We're getting pretty excited about the forthcoming summer trip to Saskatchewan. "What? Do you like, like....wheat?" is the standard response from anyone I say that to. So I have to explain that while the southern half of the province is perhaps best known for Corner Gas, and Canadian Football fans getting smashed while wearing watermelons on their heads, the northern half is pristine Canadian Shield wilderness, and an entirely different ballgame. So in July we'll be driving quickly north past the population centres, via the odd Dog River lookalike, to Missinipe, where six of us will load a float plane with three canoes and a ton of gear, and fly north for an hour to Paull Lake. From there we'll be on our own for ten days, paddling back to Missinipe via a series of river reaches, rapids, and lakes. The rapids vary from class I riffles to a class VI ledge; we're planning on a minimum of seventeen portages, and a lot of Class II-III water. Or maybe thirty portages and a lot of class II.....we'll see! It's a reasonably well-known trip, but not likely to be busy. There are a few accounts of doing it in shorter time scales than we're aiming for, e.g. this one, but we plan to enjoy it, and be able to take a day or two off if the weather is good, maybe play in some rapids, etc.
I was meaning to record the preparations as we went along, but am only just starting, with six weeks until the trip. Not to worry. So far we have identified the odd risk: bear, cougar, moose, mosquito, blackfly, leeches, whitewater hazards, drowning, too much sun, cold and wet weather, snow, all the usual camping stuff, plane crash, etc....and started to plan for a few of them. Some you just have to try to buy your way out of - e.g., we have bought fancy new bug jackets. Some you can engineer out with careful preparation and good camp habits - bears in particular. Others are going to take a little more effort....like getting our paddling up to scratch. As a cheat, we ordered new paddles from the US almost eight weeks ago, but they have yet to show up, which is rather disappointing. Apparently the US Olympic team paddles all snapped and the guy is working full time on supplying them. I'm not sure why I should care about that though...
So while we waited - and waited - for the paddles, we caught up on a vital skill set this weekend - four of us who are headed north have just spent two days qualifying as Swiftwater Rescuers (Level II) with Rocky Mountain Adventure Medicine. The course was held on the Lower Kananaskis River, an hour from home. This was great for us, as we'd like to paddle sections of the 'Racecourse' on the lower Kan, and now we've swum several of them, so they've become less intimidating. The water is 4C all year, as it sinks to the bottom of Barrier Lake before discharging via a sluice - dry suits make a massive difference, but people were still pretty cold by the end of the weekend - in fact Lou had to sleep for an hour when she got home; she's just got up and headed to the bath to warm up some more. She did fantastically well in the swimming; for someone who hates getting her face wet in the pool, she excelled at swimming the big water - and had fun doing it.
We had a great time - normally throwing yourself into a river above a 1.5 metre drop followed by a big wavetrain would be viewed as foolhardy, but on this course, that's exactly what you have to do in order to pass. Oh - and then swim the rapid, adopting various swimming positions, such as aggressive, defensive, and 'barrel roll'. Plus you throw bags of wet rope at each other, and tie a lot of knots. Even better, you're taught to dive into the fastest parts of the flow making the biggest belly flop possible. It's like being in Scouts all over again, albeit without the chain-smoking leaders and their strange literary tastes.....but you still get a badge for it. I swallowed half the river today; to fight off Guardia and Cryptosporidia, I may have to indulge in a medicinal whisky soon. :-)
So what's next? Well, we have a massive list of equipment to be tested, packed, unpacked, repacked- or discarded - and generally balanced around the boat. I had envisioned taking two barrels and small pack. At the last count we had two 50 L barrels, two 60 L dry sacks, two 40 L dry sacks, two 30 L dry sacks, one 35 L dry rucsac, four 20 L dry bags, a dry document case, a dry day bag, a double-walled ijnflatable camera dry bag, and a bunch of stuff like chairs, axe, etc that won't go inside anything. How did this happen?! I had to re-outfit the boat completely to accommodate the gear. Since it's not a very long boat (16.75 feet) we will be well loaded!
Next weekend we're off to Waterton Lakes National Park to paddle three rivers in three days, and test some gear for the summer trip. Let's hope we come back still liking the whole idea....
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