Nahanni Journal

8/7/2019 Nahanni Journal

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Day oNe

Fort Simpson to Virginia Falls

The boreal orest stretches out beneath us,

broken only by the occasional sinkhole lake,

as we leave Fort Simpson and the Mackenzie

River behind. The Twin Otter oatplane lits

west, into the sun still high in the northern

sky and over the Nahanni National Park

Reserve, a 4,766-square-kilometre slice o

N.W.T. wilderness near the Yukon-B.C.

border and the headwaters o the South

Nahanni River. Save or the roar o the

engine and wind, our group travels in

silence. We have waited all day or this ight;

some o us have waited our entire lives

to rat the South Nahanni a Canadian

Heritage River that moved Pierre Elliot

Trudeau to make it a national park reserve

in 1976. Two years later, the area became

the irst natural region in the world to be

designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We y over the canyons and karstlands

o the Ram Plateau in the Mackenzie Moun-

tains, where every ripple o rock is lit golden

in the evening sun. Shats o sunlight burst

through the clouds and we catch our irst

glimpse o the Nahanni, its Fourth Canyon

and with a collective gasp Virginia Falls.

In The Dangerous River, my grandathers

1954 account o his N.W.T. explorations, he

writes about eeling the vibration o the

Falls o the Nahanni rom 20 miles away.

One week later, on August 25, 1927, Grand-

pop snapped the earliest photographs o

the then-unnamed alls, accompanied by

Minnesota prospector Albert Faille. Now a

lietime, two days and our ights later, my

ather, brother, sister and I touch down in

the heart o the Nahanni wilderness, as our

plane scuds to a stop on the wide and silty

river near the campsite above Virginia Falls.

My heart skips a beat. This is where my

amilys love aair with Canada began.

It was my brother, Jeremy, who planted

the seed o this amily expedition to

mark the 80th anniversary o Grand-

pops 1927-to-1929 paddle up the South

Nahanni. Soon I was calling my sister, Sam,

in Victoria, and urging her to join us. Her

only reservation: our easy rat oat down-

river wouldnt compare to Grandpops

adventures navigating rapids in a loaded

canoe, surviving sub-zero temperatures and

living o the occasional kill o wild game

epic stories he recounted in ive books,numerous magazine articles and over Sun-

day dinners at the Victoria home he shared

with our grandmother. Raymond Murray

WestWorld >> Summer 2009 47

NahniJ O U R N A LA f a i l y s a f t i n g n i o n d o w n t h N . W. T. s l g n d a y d a n g o s i v o n t h 8 0 t h a n n i v s a y o f t h i

g a n d f a t h s 1 9 2 7 t o 1 9 2 9 x p d i t i o n

Jenife Paerop h o t o g a p h b y N o l H n d i c k s o n

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. r.M. P The Dangerous River


3/648 WestWorld >> Summer 2009 (top lft) Nol Hndickson, (r.m. Pattson) Pal Lwis

Patterson was one o Canadas oremost

adventure writers. A legendary fgure in our

amily, he also inspired a generation o

Canadian adventurers, many o whom to

this day attempt to replicate his journeys

into the wild. His irst book received rave

reviews: The New York Herald Tribune

described The Dangerous Riveras an emo-tion o the north . . . recorded, it is not too

much to say, in a mixture o Thoreau and

Jack London. The New Yorkercalled it truly

enchanting, while The New York Times said

its modest writing betrays no indication

that Mr. Patterson realizes what a remarkable

man he is.

Day TWo

Virginia Falls to Strawberry Island

Nothing beats the Canadian North or bring-

ing diverse groups o people together my

grandather and Faille 80 years agoand nowthe Patterson clan: me, the writer, my ather,

a retired B.C. Supreme Court master, busi-

nessman brother Jeremy and architect sister

Sam. Then theres the rest o our 15-member

group: Wall Street und managers Jen and

Laura; Corin, an amateur photographer; real

estate mogul James and his 14-year-old

nephew Jacob; journalist Michael and wie

Vivien; guides Rob, Kaj, Jamie and Bhreagh.Awoken early the next day by the camp

bustle, we are anxious to pack up the tents

and ollow the wooden boardwalk throughJack pines and black spruce to Virginia Falls.

The black-and-white photographs Ive seen

in Grandpops heavy, leather-bound albums

soon come alive in ull sound and colour:

the Sluice Box Rapids, now a roar o white-

water, and just ahead, Virginia Falls, plung-

ing 92 metres into the rivers Fourth Canyon.

And at its base, dwared by limestone clis:

the three sky-blue inatable rats that will

transport us 200 km downriver over ive

days. From here, they are the size o jelly-beans. My 71-year-old ather and I stand or

a moment, spellbound. Over the din o the

rushing water, I ask how long he has waited

or this moment. His eyes are fxed on the

river ahead. Forever, he responds.We could spend hours here, but the river

waits. We strap bags to backs or the 1.2-km

portage to lower ground through rosemary-

like Labrador tea, northern starowers and

kinnikinnick. A dirt trail descends in a steep

series o switchbacks, where the waters

gentle mist alls on us like resh dew. South-

erners James and Jacob are already lounging

on a log below, dressed in camouage gear.

They will spend the better part o this trip

waiting or the rest o us.

The Nahanni is the stu o legends tales

o gold and adventure, trappers and prospec-

tors, o the indigenous Nahanni and those

European adventurers, my English granda-

ther included, drawn here in the quest or

reedom and ortune. Ater the Klondike

Gold Rush, placer gold was rumoured to

have been ound up the Flat River, a tribu-

tary o the South Nahanni. But men stayedaway, earul o the unorgiving terrain and

the numbers o dead or missing that led to

tales o head-hunting Nahanni. In reality,

the string o murders and deaths by starva-

tion, accident or misortune along the river

were more likely the result o gold, greed or

poor planning in the wake o the renzied

and lawless gold rush. Even when Grandpop

and Faille set o rom Fort Simpson in 1925,

their dream o paddling north up the

Nahanni was considered pure suicide.From a rocky launching point on the

beach, we don wet-weather gear: souwesters,

Patagonia rain pants, rubber boots and lie

jackets. Packsloaded and secured in the18-oot Moravia rats, we then settle in, fve

to a crat, a guide at the helm. The dramatic

rust-coloured Fourth Canyon is the frst o

our to come. At their greatest height, these

sheer rock aces which escaped the last ice

age rise steeply to 1,200 metres, then curve

into natural amphitheatres o dolomite,

limestone and layers o sedimentary rock

that rival the Grand Canyon.

In one o the other rats, Jeremy and Sam

swap old jokes, leaving me, the baby o the

amily, alone with Dad. I eel privileged, keen

to experience the river through his eyes as he

trades anecdotes about Grandpop and the

river with the guides. His ace lights up as he

sees or the irst time the landscape he has

until now only heard about. The clis and

this marvellous, calm water owing through

here its just extraordinary. He points to the

shore: Thats the sort o spot where Grand-

pop would have camped, on that grassy bank,with a place to beach a canoe. Further down-

stream is Marengo Creek, which Grandpop

named ater Napoleans avourite horse.

I ask my faterhow long h has waitd fo this ont.


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But it isnt long beore the clouds roll in.

And just a ew hours later, at a rocky camp on

Strawberry Island, I lie in my tent and listen

to the rolling thunder echoing o the can-

yons and mountains like bursts o gunfre.

Day Three

Strawberry Island to The GateA light mist rises o the river as we launch the

inatables and head downstream toward the

Figure 8 Rapids, a stretch o whirlpools, boils

and eddies that Grandpop and Faille, remark-

ably, navigated without portaging. High water

has since changed these rapids now catego-

rized as class III-plus in diiculty. But by

canoe, says Rob, the Nahanni has always been

an incredibly challenging river to run, soyoucan imagine what it was like or your granda-ther and Faille to canoe upstream. Thats why

The Dangerous Riveris so talked about now,

because it would have been tough to paddle

up. Its too deep to pole, and in these canyons

there are no beaches or tracking a canoe.

Travelling downriver at about 10 klicks,

we soon pass the Flat River and the site o

Failles cabin, where in 1927 Grandpop

stopped on his way to the alls. Faille spent

decades on the river, prospecting or goldand trapping urs. But large quantities o

gold were never ound.

We all into a rhythm: awaken early,

breakast and break camp. The

guides buzz about, prepping the

rats or another day on the river and, in a

place where time is meaningless and cannot

be gauged by the suns position in the sky,

preparing meals that provide the days struc-ture. Pancakes and sausages one morning,

eggs Benedict the next. Lunches are eaten

en route pita stued with tabbouleh

or caribou smokies roasted over the ire.

Dinners eature smoked arctic char and

asparagus soup starters, main courses o pork

tenderloin, chicken curry or lamb kebabs on

a bed o couscous. Later, we perch on camp

stools, sip tea and talk well into the evening

as Michael shares stories o lie in Arica

and the guides tease Jen and Laura aboutSex and the City. But always, the ocus comes

back to the river and Grandpops books.

Vivien encourages my ather to read rom

The Dangerous Riverwhile Michael takes

notes. Jamie, the son o bush pilots, who

now studies at Oxord, observes, Whats

most compelling about these stories is

the legend that was R.M. Patterson himsel.

Hes a great writer, but he was also out there

living lie in a really big, amazing way.

Day Four

The Gate to Headless Creek

The rating lie is making some o us restless.

Keen to climb mountains in search o Dalls

sheep, eight o us scramble to the top o The

Gate, a narrow limestone passage with

460-metre-high walls, or a view o Pulpit

Rock and downriver toward Big Bend, a

90-degree hairpin turn in the river. At the

summit, Corin snaps photos and a shirtless

Jamie salutes the sun in a yoga pose. I studythe almost-bonsai twists o stunted trees and

tundra plants, brittle reindeer lichen and

(top) Jnnif Pattson, (botto) Nol Hndickson WestWorld >> Summer 2009 49

Continued on page 59

Figure 8 Rapids

The Gate

The Big Bend

Deadmen Valley

HotspringsKraus

The Splits

Nahanni Butte

Virginia Falls

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secrets of the nahanni

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low-lying shrubs laden with crimson berries,

thinking o Grandpop and the dreamy

aternoons he spent hiking here, where

the river was a distant murmur through the

warm scent o pines.

We soon pass through the orebodingFuneral Range to the Headless Range and

Headless Creek, so named or two brothers

whose decapitated skeletons were discovered

tied to trees here in 1908, or so the legend

goes. In 1927, strangers again warned Grand-

pop against setting out on another expedi-

tion: Men vanish in that country, one

cautioned. Down the river, they say its a

damned good country to keep clear o . . . a

country lorded over by Wild Mountain Men

. . . the river ast and bad.The MacLeodbrothers murder was but one o hundreds odark stories about the Nahanni. From 1908

to 1945, many more men disappeared,

starved to death or died here mysteriously.

Fittingly, that evening on a river-rock

beach under blue and pink brush strokes o

cloud, Dad reads a passage about Willie and

Frank MacLeod rom The Dangerous River

ghost stories in a haunted valley.

Day Five

Headless Creek to Lafferty Creek

We paddle past Headless Creek and through

Deadmen Valley, stopping at Shea Creek.

Were looking or the site o the cabin where

Grandpop and the English trapper Gordon

Matthews, his companion on his second

Nahanni trek,overwintered in 1928-1929.We pull the rats onto the beach, and while

Vivien and Jamie investigate wol, bear and

raptor tracks in the sand, Sam stumbles

upon a rusted stovepipe and a conspicuous

clearing in the trees. Further upstream is

the likely site o the mens ood cache,

where oodstus and ur pelts were stored

on high wooden platorms to deter ani-

mals. We examine sunken cabin beams and

the remnants o a makeshit stove, ash-

ioned rom an old oil drum, with the enthu-

siasm o amateur archaeologists. Kaj iscertain we have ound the site, exactly as

Grandpop described it, in a clearing in the

trees. Dads chest pus with pride as photos

are snapped or posterity. Even Rob and the

guides make a note o the ind or uture

trips downriver.

We lunch at Dry Canyon Creek,ride thehigh-standing waves o the Cache Rapids

where Matthews almost drowned ater all-

ing overboard in 1928and enter the dra-matic First Canyon, its towering limestone

walls the highest yet. Later, at our Laerty

Creek camp, Dad reads rom Grandpops

journals, written in the orm o a letter home

to his mother in England and published

posthumously as the Nahanni Journals.

Day Six

Lafferty Creek to The Splits, a.k.a.

Bug Hell Island

It is the last ull day on the river and we slip

into swimsuits in preparation or the hot

springs ahead. From here on, were at the

mercy o the inamous mosquitoes o the

North; Rob warns us to keep bug shirts at the

ready. Soon enough we reach Kraus Hot

Springs, greeted by the sulphur stench o

rotten eggs. The rocks in the pool overlook-ing the river are covered in a brown sludge,

the water warm and brackish. Kaj slathers his

ace with mud, a Nahanni tradition, as a light

river breeze keeps the bugs at bay.

We camp on what Bhreagh dubs Bug

Hell Island in The Splits, where the

Nahanni widens as it braids and weaves in

WestWorld >> Summer 2009 59

Continued on page 92

nContinued from page 49


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