Trip Equipment

Maps:
We used 1:50,000 scale maps for the Clarke River and 1:250,000 maps for the Thelon. We had a few 1:50s for the Thelon in areas that interested us. There's no need for the smaller scale maps on the Thelon. We also brought along norther land use maps which we found very helpful in finding wildlife and archeological sites. (more info on maps will be published on this web site later)

Air Charter:

Air Tindia was great on our trip. They were easy to talk to and there was no problem organizing the logistics. The Cessna Caravan was a great plane, quite comfortable and lots of room. It was very fast as well. Tindi even helped to pair us up with another group to split a charter. They were coming in as we were going out which reduced the price for us.

Big River Air in Fort Smith was also quite good, though we didn't travel with them. We did meet some folks on our trip who flew out with them and were quite pleased.

Tents:
We used an older six person dome tent as a dining shelter. This was almost a necessesity on this trip. We often ate in it, cooked in it and sometimes bathed in it. The tent had lots of room and large screen windows on all four sides.

We also had a Jack Wolfskin Wind Shear dome tent and a Eureka Polar Storm dome tent. Both were superb even on the windiest days.

Communication:
We rented a Globalstar satelite phone from Cascom in Yellowknife. They were very good and had lots of units in stock. The Globalstar unit worked wonderfully well.

Canoes:
We used a 16 foot Old Town Appalacian and a 17 foot Old Town Tripper. Both canoes were ABS construction. The smaller canoe had to fit inside the larger canoe as we could only tie boats on one pontoon. We didn't use spray skirts on this trip. This trip isn't hard on equipment, so almost anything would do as long as the canoe had enough capacity.

Camera gear:
We used Canon equipment for both video and still photography. Two EOS cameras with a wide range of lenses from wide angle to 400 mm did the still photography. We used a Canon XL 1 for the video. We had a wide angle adapter and an adapter to use the EOS lenses.

Footwear:
We used Rocky gore-tex socks combined with wading shoes. That seemed to work fairly well. We had some Water Tenies that didn't survive the trip very well. A pair of Teva water shoes also had some sturctural problems. The only pair that survived in nearly new condition was a pair of Soloman shoes.