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Paddle to the Arctic: Smokey Island Refuge

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We’re late leaving Fort Simpson and only travel three hours before finding a nice camping spot on a tiny treed island near the east bank. There’s lots of smoke in the air but the tourist information centre in Simpson indicated there’s nothing for us to be concerned about. Evidently Jean Marie River has a big fire, though. It started the day after we left.

Our island is small and we camp at the far end where the current has shaped it into a teardrop point. Here it’s flat and gravelly and good for camping, but the rest of the island is dense forest with no suitable ground. This is the case for most of the Mackenzie River — gravel and sand-lined shores providing the best surface to pitch a tent with an impenetrable wall of forest just beyond. Our little island is only about 50 metres from the east shore but is exposed enough to the river to have a steady flow of wind across it, making an ideal spot to keep the mosquitos at bay.

The smokes of the fires are playing wonders with our evening skies as broad bands of yellow and pink break the monotony of an otherwise dark grey canvas. A full moon pierces through the charcoal as well, an orange eye glaring at us from the distant beyond. And we’re not the only ones staring back. We’re asleep only a few minutes before the howling begins. It’s a lonely cry at first that ends with a small bark, but soon erupts into a cacophony of calls including the yaps of pups. There’s a pack of wolves just on the opposite bank, a stone throw from us. I look out the tent but see nothing. The howling continues and soon elicits a response from another group a couple hundred metres down river. Suddenly a duet begins. At some point a lonely cry, high and piercing, builds into the operatic piece from the far shore some four kilometres distant. We have wolves all around us. Arianna turns to me with eyes open like saucers. “Daddy, I never heard a wolf in the wild before.”

The haunting wails carry on for hours. We eventually fall asleep with a strange sense of both excitement and ill ease all mixed into one.

The wolves seem to have gone by morning but the smoke has stuck around. It’s gotten worse. We leave Howling Island Camp on calm winds and rising temps through a building haze of white smoke.

We’re disciplined today and paddle four hours until lunch, take a break for two and then paddle another four until camp. The schedule garners us a respectable 64 kilometres and gets us past the ferry crossing on the road to Wrigley. We set camp on another small island, this one sandy and flat, and get dive-bombed by an angry gull while doing so. This bird is none too pleased on our arrival and flies in low and fast, screeching wildly as she does. I’m forced to raise my paddle high in the air on several occasions to discourage her. Our angry gull loses interest once she realizes we’re simply making our own nest and are not interested in hers.

The smoke diminishes by morning but builds again a couple hours after departure. It’s thick today, the worst to date. We spend our lunch looking out at the confluence where the North Nahanni River meets the Mackenzie. but with the smoke we can only see the grey silhouettes of the steep mountains that are gatekeepers to its headwaters.

After lunch we round Camsell Bend and cross a momentous milestone on the river journey as the Mackenzie now starts to head north. When Alexander Mackenzie passed this point in 1789 he openly wept when the river changed course. He had been in search of the Northwest Passage and knew at this point that the passage had eluded him.

For us the Camsell Bend brings tears too, not from disappointment but from smoke. As we round the big right turn we discover towering columns of smoke rising from the east bank of the river. On the west bank is a bank of thunderclouds. They’ve been building for hours and are now going about their business of unleashing havoc. They are moving directly towards us. We are forced to choose between fire or thunder and we choose thunder. We strike out for the far shore about two kilometres distant. The storm hits with 500 metres to go and we’re forced backwards with wind gusts. We slash the water with our paddles and claw towards the shoreline. Lightning lights up the sky around. We need to get off the water fast. It’s amazing the strength you can garner when you need to. We slide up on shore with storms clouds all around us. We clamber up on the bank and nestle ourselves in the high grass. The incessant buzz of mosquitos seems fairly manageable under the circumstance. Looking over to the far shore we see huge plumes of smoke rising from the bank as they consume the mountains of the Camsell Range. This is where all the smoke’s been coming from. We found ground zero. It was on our path all along.

The thunderstorms pass and the river quietens. We’re intent on getting as far away from this fire as we can and commit to paddling as long as it takes. It takes us three hours. We set up camp on Berry Island with clear skies forming and Mordor in the distance. Our camp is quickly christened Smokey Island Refuge.


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