Daily Trip Log Reports

July 25: day 14
Unfortunately, it's overcast and hazy at dawn this morning. We hold off breaking camp until the sun is over the horizon to make sure we can see what we're doing, then it's a mad scramble to get things packed up. In less than an hour, we're on the water, but it takes us more than an hour to reach water we can paddle in. 

First night on Lake Athabasca. We had a great location where the small creek empties into the lake. See More Photos!

As soon as the creek begins to fan out into the delta, it gets so shallow that the only option is to drag the canoes. Often, it takes all four of us to get a single canoe through especially shallow sections. While we're struggling to make the open water, Brendan comments on how beautiful it was earlier in the morning when he had to go out of the tent for a washroom break. He recalls there was a crescent moon on the horizon and it was shimmering in the creek.

Once we finally reach open water, its still quite shallow, but at least we can dig in deep enough with the paddles to keep the canoes going. The wind has picked up and the waves have begun.

After a few hours, we're beginning to get past the point that concerned me the most. The problem is that when it's so shallow, if the waves really picked up, we'd be a long way from shore to find shelter. 

The delta is narrowing and water deep enough to paddle a canoe extends to the shoreline. If we need to pull out suddenly now, its possible to do so without worrying about swamping the canoes.

We stop a few times along the way to check out the dune structures and different plant communities we're seeing now. We're a little late for the peak flower season, but judging by the seed pods we see all over the place, earlier in the year the area must have been covered with colourful flowers.

Along the shore, we find wreckage from various human endeavours that the lake has smashed beyond use. Some of the hulks look like devices used in the winter to haul gear while others might be structures from barges. There's a huge fuel tank washed up which looks like the sort of thing that's usually buried underground in gas stations. The tank is well up on shore, which attests to the lake's power.

We've been paddling many hours to get to the hook in Thompson Bay. We're tired and at the first opportunity, we pull in to set up camp. The first thing we do is organize our gear for safety, then set up the tents. All four of us crawl in for an afternoon nap. It's hot in the tents, but we're so tired we manage to sleep anyway.

We wake in enough time to explore the dunes behind us, then come back for supper. By the time we're eating, we're treated to a beautiful sunset and the lake is as calm as glass.

July 26: day 15

Being well rested, we get up early and decide to go for a walk before breakfast. We explore an area where active dunes are burying, then exposing forests. Brendan finds it humourous that he can simply walk over and touch the top of a 20 foot Jackpine which only has the top sticking out, while just a few feet away, the live trees tower from the ravine created by the dune.

Our intention was to go for a brief walk, but we find lots to keep us interested and walking a lot farther than we'd planned. Just behind our tent, we see the tracks of two caribou that passed close by during the night. Not long after, we hear the sound of sand hill cranes in the distance and discover a group of seven feeding on the plentiful supply of berries. They don't let us get close enough for photos, but it's spectacular to see them. Shortly after that, we come upon a black bear happily hunkered down in another berry patch stuffing herself. We walk close enough to get some good shots with a long telephoto lens, but the bear seems to pay no attention to us.

All around, there's a fascinating landscape that encourages a person to keep walking. At first glance it all looks similar, but that's far from the case. Its an ever changing pallette of colour and texture that keeps a photographer keenly engaged.

We've seen a lot of arctic terns on this trip and the kids have spent time coming up with bad arctic tern jokes. Examples: What do you call four terns? A circle. What's the opposite of my turn? U-tern. Why did the tern lose his driving licence? He made a wrong tern at the stoplight. They went on for quite a while that way.

The wind died down after supper and the lake was like glass. We decided to take advantage of the long evening light and calm wind to make up some distance. Paddling in the low evening light was gorgeous.

Not long after heading off down the coast, we saw a black bear rummaging in the forest and headed in the same direction as we were. It may have been the same one we saw eating berries earlier.

After about an hour's paddle, we arrived at the second set of sand dunes on Thompson Bay. These looked interesting and we decided to pull in to set up camp. The sun had set by this time, but the twilight seems to extend until sunup at this high latitude, so we didn't even need flashlights to set things up.