Daily Trip Log Reports

Brendan's Report (12 years old):
This trip was so good because there was super good fishing. 

We flew in on a Beaver airplane. This was #12 - the twelfth beaver ever made. I fell asleep on the flight in and Dad woke me up for our landing. The landing was smooth and I thought it was going to be a good trip. 
 

Brendan goofs around in the sand. He dug a deep hole and then stuffed his torso inside it.  See More Photos!

Soon after landing mom and dad set up camp and Kyle and I went fishing. The first pike that I caught was big. So big that it snapped my line. The second day I caught a big pickerel. That night we ate so much pickerel that we stopped fishing for a while. When we wanted to start fishing again there was no fish to catch because we were at the sand dunes. 

The sand dunes were really big. It was really neat to see the dunes. It was like a huge sand box surrounded by trees. On the edge of the dunes there was a little forest that was surrounded by sand. In this valley the trees were 30 or 40 feet tall. As the sand dunes were blown into the little valley, the trees would get covered in sand. At the top of the sand dune I could touch the top of a 40 foot tree without even climbing. 

On our walk to the first sand dunes we saw some shallow pools that were surrounded with sinking sand. Kyle and I would wiggle our feet into the sand until we were up to our knees in sand and then wait for it to harden and then we would lean back and forth and we wouldn't fall down because our feet felt like they were anchored in cement.

On the last day on the Williams River, Kyle and I paddled the same canoe and I was in the back so I got to steer it. At first I kept on zig zagging back and forth. Kyle and I laughed so hard because we kept on running into little sand bars. As I got better and we could go in a straight line and Kyle and I could paddle over some sections that mom and dad got stuck on and they had to get out and drag their canoe. They were heavier than we were so they got stuck more often - we were better than they were.

On lake Athabasca there was a really bad storm. It was raining real hard and the wind was blowing like crazy. I had to hold the side of our tent so it would not collapse. Then I had to help mom hold the front of the fly because all of our pegs had got pulled out and blown away and we were worried the top of the tent would be pulled off next. 

All along the lake there were big sand beaches. I made sand sculpture castles whenever we stopped. These were neat because they were made by letting sand drip through my fingers onto a base of sand - they looked really neat. Another thing Kyle and I did was to dig deep holes in the beach sand and then sit in these holes to cool down. We also did a lot of swimming, which was fun.

 

Brendan and his mom paddle through some choppy water.

Near the mouth of the McFarlane River, we had to walk our canoes because it was so shallow. We were 1 kilometer at least out from shore. It was really shallow. Kyle and I had Lake Athabasca Drag races. We had to tie a rope to the end of our canoe in a loop, then we held on and ran. This was a lot of fun. When we got to the McFarlane river we paddled upstream and along the edges of the river. We saw some huge pike so we got our fishing rods out again. 

Some of the pike probably hadn't even seen a fishing lure before. One time I threw a lure across to top of the water like a wrist shot and a pike jumped up and grabbed my lure. There was one big pike that I caught that must have been really hungry. He already had a big fish inside its mouth when it went after my lure. 

On the little lake on the McFarlane river there were lots of huge pike. Kyle and I had a great time fishing. Just catch and release though because mom didn't want to cook such big pike.

It was a really interesting trip - the wolves, the eagles, the bears, and especially the fishing made it exciting. I didn't miss my toys or my play station at all because we were always busy having fun.   

Kyle's Report (14 years old):
The Athabasca Sand Dunes trip was an okay trip - the fishing was in three categories. The first part the was good pickerel fishing, the second part was not good because there were no fish in the sandy, shallow river or the shallows along Lake Athabasca, the third section was awesome pike fishing. If there were fishing everyday like this, it would have been a great trip. 

The Williams and the Carswell rivers were a lot of work. There were lots of shallow rapids that had to be carefully negotiated. This requires a lot of skill and maneuvering. We were constantly ferrying back and forth across the river looking for the deep channels.

Everyone had to work together to read the rapids and look for shallow rocks and good channels. Some rapids were so shallow that we had to wade down them carefully, sometime dragging the canoe over shallow pillows of rocks. Most of the rapids are not marked on the topographical map. Some ledges that weren't marked were as tall as Brendan - and he's not that short. 

The first sand dunes that we saw were interesting. I used the digital camera to take pictures of Dad taking pictures. We saw some wolf and some sandhill crane tracks. Later on we hiked to some of the tallest dunes in the area. These sand hills had a knife edge. I shot a picture of Brendan standing on these knife edges. It looked strange - one side looked like it went straight down and the other side was a gentle slope. The sand was very fine and white. We walked to the big dunes in bare feet. This was at least 4 kilometers one way.

Near the mouth of the Williams river we saw a big black bear. It was coming down to the river to get a drink of water. When it saw us in our canoes it took off like a bullet through the tangled alders. 

On some of our walks in the dunes, mom and dad would let me use their 35mm cameras. I took pictures of some of the plants and trees and some wildlife. There was flossy tansy and willows, which were endemic plants. Endemic plants are ones that are only found in this particular area and nowhere else in the world. I also took pictures of the dead trees that had been mostly covered by sand. The dunes move all the time because of the wind. Slowly the trees in the little valleys get engulfed in sand. Eventually these plants die. 

Paddling on lake Athabasca was sometimes really hard. The waves would come up quickly because the lake is very shallow and the waves would get very big. Sometimes we had to wait around all day before we could paddle a few hours later in the evening. And some mornings we had to be on the water at sun rise to get paddling before the waves would pick up.

Once when we were paddling around Turnor Point we got caught on a surfing wave. We must have been going about 20 km/hr. This was a lot of fun but it was scary too because we had all our gear in the canoe too. 

We saw sandhill cranes near the mouth of the McFarlane River. Dad and I got really close to them so we could take pictures of them. They were not being very co-operative for pictures but it was interesting to see them in their natural environment. 

The McFarlane was like the Carswell - shallow but there were no rapids in the lower section that we paddled. It was difficult to paddle up against the current because it was hard to get a paddle blade of water to pull against. 

The boys enjoying one of the long sunsets of Lake Athabasca.  See More Photos!

We camped at a small lake about 15 km up the McFarlane. There was a small island big enough for 2 tents and a little bit of room for walking. There was a pack of wolves which had a den just on the mainland near our island. It was neat because we could start to howl like a wolf pack and they would howl back. All around us on the little lake, wolves would howl. We camped there for a few days. The wolves seemed to get used to us and started to walk over closer to our campsite to check us out. At night when we had supper, I turned around and saw a wolf standing and looking at us. He was about 50 feet away, just studying us. 

Across the lake there was a dark gray and a white wolf. The gray wolf was lying down eating some fish and white wolf came over to get some. It had it's tail between its legs and the back legs were spread apart so it could lower the back end even more. This behavior was to show the other wolf it's lack of dominance. I had learned about wolves a few years ago for a speech I had prepared for school. It was neat to be able to see the pecking order of dominance from one wolf to another.

There was great fishing behind our campsite. There were lots of bald eagles here too to take advantages of the good fishing. I didn't mind getting out of bed early in the morning here so Brendan and I could get lots of time in fishing.

A hike we went on near the wolf den took us into lots of pockets of dessert pavement - areas where smaller rocks have had the sand blasted from between them. Brendan and I both looked over at the same time in one of these areas and saw an arrow head. Both of us said at same time - "look there's an arrowhead". We had discovered some arrowheads on our last arctic trip so we knew what it was. It was just sitting there. This was cool to see.

This trip was a neat experience. It was special in it's own way. The landscape was unique and interesting, the wolf pack made it exciting, and the fishing made it great.