Whitefish & Lynx Lakes, NWT: 2022

[PaddlingPitt]

Friday July 15. During my phone call yesterday with Stephen, he used decimal degrees to describe the coordinates of our pickup spot on July 19. For example, he mentioned 62.35 degrees north, rather than his previous indication of 62º 21’ N. I have always used degrees and minutes rather than decimal degrees. Accordingly, I had entered degree and minute coordinates into my GPS.

I woke up in the middle of the night fretting just a smidge about the possible differences between the two approaches. Certainly, however, the two methods must describe the same geographic location. Could I prove it to myself? I should be able to. Let’s see, now, Mike. How many minutes are there in one degree? Probably 60. So, 21 divided by 60 should be the decimal equivalent. But you know what? I didn’t have a calculator handy, and I had forgotten how to do long division. I could rummage through our gear to find my iPad. It has a calculator. But that’s the innumerate’s way out. Besides, I didn’t want to disturb Kathleen.

I climbed down from my bunk, donned my headlamp, and sat down at the kitchen table with pen and paper. It’s likely been at least 50 years since my last attempt with long division, but my mind eventually resurrected the process. Twenty-one divided by 60 equals 0.35. Sixty-two plus 0.35 equals 62.35 degrees north. Perfect! I went back to bed, and slept until 5:30 a.m.

In the afternoon Ken took Karen, Kathleen and me by fishing boat to see tent rings and a waterfall. Kathleen and I have seen quite a few tent rings on the Barren Grounds. They are striking, obvious and conspicuous. Even squinting hard, and using a great deal of imagination, I would not have considered Ken’s example to be tent rings. Just somewhat largish stones that didn’t truly form a circle. More like a scattered jumble. Ken pointed to a large boulder with a smaller stone on top, which he claimed to be a directional marker. Not at all like the classic Inukshuk. I was sceptical that it was a directional marker. One would have to spot the large boulder first, and then get near enough to see the small stone on top. But I suppose it’s possible. Someone likely put that small stone on the large boulder. Unless the small stone just happened to have serendipitously landed on top of the large boulder during the last deglaciation.

Then we motored over to the waterfall, followed by a brief stop to view where Hank’s ashes were distributed. Hank was a plumber by trade, and as I mentioned before, contributed a great deal of time and knowledge to the lodge’s construction. Memories of Hank occur throughout the lodge, including a large freezer with the words ‘Hank Simon Personal’ written on top.

Back to the lodge around 4:00 p.m. Still too windy to paddle, although, perhaps I was being a bit wussy. Even so, Kathleen and I were ready to spend a third night at the lodge. A bit too late in the day to pack up and leave, anyway. “I assume, Ken, that Dan will want us to send another $400.00.

“If he knew you were staying a third night, I think he would want to charge you. If he asks, I will tell him.” (Note: Dan Wettlaufer owns the Lynx Tundra Lodge. Ken is Dan’s uncle.)

“No problem, Ken. I’ll contact Dan as soon as we get back to Yellowknife.”

By five o’clock the wind had died completely.

Ken is an avid reader of literature, and particularly enjoys Russian authors such as Dostoevsky. One of Ken’s favourite books is Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The following is from a review.

“First published (in censored form) in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, it is the 208-page story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov as he struggles to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. On every page of this graphic depiction of Ivan Denisovich's struggles, the pain of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's own decade-long experience in the gulag is apparent―which makes its ultimate tribute to one man's will to triumph over relentless dehumanization all the more moving.”

I’m a little embarrassed now to be sending Ken copies of our Thelon River book—mundane and inconsequential by comparison. Not literature at all. More like “What Kathleen and I did on our summer vacation.”

The conversation before, during and after supper focussed primarily on politics. Karen is intensely political, and most of her discussions began with political statements. Fortunately, Karen, Ken, Kathleen and I shared similar political positions and philosophies. Otherwise the afternoon and evening would have been extremely uncomfortable for me. I certainly would have headed back to our cabin soon after supper. Even so, I didn’t enjoy discussing politics. I’d much rather talk about tundra plants, or muskoxen, or how an Arctic Tern is able to hover like a hummingbird. Ken and I did manage a few of those discussions, but not nearly enough.

Kathleen and I returned to our cabin at eight o’clock—no wind at all. I was optimistic about tomorrow’s paddling conditions.


Karen Waiting For Boat Trip


Lynx Tundra Lodge. Outhouse With Door Far Right.


Directional Marker?


Ken, Me And Karen At Directional Marker


Waterfall


Still A Smidge Windy At Four O’clock

 

[Gamma1214]

“What Kathleen and I did on our summer vacation.”

Except that what you & Kathleen "did on summer vacation" is pretty cool.

Don't be shy about sending the books Michael; it's an interesting trip and a great read. (The fact that it's relevant to the area is a nice bonus.)

 

[Alan Gage]

Ken is an avid reader of literature, and particularly enjoys Russian authors such as Dostoevsky. One of Ken’s favourite books is Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich....I’m a little embarrassed now to be sending Ken copies of our Thelon River book—mundane and inconsequential by comparison. Not literature at all. More like “What Kathleen and I did on our summer vacation.”

I like Dostoevsky as well as other Russian literature. I'm not familiar with the Solzhenitsyn book and I just ordered it. I look forward to reading it.

And if it makes you feel any better I very much like reading about what you and Kathleen did on summer vacation. I'm sure Ken will too.

Alan

 

[memaquay]

For the average person, one of your trips would probably be the equivalent to life in the gulag, as the majority of folks don't embrace the suffering that the dedicated masochists (aka canoeists) routinely enjoy.

I can't imagine traveling all the way to the middle of nowhere to discuss politics. In fact, on a canoe trip, usually after the second day, any thoughts about life back in the rat race have been replaced with burning questions, such as "I wonder how much longer to camp?", or "I hope the wind dies down over night", or the question of pressing concern that often over-takes all - "Where am I going to poop today?".

Looking forward to your next thought provoking installment. For some reason though, I can't get thoughts out of my head about a fella with an axe and a miserable pawnbroker.

Edited to add....I was hugely impressed by the waterfall, if waterfalls were books, that one would be the War and Peace of waterfalls, certainly puts that old slag Niagra to shame.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Except that what you & Kathleen "did on summer vacation" is pretty cool.

Don't be shy about sending the books Michael; it's an interesting trip and a great read. (The fact that it's relevant to the area is a nice bonus.)

Gamma.Thanks for your support. I did send books To Ken, but never heard back. I always assume that means that the person didn’t like the book.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

I like Dostoevsky as well as other Russian literature. I'm not familiar with the Solzhenitsyn book and I just ordered it. I look forward to reading it.

And if it makes you feel any better I very much like reading about what you and Kathleen did on summer vacation. I'm sure Ken will too.

Alan

Alan,
I’m always happy when I can introduce people to paddling destinations. Introducing people to new literature is a bonus!

Ken was an interesting person. His wife is 16 years older than him. They met while taking a course in “Welsh As A Second Language.”

 

[Alan Gage]

I did send books To Ken, but never heard back. I always assume that means that the person didn’t like the book.

There are a lot of other explanations. They might have been lost in the mail. He might have poor manners. He might be a procrastinator and means to send you a letter tomorrow. He might feel embarrassed about trying to impress someone so experienced in the barrens the 'tent ring' and waterfall. Or he might be in a coma or even possibly dead.

Alan

 

[PaddlingPitt]

, I can't get thoughts out of my head about a fella with an axe and a miserable pawnbroker.

Are you perhaps referring to Jack Nicholson and Rod Steiger, respectively?

 

[Alan Gage]

For some reason though, I can't get thoughts out of my head about a fella with an axe and a miserable pawnbroker.

Are you perhaps referring to Jack Nicholson and Rod Steiger, respectively?

"Crime and Punishment follows the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old woman who stores money and valuable objects in her flat. He theorises that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds, and seeks to convince himself that certain crimes are justifiable if they are committed in order to remove obstacles to the higher goals of 'extraordinary' men. Once the deed is done, however, he finds himself racked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust. His theoretical justifications lose all their power as he struggles with guilt and horror and confronts both the internal and external consequences of his deed."


Alan

 

[PaddlingPitt]

"Crime and Punishment follows the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old woman who stores money and valuable objects in her flat. He theorises that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds, and seeks to convince himself that certain crimes are justifiable if they are committed in order to remove obstacles to the higher goals of 'extraordinary' men. Once the deed is done, however, he finds himself racked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust. His theoretical justifications lose all their power as he struggles with guilt and horror and confronts both the internal and external consequences of his deed."


Alan

Thanks, Alan. I had not read the story.

 

[Alan Gage]

Sorry/not sorry for the thread hijack:

Crime and Punishment on the Barrens follows the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rob Haslam, an impoverished semi-retired school teacher in Geraldton who plans to kill off a fellow guest at a wilderness lodge who will not stop talking politics. He theorises that certain crimes are justifiable if they are committed for a higher purpose. On the surface these higher purposes seem an indicate a desire to begin a revolution that will completely overturn the current political landscape and bring the nation back to a time when even the most common man or woman did not feel the need to voice all their ill-founded political opinions in public and on social media. However it slowly comes to light that the real reason behind the plan of our protagonist is to steal the guest's supply of food and alcohol. Mistakenly thinking this wilderness lodge would provide many amenities Rob did not bring any of his own food or drink and for the last few days has been subsisting on small pike and tepid lake water.

As he picks bones from his fillets at the dinner table he's forced to listen to the expostulations of this guest as they drink from a seemingly unending supply of wine and eat tender steak, which they have brought along and have not offered to share with other guests. Once the deed is done, however, he finds himself racked with confusion and disgust as he realizes the 'wine' is of the sparkling variety and that the 'steaks' are soy based. His theoretical justifications lose all their power as he struggles with guilt and horror and confronts both the internal and external consequences of his deeds.

Alan

 

[PaddlingPitt]

That was excellent, Alan. Hijack away all you want!! Perhaps we need a thread that allows people to put Haslam in other fictional and non-fictional scenarios.

 

[lowangle al]

Al,
Just wondering if you had a chance to open the link (July 13 posting) to hear the young muskox making the sound that I had wondered about earlier in the trip. Not a fox!

Yes I did, and was disappointed that it wasn't the mystery sound that I had heard at night in Pa. Like you, I could not tell if it was mammal or bird, I thought mammal, my wife thought bird. I guessed fox because I have heard that they make a variety of different sounds and can be found in both places.

That sounded like an ungulate to me, but I doubt the sound I heard was a deer. I recently did hear a deer baaah, sounded like a sheep.

Sometimes the things that we hear on trips are just as memorable as the things we see.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Yes I did, and was disappointed that it wasn't the mystery sound that I had heard at night in Pa. Like you, I could not tell if it was mammal or bird, I thought mammal, my wife thought bird. I guessed fox because I have heard that they make a variety of different sounds and can be found in both places.

That sounded like an ungulate to me, but I doubt the sound I heard was a deer. I recently did hear a deer baaah, sounded like a sheep.

Sometimes the things that we hear on trips are just as memorable as the things we see.

You probably already know this sound, Al. But the first time I heard it a few years ago, I was quite perplexed.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Saturday, July 16. Up at five o’clock. Quite calm. Just a slight breeze from the east. Today’s route takes us along the eastern shore of large land masses. We should benefit from lee paddling for most of the day. The barometer in the lodge was up a little bit from last night. Another encouraging sign.


We finished our bannock breakfast at 5:45 a.m., and paddled away from the lodge at eight. Today confirmed that Kathleen and I have limited skills at predicting upcoming weather and paddling conditions. The weather was so bad, that we didn’t even take any pictures today. At lunch I shivered, almost uncontrollably, while trying to hold together the shredded remnants of my 1:250,000 topographic map. Perhaps the beginning symptoms of hypothermia. Gotta get going to generate some mechanical heat.


Paddling into a strong headwind with deep rollers, we struggled to round several rocky points. I spent much of the afternoon paddling on my knees for more power. Kathleen never took a stroke off. Just kept paddling forward, like that ant dragging its spider carcass up the sandy depression on the Lynx Creek Esker. We often grounded out on large boulders near shore, where we jumped out to push and pull ourselves free while waves crashed up against us.

After a most miserable paddling day, we were in the tent at 3:30 p.m. Rainy, windy and cold. After we had warmed up a bit, Kathleen asked, “Would you like me to go out and cook up some supper, Michael?”

“I don’t think so, Kathleen. It’s too cold to cook and eat outside. I would rather not eat at all than eat outside.” The temperature was 11 degrees C (52 degrees F ). Not really that cold; but it seemed so much colder with all that wind and rain.

But we had to eat something. Had to replenish our energy. So we opted for gorp, with cheese & crackers, for supper in the tent. Normally we never take food into the tent, as we don’t want to encourage any wandering grizzly bears to amble on over, demanding to share our meal. We ate our meal carefully, bending over our single shared plate to catch all falling crumbs. Afterwards, Kathleen took the plate down to the water, where she tossed the crumbs into the unceasing wind. She then returned the plate to our kitchen bucket.

You might remember that all guests at the Lynx Tundra lodge bring their own food and alcohol, most of which they leave behind at the end of their visit. As a going-away gift this morning, Ken gave us partially used bottles of cognac and five-year old Grand Marnier. That Grand Marnier was a a truly marvellous evening libation. dang, it was excellent! The poor weather swirling around the tent no longer seemed quite so unpleasant.

We were camped at 62º 22’ N, 106º 17’ W, just east of the Island-studded Channel, today’s destination on the itinerary. The GPS says we are only 14.9 km (9.2 miles), as the Raven flies, to our pickup spot. We expect to be there tomorrow.

Sunday, July 17. Today was difficult and frustrating. The morning was calm, but we soon faced unrelentingly strong wind and waves. Continuously straining against the elements exacted a toll on my 74-year-old body. By early afternoon my hands hurt, my back hurt, and my thighs hurt. I needed to rest on shore about every 30 minutes. During one of these rests, on an island, the wind speed increased significantly. “We gotta get off this island while we still can Kathleen. It’s only about one kilometre to the mainland. Let’s go.”

We paddled ahead of a following sea, with the south wind pushing from behind. I don’t at all like paddling in a following sea. I can’t see what’s coming from behind, and I don’t enjoy sliding backwards down the wave as it passes beneath the canoe. We eventually reached the shore, and pulled the canoe up onto a gentle, sandy, boulder-free, south-facing beach. We jumped out, lugged the loaded canoe out of the crashing waves, and sat down to contemplate our situation.

We were off the island, but were now being directly assaulted by the wind. We sat mostly in silence for about 20 minutes, when I asked, “What do you want to do, Kathleen?”

“It’s too soon to camp, and I want to get there today. But I don’t think we can paddle in this. We’re broadside to the waves.”\

“We’re only about one kilometre (0.6 miles) from where the land turns south. If we can get there, we’d be paddling into the wind. We’d be less vulnerable.”

“OK. Let’s try.”

We positioned the canoe to angle slightly into the wind and hopped in, about a metre (three feet) from shore. The wind immediately caught the bow of the canoe, and turned it parallel to the shore. The next broadside wave shoved us toward the beach, but the shallow, gently-sloping bottom kept the canoe from capsizing. We stroked hard to manoeuvre away from shore, but were again shoved up toward the beach. Again we remained upright. This was working!

We repeated this dance until we finally turned south. No more broadside waves to deal with. “That was almost fun, Kathleen, don’t you think? We took water over the gunwales only twice.”

“I thought it was pretty scary. But we made it. Maybe we really will reach our pickup spot today.”

“Probably will. Let me check to see how close the GPS thinks we are.” I pulled the GPS from the map case, and turned it on. “Only 4.8 kilometres (three miles) Kathleen.”

I continued to hold the GPS, and followed its directions. “Only 3.5 km (2.2 miles) to go. Only 1.9 km (1.2 miles). Only 1.2 km (0.75 miles) to go. That must be the beach up there ahead of us.”

And then something completely inexplicable happened, The closer we got to the beach, the farther away the GPS thought we were. We continued on, and beached the canoe. I then wandered left, down the shore with the GPS, which indicated that I was getting farther away from our destination. I then walked right, down the shore. Again the GPS indicated that I was getting farther from our destination. I then walked inland. Again the GPS indicated that I was getting farther from our destination. “I don’t understand this, Kathleen. How can this be? Doesn’t make any sense to me. Let’s go back to where we last knew our location on the map. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

We set up camp at 62º 22.581’ N, 105º 59.345’ W, according to the GPS, which I no longer completely trusted. That puts us a little bit north and east of last night’s camp. I am sceptical, though, as based on my interpretation of the ragged remnants of my 1:250,000 topographic map, I believe that we are slightly south of last night’s camp. Anyway, the GPS says we have three km (2 miles) to go to reach our pickup spot at a south bearing of 177 degrees. Based on my maps, that could be approximately correct.

“What do you want to do now, Kathleen? Do you want to cook supper on the beach, or just have a snack in the tent?”

“I want to go home.”

You and me both, I thought to myself. This canoe trip is no fun at all.

In the tent, Kathleen poured some Grand Marnier into my green cup. As she passed it over, the cup tipped slightly, and half the Grand Marnier spilled out. This canoe trip is no fun at all.


July 16 Camp At 7:40 a.m. On July 17


Calm Weather At 7:40 a.m. On July 17


Organizing Gear For Breakfast At 7:41 a.m. On July 17


Blue Sky And Calm Weather 10:30 a.m. On July 17


Easy Access To The Beach 10:30 a.m.

 

[Alan Gage]

Only one full day left. I hope the weather cooperates to make you happy to be where you are. It's no fun to want to be somewhere else.

Alan

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Only one full day left. I hope the weather cooperates to make you happy to be where you are. It's no fun to want to be somewhere else.

Alan

Thanks for hanging in with the story, Alan. Things do take a turn. For better? For worse?

 

[memaquay]

That was quite a suffer-fest, and although I can commiserate with the pain and misery, the suffering always makes for great story telling.

As for your thread highjack Alan, well, you seem to know me too well. I would never plan a crime to procure booze and cigarettes, but I have practiced supplication and begging. There have been a couple of trips where American fly-in fisherman have taken pity on my wretched and bedraggled appearance in the middle of nowhere in a "home-made" canoe, and lavished me with liquor and smokes.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

That was quite a suffer-fest, and although I can commiserate with the pain and misery, the suffering always makes for great story telling.

The story telling, arising from misery, is about to get even better, mem.

 

[Odyssey]

How does that proverb go, misery loves company? I was having an okay time right up till the winds kicked up. Then the thoughts crept in "I'm gonna love sleeping in my own bed." It's good to see others endure some misery on canoe trips besides us, not that I want anyone to. It's just good to know the weather gods aren't just pissed at my wife and me all the time. Things can only get better, right?