Things I did in NWT*

Dear readers, I am indeed back from the great (green) north. I did not freeze to death, nor was I eaten by a bear or asphyxiated by mosquitoes. Rest assured that my absence from the blogiverse was due to mere laziness, not horrific tragedy.

So, yes, I took a little holiday. About two weeks ago, I bounced out of Ontario and into the Northwest Territories to paddle the Nahanni River. I joined eight others, including my boyfriend, some friends, some acquaintances, and some tangentially related strangers.

There’s much to comment on. The trip was a total physical challenge—quite humbling for someone who considers herself to be in reasonable shape. Lots of lifting, pushing, pulling, climbing, descending and hauling. It was also bloody expensive. It turns out that as soon as you cross the 60th parallel, everything goes up in price by approximately a billion dollars. I guess isolation ain’t cheap (although you may be interested to know that you can buy Starbucks coffee beans in Fort Simpson, NWT). There were loads of bugs, no showers, freezing temperatures and an open-concept “organic” toilet system. Most of each day was spent packing and unpacking, setting up and tearing down. For one particularly deflating period of 36 hours or so, it absolutely pissed rain.

And you know what?

It kicked ass.

The north is absolutely spectacular. From a strictly aesthetic point of view, the trip was worth every penny. I saw Virginia Falls (twice as tall as Niagara, as I was informed numerous times) from a floatplane, the Nahanni’s bends and twists from the top of a mountain I’d just climbed, Dall’s sheep, thundering rapids crashing against towering canyon walls, jaw-dropping sunrises and eerily beautiful Aurora Borealis at 3:00 am. The river snakes through a protected area of land that, for the most part, remains impressively untouched by man. It was quiet and clear and utterly sublime.

It was a trip full of many little personal victories. I climbed my first mountain, paddled my first rapids and coordinated my first riverside meal. I managed an 80lb canoe down a brutal downhill switchback portage, discovered how to make coffee without a filter and learned the best way to pack a raft. I soaked in sulphur-scented natural hotsprings, drank tea made from leaves surrounding us and developed a love/hate relationship with neoprene. I laughed plenty, ate like a queen and drank my year’s quota of whiskey. I wrote, thought and generally thanked my lucky stars at every possible opportunity.

So much more to write, but really, that could get a little indulgent, so I’ll leave off with a picture of the sunrise I awoke to my first day on the river:



* There. Happy now, Linny?