Back home again! Was really fun to read through this thread as everyone was following along. Can't express how much I appreciate everyone's offers of assistance on giving me places to stay should I be trapped in Canada. The border crossing sounded like it was going to be a real mess and that I'd need to go to a US consulate to get it straightened out. There's one in Winnipeg but apparently they don't deal with issues like that so Calgary would be the closest. Some people claimed a driver's license was good enough but all the official verbiage seemed to indicate it wasn't. I was nearing Winnipeg around 8:30 in the evening when I called from a payphone to find all this out. I still didn't have cell reception and decided to drive to the border that night hoping to pick up reception over the border so I could try and contact someone in the actual station to find out if it was even worth me trying to get through with only a drivers license. My fear was attempting to enter the US and being turned back and then being denied reentry into Canada and being stuck there.
Was anxious to get home and had already decided there was no way I was going to spend a week or more in Canada trying to get the passport deal straightened out. While driving I formulated my backup plan which involved leaving my vehicle at either Bothwell or Mihun's house and then getting a ride to the Rainy River a little east of Lake of the Woods where I'd load everything in the canoe, paddle a little ways upstream, cross over to the US side, and paddle a little ways up the Big Fork River to a boat access where someone from home would pick me up. Once I had my new passport I'd buy one of our loaner vehicles from the shop, drive it back into Canada, sign the title over to whoever had been taking care of my vehicle, and then drive back to the US. I really liked this plan and in a perverse way almost wanted to be turned away at the border so I could put it into action.
When I got to the border around 9:30pm there was a Canadian police station so I stopped to ask if they could answer any of my questions thinking this was something they've probably run across. They said they didn't know for sure how it worked but they made me feel much better. They said as far as they knew that if I was a US citizen I could not be denied access into my own country. They might be able to detain me for a while as they checked me out but they thought with a driver's license I'd probably get through just fine. So I decided to try running the border that night. Only one lane was open and there were no other vehicles passing through. It turned out to be one of the smoothest border crossings I've ever had. I handed him my license as well as the business card from the RCMP with case# from when I'd reported my passport stolen and explained what happened. I got the normal questions everyone gets when crossing the border and a couple about the stolen passport. He asked me to a roll down a rear window so he could see into the back of my car and then told me, "welcome back." What I relief! As soon as I'd pulled away and my window was up I gave a big whoop for joy.
I would have liked to stop and visit our members in Winnipeg but the timing just didn't work out. On the way up I was a man on a mission and on the way back it was getting to be late evening as I neared Winnipeg and I wanted to get to the border and see how big of a mess I had. I didn't expect to get across that night and figured in the morning I'd be driving back to Winnipeg. Very kind and generous offers though of which I'm greatly appreciative.
As for the trip: It was quite an adventure. I had a stretch of the best weather I've ever canoed in and an equally long stretch of the worst weather I've ever canoed in with a little bit of everything else mixed in. Going in I didn't quite know what to expect it to be like that far north. It's a completely different world than the sourthern Boreal forest I experienced last year along the Bloodvein and not a place to be trifled with. I'm thankful that in the first week it gave me a little taste of what it's capable of. It set me back on my heels and made me quite cautious the rest of the trip. Within the first week I had pretty much given up on reaching Nueltin Lake but kept pushing hard. After a stretch of good weather reaching Nueltin came back into play but I then had to abandon it again and changed my course. I'll get more into that later. The decision was a hard one to make and it really bothered me as the trip continued. Was it a wise choice or did I chicken out? Hindsight proved to be on my side as the last 2 weeks of the trip had horrendous weather with me either unable to travel or only traveling partial days. As the days kept counting and the weather kept getting worse I was thinking how glad I was I didn't push on to Nueltin as the best case scenario would have put me 5 days behind my current schedule and I would have been even farther north where the weather might have been even worse. I'll try and get something written up soon and post some pictures. Didn't really take any video this year so don't expect much but I did take more pictures and hope to have some decent ones that give a taste of the trip as well as the landscape.
Alan
