Friday 27th June 2008
We've arrived at the start of the 25km section of rapids on the Slave River. The weather has been pleasantly warm though the water speed has slowed down.
Tony and I are wanting to do differnt things at this section, I want to portage and Tony wants to get a lift. For me, my expeditions are about pushing myself and doing it without any vehicle assistance and so I can't see myself accepting a lift. At this stage we're discussing just how this portage is going to work for each of our needs.
I'm looking to do the portage tomorrow so stay tuned to see how we've resolved this issue!!
I can't believe how quickly time has come for the 'girls' to join us, Leonie has already left Perth and is now in Sweden catching up with her son. Alaine is still at work, coping with organising the end of financial year stock take, group certificates as well as getting the quarterly BAS statement finalised. When I think about it, Tony and I left just at the right time!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday 24th June 2008
Here we are at Fort Chipewyan, Tony and I have just finished a meal at the local cafe, service was very quick.......there was just the two of us.
We're camped on a beautiful beach with glorious sand under our feet and not the mud that we've almost become accustomed to. The weather has been sunny, it's so nice to have after the last couple of days of cool and drizzle.The scenery is quite lovely and not unlike Albany in Western Australia.
We met a guy who lives in Fort Simpson, which is our next village after here. He said there's a barbeque happening on Saturday night and that we would be welcome along if we get there in time. Distance to there is approximately 200kms but we're heading onto the Slave River where we've got the big, long rapids (grade 4's and 5's) coming up on this section. I expect we'll be portaging and the last portage of 1.5 kms took us five and half hours!!!! Maybe the thought of a barbeque will inspire us to hasten up our portages.
Here we are at Fort Chipewyan, Tony and I have just finished a meal at the local cafe, service was very quick.......there was just the two of us.
We're camped on a beautiful beach with glorious sand under our feet and not the mud that we've almost become accustomed to. The weather has been sunny, it's so nice to have after the last couple of days of cool and drizzle.The scenery is quite lovely and not unlike Albany in Western Australia.
We met a guy who lives in Fort Simpson, which is our next village after here. He said there's a barbeque happening on Saturday night and that we would be welcome along if we get there in time. Distance to there is approximately 200kms but we're heading onto the Slave River where we've got the big, long rapids (grade 4's and 5's) coming up on this section. I expect we'll be portaging and the last portage of 1.5 kms took us five and half hours!!!! Maybe the thought of a barbeque will inspire us to hasten up our portages.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sunday 22nd June
We've had a couple of good days on the water and the mozzies haven't been in the plague proportions that they were......I can almost enjoy my daily constitution!!!
Expecting to be in Fort Chipewyan in a couple of days, have no idea of what the place is like. We still haven't seen any bears I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
Expecting to be in Fort Chipewyan in a couple of days, have no idea of what the place is like. We still haven't seen any bears I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
Friday 20th June 2008
We managed to leave Fort McMurray with all our goods intact!
Time on the river was much slower today as the water flow has reduced considerably. We camped on an island a kilometre from the Suncor work site (Suncor is a mining company that mines the sands by the Athabasca river.........and sadly the landscape is ravaged by this mining).
We were there for about three hours, during that time an employee of Suncor had been driving up and down on the mainland opposite to where we were. Just as Tony was about to hit the sack at around ten past ten, a car pulls up opposite us, and a fellow gets out and with the aid of a megaphone shouts "You are on Suncor land and you cannot stay there, you must move on." He repeated this a few times, and only when he saw us packing to leave did he then get back into his car and drive off.
We couldn't believe that an island could be a part of their property but as we were visitors we felt that we had no choice but to move on. We were far from impressed at having to pack up our gear and get back into the canoe at that time of night. By the time we had packed up and got back into paddling gear the sun had set. We paddled off downstream wondering why on earth someone from Suncor didn't mention this to us as soon as they saw us there. As we passed the site with chimneys, lights, noise and smoke billowing out of the stacks and actually being able to taste the pollution we just wondered why anyone would want to work there (it could only have been for the good dollars). Although the site looked a futuristic and unsightly landscape, the setting sun and smoke haze blended together and created a strange but oddly beautiful scene allowing us to momentarily forget the damage and pollution caused by this type of mining.
Luckily some 5kms or so downstream we found another little island where we had to erect the tents with a plague of mozzies attacking us.
Time on the river was much slower today as the water flow has reduced considerably. We camped on an island a kilometre from the Suncor work site (Suncor is a mining company that mines the sands by the Athabasca river.........and sadly the landscape is ravaged by this mining).
We were there for about three hours, during that time an employee of Suncor had been driving up and down on the mainland opposite to where we were. Just as Tony was about to hit the sack at around ten past ten, a car pulls up opposite us, and a fellow gets out and with the aid of a megaphone shouts "You are on Suncor land and you cannot stay there, you must move on." He repeated this a few times, and only when he saw us packing to leave did he then get back into his car and drive off.
We couldn't believe that an island could be a part of their property but as we were visitors we felt that we had no choice but to move on. We were far from impressed at having to pack up our gear and get back into the canoe at that time of night. By the time we had packed up and got back into paddling gear the sun had set. We paddled off downstream wondering why on earth someone from Suncor didn't mention this to us as soon as they saw us there. As we passed the site with chimneys, lights, noise and smoke billowing out of the stacks and actually being able to taste the pollution we just wondered why anyone would want to work there (it could only have been for the good dollars). Although the site looked a futuristic and unsightly landscape, the setting sun and smoke haze blended together and created a strange but oddly beautiful scene allowing us to momentarily forget the damage and pollution caused by this type of mining.
Luckily some 5kms or so downstream we found another little island where we had to erect the tents with a plague of mozzies attacking us.
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