Missinaibi River; August 24 – September 12, 2001
For several years I had wanted to combine my painting with my love of wilderness canoeing. I did paintings from some of my past trips, but had never brought my painting kit along on the rivers themselves. In the late nineties one thing or another had kept me from going. Finally I decided I would do it “Come Heck or High Water” in 2001.
It was to be a solo journey on Ontario’s Missinaibi River, from source to salt – over 300 miles. When fellow Vermont artist John Pitcher asked to come, I secured a second solo canoe by the generosity of Mad River Canoe Co. and magazine coverage with Wildlife Art Magazine.
The Missinaibi flows north and northeasterly from Lake Missinaibi 340 miles to the southern most extension of the Arctic Ocean, James Bay. The first 130 miles flow through remote, if not “wilderness” country to Mattice, Ontario. North of Mattice there is nothing but wilds for 170 miles to the Cree Indian village of Moose River Crossing.
John and I got under way on a bright and warm August 24, 2001. Low water and, later cold north winds, hampered our progress so that painting was difficult. Despite the arduous conditions we both got plenty of art done, and reached Mattice September 1st.
Both John and I are fairly tough travelers, but neither of us is twenty (or thirty) and we were both feeling the strain of the trip. John elected to return to Vermont from Mattice. I faced down my serious qualms about continuing alone into real wilderness.
I set off September 4th for James Bay. Alone, my attention was intensely focused on river, weather, wildlife and art. I was acutely aware that I was working without a net. I saw no one for nine days, and knew that if I needed help, I’d be out of luck; even a minor accident could be disastrous. Everything seemed keener, however, and my paintings took a quantum leap. The field paintings I did on the river were far better than my pleine-aire work up to that point, and under far more stressful conditions.
The greatest physical and psychological challenge was enduring four solid days of wind, rain and cold, including hypothermia on September 8th and a ferocious storm on September 10th. The storm eased that night. In my isolation the next day was the finest of the trip; a beautiful dawn (the first in days) with Sandhill Cranes, 31 miles of invigorating paddling (including an adrenalin moment in Deception Rapids), and a comfortable camp looking back at the last of the Missinaibi River. As the sun sank through stages of delicately nuanced evening light into riotous color I cooked dinner and painted.
A native Cree man told me what September 11th was to everybody else two days later. One of my brothers is on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I knew he was probably in the Pentagon when it was hit. There were no phones at Moose River Crossing. I caught the southbound train but by the time I reached Cochrane, Ontario I almost didn’t dare call. He had been in the building but was all right. My first cousin had by chance not been in to work on the 103rd floor of the WTC in Manhattan, no one in his office made it out. It was a surreal return to the civilized world.
Harricana River, October 5 - October 12, 2002
The idea was to paddle northwestern Quebec’s Harricana River, 160
miles to James Bay from mid September to early October. When I had finished
the Missinaibi the year before on September 12th, I had noticed that the
birches were starting to change color. I thought that by starting then,
I could catch the color as it moved south, making for some beautiful contrasts
with the dark green boreal forests of spruce. It also would get me out
into James Bay, which I had not reached the year before, and I could return
on the same train out of Moosonee, Ontario back to Cochrane.
In theory it should have worked. The Harricana, along with the Missinaibi, is considered one of the finest wilderness whitewater rivers in eastern Canada. It is however, a wilder river than the Missinaibi. The Harricana was not an important fur trade river like the Missinaibi, so there are not the ancient portage trails at the rapids, and the Missinaibi is now a Provincial Park, with signs for campsites and portages; there are none of those amenities on the Harricana. Its wildness appealed to me.
A drawn out personal matter delayed my departure until all my potential partners backed out. I decided that a late and cold solo journey was better than no journey, and was on the way to meet the outfitter October 4th.
I shoved off between snow and rainsqualls and headed north into a stiff headwind. The river looked ominously high. Not only were there no signs for campsites; there were no campsites. As the sun sank and the snow thickened I had to force my way up a beaver trail through the thick willow scrub to carve out a spot for my tent. The river was higher in the morning. Fortunately I always tie my boat, because the river had reached it. I broke camp early to avoid getting soaked by the melting frost and snow while a northern three-toed woodpecker (a life bird for me) hammered a nearby snag.
The first rapid, Tematagama, was a sobering sight. The river was clearly swollen, with some dangerous hydraulics in the normally grade II rapid. I changed into my wetsuit (I’d brought it as a precaution against cold), secured my deck cover (another precaution for this late season trip), and ran the line I’d scouted. I was worried; while I’d run it without mishap, it was supposed to be an “easy” rapid …but now it was hungry for a victim. The next rapid wasn’t named (good) but the topo map showed the river funneling down to a 75-foot slot 200 yards long (bad). The topo was right. As I looked the rapid over from the rocks, my heart sank. The current speed was at least 20 mph with 3 and 4-foot waves ripping themselves apart in a wild melee. The shore eddy was full of boils and rips with a souse hole at the current boundary, giving way to a standing wave and then whirlpools and boils downstream. The bottom was a nightmare with a full scale rapid running upstream from the recirculating current out of the recovery pool. I guessed it to be in the grade IV+ range (rapids are graded I-VI). There were no rocks or obstructions, but the hydraulics were insane.
It ran through a steep walled gorge with no portage trail in evidence. Even if I portaged around, what lay ahead? This again was usually an easy straight run. What would the grade III and IV rapids downstream be like? They had few portages, canoeists usually just hauling over rocks if portage was necessary. In high water conditions, would the shore side rocks be safe, or even above water? I would risk being stuck deep in the bush in deepening cold. Reluctantly I decided to try to sit the high water out. I set as comfortable a camp as I could and psyched myself up for making the best of the situation. The gorge was very picturesque, so I told myself to treat it as a destination resort.
I waited there for four days. I shot a lot of film and painted as much as the cold would allow. The river kept rising. I put my canoe up on top of the ledges and lashed it. The third morning it was dark and quiet (relatively – the roar of the cataract was a constant), and puzzled I stuck my head out in hopes that the steady rain/sleet/snow had stopped. It had – well the rain and sleet had anyway, there was a good four inches of snow on the forest floor and more in the clear with more coming down every second.
The greatest danger I think I faced, were the demons that kept telling me that I could run the rapid and save the trip. It would look feasible sometimes as I watched the current raging past. I would imagine skirting the raging waves, and then ferrying river left to miss the washing machine at the bottom. Fortunately a huge 20-foot boil would usually erupt in my imagined safe route, then collapse into a whirlpool, or a monster wave would explode out of nowhere and tear itself asunder. I swore a solemn vow not run until the water had dropped, no matter what the demons said.
After four days with no drop in the water height, I realized I’d run the risk of being short of food if I continued. The river was not going to be safely runnable any time soon, so I determined to return upstream as soon as the weather allowed. The next day dawned clear and while the river had started to drop a little, I started upstream non-the-less. There is now a portage trail around Rapide Tematagama; it took me two and a half hours to cut it and haul my gear through the dense bush. That was the only obstacle and I made the put-in without trouble; I actually enjoyed paddling after my enforced inactivity, even if it was heading back upstream. I was prepared for a five-day walk out, but a French-Canadian team of “sawyeurs” (woodcutters) gave me a ride within an hour.
