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.

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.

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.

Thursday 19th June 2008

Wow......Tony and I have paddled all of the Grand Rapids with just one portage.......and I have to say, it's quite an exhilarating feeling!!

The Old Town canoe has been a great choice, it's felt stable even with its heavy load of gear. Today, as we paddled on one section of the river it looked like the river met the horizon and as we paddled along I decided that we would move over to the left hand side. We paddled across easily but as we got over, I saw the ledge. My mind raced as I thought "Oh no, I've done the wrong thing here" then verbalising "Oh Shit"and the tone used to verbalise certainly left Tony with no doubt that we were coming into something pretty big.

Well it was big, in fact in was a huge, huge, massive wave that spanned almost the entire width of the river. From where we were, it towered above us like a double decker bus and Tony and I had no other option other than, straighten the canoe, drop over the ledge and head straight into it.

The volume of water that slapped into Tony and onto our deck was immense. Once through it seemed like we were padding down into a valley, it was quite a spectacular feeling. Coming out of it felt as though we were trying to climb Mt Everest and it seemed to be taking forever. We had no idea what to expect once we climbed on top of the wave or what the next wave would be like. Fortunately it didn't get any worse and the waves dissipated and the river continued with its fast flow.

The fact that we came through the rapid unscathed though very wet can be attributed to some excellent paddling and given that Tony hasn't paddled anything like this before, he really needs to be congratulated. Having said that however had we known what was coming up, there is no way we would have done it. I think both Tony and I have strained buttock muscles after coming through this rapid that must have been a grade four!!

As Tony and I shot the last rapid, I looked back at an amazing scene . The two mountain ranges met and I could see a valley with the river flowing down. It appeared as though we had closed one door and opened another because as I looked forward the scenery was quite different.

We are now in a motel room in Fort McMurray after being advised against camping in this town and our canoe is behind a fenced area along with a float plane. Fort McMurray is a mining town that unfortunately has a fairly large problem of antisocial behaviour and petty theft. The town itself isn't unpleasant though I haven't yet had a good opportunity to check it out properly.

We are staying for only one night and will be back onto the river tomorrow. Though I must admit having a hot shower is a very special treat and, we've taken the oppotunity to do some laundry!!

Tuesday 17th June 2008

We managed about 32kms today which wasn't too bad given that the day included a portage of five and a half hours. The portage was a tough one and really hard work. There was a steep hill of about 300m high which we had to carry our gear up and over. We must have been the first ones through for this season as there weren't any tracks of where anyone else might have come through. We made the trek several times before finally getting all our gear over. Then the final trek of bringing the canoe, Tony and I dragged the canoe with ropes it must have still weighed about 50kgs!

The numbers of mozzies didn't make the portage any easier, they're in plague proportions!!

We did five rapids which went quite well and we'll be approaching more over these next couple of days. The canoe feels really very stable and is handling well through the rapids.

All in all, today has been one of the toughest to date.

Sunday 15th June 2008

Well after the start we had yesterday, I was hoping for a better day today and that is indeed what we had.

We met up with some people who had just been out fishing and we got chatting to one another. As we were leaving they mentioned that there was a shack downstream and that we should call in and see a guy called Greg.

Tony and I set off downstream, seeing plenty of wildlife again. Lots of moose, elks, geese with goslings and ducks with ducklings. We eventually came to the shack the guys had mentioned and we took the opportunity to call in and meet Greg and two of his friends visiting from the city. We spent an hour chatting around the open fire drinking coffee with Baileys and listening to a lot of stories of around the area. Tony hadn't had the pleasure of Baileys in coffee and quickly became a convert to the 'coffee special' that I often enjoy myself.

Every so often one or other, of the two horses (that were free to roam around the property) would nudge their way closer to the fire to get the smoke, apparently this helped to keep the flies out of their eyes. Just before heading off again, Greg mentioned about a great little camping spot downstream where a German guy had built a wooden hut that anyone could use. Sounded like a good spot to head to. Greg also said that they might come down the river to test out their speed boats in the afternoon and bring us along a couple of beers. This sounded like a great idea and Tony and I spent the afternoon listening out for the sounds of speed boats!!

Later that afternoon after paddling around 50kms much to our delight, we heard the sound of jet boats. The guys soon caught up with us and handed Tony and I a beer each, we all sat in our own boats and drifted with the current sharing stories and before we knew it, we had downed three beers.

We eventually left winding our way (could have been the beers that made it seem windy) down the river to the wooden cabin. Tony took the opportunity to sleep in the wooden hut, whilst I erected my tent on a beautiful sandy beach next to a stream and river. It was good to sit here in the sun and reflect about the enjoyable day we had.

Tomorrow we hit some small rapids and it will be interesting to see if the canoe is more manageable since we dropped some weight. I think we'll be at the Grand Rapids in around two days time.

Saturday 14th June 2008

Well I know that I'll certainly remember Athabasca.....why.....because I helped save a man from drowning!!

As I was getting ready to pack up camp, a fisherman came hurrying across to me and asked if I had a rope to help get someone out of the river. Though a little dubious I grabbed my throw bag and headed in the direction that the fisherman went. Sure enough there at the bottom of the steep bank was a guy in the river calling for help. I threw him my throw bag but the guy was so inebriated and hyperthermic that he was unable to grab the rope, so the fisherman went down the slippery bank to tie the rope on him.

The guy was too heavy and in such a state that he couldn't help himself and we had no chance of getting him up so I held onto him to keep him from falling back in the water whilst the fisherman called 911.

In the meantime another person arrived and he held onto the rope whilst I quickly undressed down to my undies (lucky I had them on!!) and got into the water. It was going to be the only way to get him out. I got behind the guy and started pushing up with my knees whilst pulling on the rope. The other rescuer was also pulling the rope tied to the guy. By using my knees and pushing up centimtre by centimetre and continually picking him up as he fell to one side we managed to get him to the top of the bank.

By the time I got him to the top of the bank both of us were covered with mud. All three of us (rescuers) together carried him across to a bench next to a barbeque where we sat him down. The guy mumbled something about not having any more clothes and tried to stand up, but he was still unable to stand on his own two legs and promptly fell over and split his head on the barbeque. Now not only was he drunk and hyperthermic but he was bleeding from the cut to his head! Fortunately it wasn't long after this that the ambulance arrived, followed by the police and just for good measure also the firebrigade.

I wondered whilst I was in the shower warming up, if this guy would remember why he had such a sore head when he woke up!!

Needless to say our start to the day was a bit later than usual.

Pictures below taken by the third rescuer.

Terry & Tony launching the Canoe from their Athabasca campsite