outboard was kaput.  Maybe today, 33 years on, we could repair it, but back then, knowing what we knew about fuel pumps and impellers and carburetors, we were stymied.

We did not know a lot about motors, but we both knew damned well that there was a big sack of postal mail waiting for us across the wide and icy expanse of McLeod Bay, at the weather station in Reliance. We knew it was there because we could talk to the two fellows at the station by radio. We knew, also, that there would be no more mail coming until sometime in December. We knew there were lots of good things in that big canvas Canada Post bag – letters from near and far, birthday cards, gifts… It meant everything to us, in terms of contact with the world beyond here. To say that Kristen, especially, was really eager to see inside that mailbag would be an understatement.  

In January of 1929, in January, down in the folds and twists of the lower Nahanni River, R.M. Patterson had come to the conclusion that he had better make his way out, downriver, somehow. His trapping partner had gone away and was overdue – no word, no sign.  Food was running low.  He also alludes to the fact that there was a message of some sort to get out to Fort Simpson, having perhaps to do with mineral claims.

So, Patterson being Patterson, he set off down the Nahanni for the Liard, and for Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie.

In January. All by his lonesome.

It was a combo trip to send shivers down the spine of anyone who can imagine its details. Canoe and dogteam:  dogs pulling canoe and gear on the sled, over the frozen ice; canoe carrying dogs and sled and gear over stretches of flowing water. In January. (Did I say that already?)

But off he went. He felt like he needed to try.  And I remember sitting at my desk in our little cabin here, re-reading that account, and thinking, well, I can see across the bay… the mail bag is there…

Today I dug out my journal and I think I’ll just post its entry from back then, wish the Blue Jays good luck tomorrow night, and sign off. It’s still a pretty good story, I think.

20 October, 1992

Hoarfrost River

Back yesterday from an unusual overnight journey to Reliance. Sitting here Sunday morning reading Patterson’s account of a winter’s journey “to the mail,” I decided to just go. Packed the 14-foot canoe with some food and gear – axe, rifle, rice, a caribou heart, butter, bread, cookies, coffee, Coleman stove, repair kit, sprit-sail rig, HF radio, clothes, sleeping bag, tarp, and matches.

Pushed off at 12:55; temperature minus ten C. or so, with sunshine, but clouds off to the west. Within minutes I unfurled the sprit rig and began to pick up an extra push from a light northwest breeze, and also a push from the long swells still rolling in from the west after a three-day blow.

I rounded Dallas Point near Hawk Owl in just fifty minutes – a stretch I had estimated would take two hours. At the island beyond the burn, the one with the square rock atop it, I found myself easing the canoe south, toward the portage, cutting off the corner of the bay.  It is a three-mile crossing from there, and I did not want to just blunder out into it without thinking it carefully through. The weather was stable, the breeze light, and all systems looked “go.” Thus are decisions made – sometimes one truly is “in the right place, with the right people, at the right time, with the right equipment.” Sheer luck can bring it all together, and that afternoon it did. The crossing took just 45 minutes, and three hours after leaving home the canoe bumped against the ice-coated cobble and gravel of the little beach at the portage. 4 p.m.

When I got out of the canoe I was cold, as cold blood from my legs was suddenly circulating again. I was also in a clumsy state of hurry – a feeling of impending darkness and eagerness to be onto the hiking part of the trip.

Began walking at about quarter to five, having tarped over my gear and piled some dry wood nearby for a fire. I hoped to return that evening, following my tracks in the snow back to the canoe. Soon I realized the difficulty that would pose, since the peninsula was covered with fresh caribou tracks wandering in all directions. I would have a hard time following my trail by headlamp. The sky was overcast by then and the moon is waning and rises after midnight. Gradually, fatigue and caution replaced gung-ho enthusiasm, and I adopted a new plan:  stay in Reliance, leave before daybreak, and get back to the canoe early in the morning.

That is how it worked out, and my luck held. The final mile into Reliance was made in darkness, and I knocked on the door of the weather station at 7:15 or so.  Mark and Brent were expecting me; Kristen had called them on the HF radio. I called her the same way, to tell her of my arrival and my plan, and settled in to watch the second game of the World Series. Toronto beat Atlanta 5-4 with a ninth-inning two-run homer by Ed Sprague, a pinch-hitter recently up from the minors.

The morning walk was difficult, taking three and a half hours over the same ground I had covered an hour faster the night before. In the dark most of the way, well before dawn, and with a heavy pack. A grind. Dim light, dull grey overcast, caribou clattering away from me through thick tangles of alder and spruce. Daylight at last, and at 9 a.m. the canoe again. Pushed off at 9:30 in fresh dry wool sweaters, thinking again about a frame pack in light of all the heavy carrying we do. Why did those fall out of favor?

Luck was holding – the crossing to the north shore was safe, but cold and choppy.  No sail up, and I had to stop once to thoroughly rewarm the fingers of my left hand, all the while drifting downwind into the open bay. But they stayed warm after that. Once to Box Top Island the wind was behind me, and I stopped to rig the sail again. Took off with good speed and soon rounded the point just east of home. Paddled to shore through skim and slush ice, and soon was inside with my sweetie, warming and eating, and – of course – reading our mail.

We tuned into all the rest of the World Series that year, on the AM radio out of Edmonton, and we still do listen to most of them, now by Sirius radio. 

Whenever we do I still think of that overnight, and of watching the game on the television at the weather station, beamed into that miraculous 6-foot wide satellite dish.  Those caribou that over-ran the Fairchild Peninsula that autumn, that little green Tremblay canoe, that blue nylon sprit sail.  R.M. Patterson and Dave Winfield. Go Blue Jays.