"Mighty" Dease River, British Columbia, 2003

[yellowcanoe]

Are you sure that you’re too old, YC? I would not like to think that your tripping days are over.

It had been a long time, 15 years, since I had seen these images, or thought about our Dease River trip. I have uploaded a PDF file of this trip report to my drive.google account, and have sent a link to all the Dease River Adventurers. Cheryl, Greg, Sean and Allana are planning a family get together to re-live the trip. Don and Laura might join them, with their 12-year-old daughter. I would love to be there in Vancouver for a grand reunion! It might be more fun than the trip itself!

My favourite image was of Allana, astride the canoe, shooting through Stone Island Rapids. Only seven years old, and filled with confidence. She’s now 23, with a degree in Chemical Engineering. Does her success at lease partially flow from The Mighty Dease River? I like to think so.

Well both of us are nearing 75 and husband is deaf. He reads hand signals but occasionally forgets what they mean.. This would not be a safe trip for us alone. with some dementia becoming more prevalent. Memories can be sweet though!

 

[Boreal Birch]

Another wonderful well written river journey, I loved every word. The one word that I really liked as did others was Snye. Up here every back water that is not a river or stream is called a slough. The stream near my house is called Piledriver Slough, I have never liked calling it a slough. Back in the early 1900's it was called Chena Slough and was at high water a means for steamboats to go around Bates rapids on the Tanana River. Urban sprawl and a large flood control dike have changed the landscape, Chena Slough is a dry slough in many places, dead water in others, because Badge Road parallels it for a long way many people wrongly call it Badger Slough. My section of Chena Sough (now called Piledriver Slough) was really a snye until the Corps of Engineers diked it off at it's head in the 1970's making it a nice beautiful little clear water stream, which I am now calling Piledriver Snye. None of this has anything to do with your great story of course, but my makes my daily walks with the dogs along the snye much more enjoyable and I have you to thank for that.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Boreal,

People do like the snye word. It harkens back to older terminology. I was googling the word, and learned that there is a Snye River in Alberta. At one time, before it was danged by a causeway, it linked the Athabasca and Clearwater Rivers.

 

[dougd]

I know I'm echoing others words but another wonderfully entertaining and well awaited story! I am sorry for the picture problems but it looks like it is all figured out. I always look forward to your write ups of your journey's. I will be looking for the next installment. Thank you for sharing!

 

[Pook]

Michael et al,

I laughed when I read the latest notes on Friday evening because I was sitting in a hotel in Fort McMurray about 100m from the Snye!
As Michael noted, the Snye River was a backchannel that used to connect the Clearwater with the Athabasca River as it flowed around Macdonald Island. With the building of the causeway to Macdonald Island the river was blocked off and became the float plane harbour in the 1920's. Float planes have used this "landing strip" regularly up to present though the hangars and docks have disappeared in the latest waterfront re-development.

To bring this thread back to paddling, Fort McMurray just installed a controversial paddling sculpture at the causeway end of the Snye. Float plane pilots say the 2-storey artwork is in the takeoff path!!!!

A couple of pictures of the Snye from Saturday October 26th as the ice started to form.

Cheers!
Bruce

 

[RickR]

Thank you so much for another superlative trip report! I've enjoyed it immensely! The photos are beautiful. They make me want to experience that landscape myself. I liked reading the different accounts of the same day. It resulted in a very complete description of your trip, as everyone sees the same thing with different eyes and life experience. You did a wonderful job of documenting and describing a great trip with a really nice group of people. It was obvious reading along that this was a very well planned trip. Easy to aspire to, but harder to do. Well done! I enjoyed seeing the photos of the MR Explorer and OT Tripper, as those are the 2 boats Karen and I have paddled the most.

 

[memaquay]

Geeze Pook, any bush pilot worth his salt could fly through that egg thing hole. They even left spots for the wings.