The Beaver River, Again - Episode 10

We've visited the Beaver River before, several posts back, but here's another route higher upstream that's very interesting too.  It meanders slowly through a huge Silver Maple Swamp, dodging logjams and encountering wildlife.  It was the closest easy paddle to our previous home.  And it was a designated canoe route, with safe access points.

The reflections were striking in early spring or 2015, the leaves just emerging.

I really like this picture, showing what paddling through a swamp is like.

These are the sorts of logjams you encounter.  In this case we were able to slip through by ducking under some branches.  Free Spirit Tours runs canoe trips on the Beaver River, so they make sure logjams aren't completely blocking the river.

We saw occasional Canada Geese; if they didn't call and fly quickly away you knew a nest was nearby.

We also passed one beaver lodge.

And surprisingly saw several Egrets.  Can you spot it?

After an hour or so, the scenery opened up and forest cover was a little less dense.

Double-crested Cormorants roosting in a tree.

You could spot ice damage on the lower trunks of nearby trees.

And another Egret standing along the shore.

In fact, as we approached the bridge and the take-out point, I counted four Egrets together on the bank.  This is a very peaceful and easy three hour paddle, but quite interesting at the same time, particularly if you combine it with the lower section which I've already described.

The Burnside River

The most distant and challenging canoe trip I joined my group of buddies on was the Burnside in the Arctic.  The Burnside is a typical Arctic River, well beyond the tree  line, bouncing down a constant gradient providing almost continuous Class I, II and III rapids.  There are very few portages, but one giant one, six kilometres long, over a significant hill!  It's been described as the 'Burnside Death March'!

We flew in from Yellowknife heading over 400 km. northeast until we could land on a lake that wasn't still frozen solid - Kathawachaga Lake.  From there it was just bouncing downstream until we came to the killer portage around the Burnside Falls, to emerge at Bathurst Inlet, a tiny hamlet with access to the Arctic Ocean.

The Burnside is known as a wildlife river, with guided expeditions speaking of Muskox, Grizzlies, Wolf and other species, but we saw few of these - only a grizzly at a great distance as we started the portage.  However, we did pass a narrow point of the river where the local Caribou herd migrated.  With Inuit hunting at that point we did find a significant pile of Caribou antlers and bones.

The paddling was great. the current was so constant that we really didn't have to paddle for momentum, rather we had to paddle to avoid boulders!  So it was often the bow person's job to be on the lookout and pull the canoe sideways with a draw stroke or two!  I was kept on my toes, but enjoyed it immensely.  I won't describe the 'portage from hell' in detail, suffice it say it was three times as long as any other portage I've done, as well as being uphill in part - a big long hill!

This was the only trip where we took a large tent we christened the 'tundra tunnel'.  It was large enough we could all gather inside, away from the bugs that swarmed around once we stopped to camp.  It got us out of the wind too; the low end helps prevent the tent from being blown away!.  It's the big blue tent in this picture.

We did make it successfully to Bathurst Inlet, to find no-one there, so we set up camp on the airstrip, and waited for pickup and our return flight to Yellowknife.  All in all the most exciting canoeing I'd ever done!