July 2010

Laurence Beaulieu and Scott Campbell have returned from a spectacular two-week trip down the South Nahanni River, NWT.

The Nahanni is one of the north’s premier trips: it was among the first places to be named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations, and is also a Canadian Heritage River. It features Virginia Falls (twice the height of Niagara) and canyons rising as much as a kilometer from the river. Paddling through the mountains means that every scene is breathtaking, and camera batteries are at a premium. There are several guidebooks in print (including some available from Heritage Canada), but the best introduction to the river is RM Patterson’s classic “The Dangerous River”: we brought copies with us so we could paddle along “with” him.

We used an outfitter, Nahanni Wilderness Adventures, who provided guides, equipment, food, and made all the arrangements. The trip started with an exciting 90-minute flight in a Cessna floatplane, which gave us a 7500 foot view of the mountains, valleys, and the 400km of river we were about to paddle (or drift: the current was usually 8-10 kmh). Our two-week trip started at Rabbitkettle Lake, and was for the most part a flatwater trip; yes, there were some rapids but the canoes were outfitted with spraycovers, so they were just a matter of “keep your paddle in the water and stay upright!” (Some of the others travelling with us had minimal paddling experience.) A three-week trip would have started at Moose Ponds and included more technical whitewater.

The weather (starting in late June) was not very different from Ottawa’s: the trip started with some rain that got to be cold, but ended with temperatures around 30 degrees. The Nahanni is glacier-fed, so swimming was…. shall we say, brief! Because the rivers and streams are rapidly eroding the mountains, the river was quite silty and lifeless: not many fish, and strangely enough, the prescribed method of garbage food disposal is to dump it in the river! Insects were not really a problem: mosquitoes in the few marshes, and horseflies in the lowlands. We didn’t see as much wildlife as we had hoped, possibly because of the temperatures and the time of year. But, the 24 hours of daylight is something special to experience: at midnight, we could still read in the tent without a headlight!

Some highlights: approaching the Falls up close and personal, the cliffs of First Canyon, the view from 3500 foot Sunblood Mountain, woodland buffalo, climbing The Gate, surviving George’s Riffle, grabbing air on Lafferty’s Riffle, drinking water gushing from the side of a mountain, daylight all night, hearing Mike tell stories of his Dene people, reuniting 5 canoes with 10 paddles, soaking in Kraus’ Hot Spring,….

Highly recommended! As a club trip, it would have been even better, but we wouldn’t have eaten so well!