July 20th: Things Are Going to Change, I Can Feel It

July 20^th; Day 43

The Dismal Lakes
GPS: 67 deg.; 25 min. north; 117 deg. 0 min. west

Author: Emily


Picture yourself on a Saturday night, laying out the clothes, gear, and food you will need for a big race the next morning. Feel free to pick any race of your choosing: a foot race, a bike race, or perhaps the ultimate wheelbarrow racing championship. Whatever your choice of racing would be, it is an event you have trained for with dedication and passion. You have put in the time, read the training guides, and studied the race course. The past few days you have been tapering, resting your body and getting mentally prepared, only going for easy jogs or spins in the wheelbarrow. Now you have everything packed and are as ready as you're going to be. Despite all of your excellent preparation, you are a little nervous. You know that at some point during the race tomorrow you will be in pain, at some point you might doubt your capability, but that ultimately, you will get caught up in the race day momentum, laugh, and take pride in having poured yourself into your effort. I believe a great musical artist once said "Lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go."

One more important detail. This is the first time you have ever attempted a race of this type and have almost no idea of what to expect. Perhaps you and your friends decided it would be fun to try something new. As you set the alarm to wake up early the next morning, you feel a mixture of excitement, nervous anticipation, and a little confusion at why you and your friends thought this was such a good idea after all.

Wow! If you made it through that long, imaginative journey, you may have recognized an attempt at an analogy for this paddling trip. Let me explain the parallels.

Tonight we are camped on the Dismal Lakes at the point from which we will begin our Watershed to the Rae River. We have literally taken our last paddling strokes on big open water and will likely be portaging out of this campsite. Somewhere way back last fall, each of us let ourselves get caught up in the collective energy of this group and ever since we have been working to get ourselves here, to a place called the Dismal Lakes and try our hand at what for us is exploration in its truest sense. We have done what research we could about this area; we have trained our muscles to paddle and portage, and have made detailed measurements of mileage from one small lake to another to a stream to another stream and eventually to the Rae River. We have almost everything we need and are almost fully prepared to set the alarms, get up in the morning, and give it all we've got.

Essentially our last week has been a week of tapering. Since we left Rocky Defile, where Beth wrote her last update, we paddled just a touch further down the Coppermine and then turned up the Kendall, leaving behind all the logs we had been following from other previous trips and setting out on our own terms. The Kendall is a small but sizeable river flowing out of the Dismal for a brief 15 miles before joining the Coppermine. Despite the short distance, we spent 2 ½ days moving steadily up river, never portaging once, but spending our days, wading our boats upstream in waist deep water, tracking our boats from shore with ropes, as we stumbled through the willows, and occasionally paddling hard to make miles against the current. The best thing about the Kendall was that it spat us out into a gorgeous expanse of tundra that ended our flirtation with the tree line for good. The Dismal Lakes are anything but what their name implies. They are: dramatic elevation, bright purples of lupine and yellows of cinquefoils, cold open waters, constantly changing skies and tundra. Yes, we're back in it to stay and loving it. The rest of our tapering period on the Dismals has been spent packing, resting, organizing, hiking and eating, so, in effect, we're ready to do this, just waiting for one major thing.

Entertain the pre-race analogy one more time and imagine that you've managed to make it through all your training without one key piece of gear. Perhaps it has been back ordered for the last month and a half, but that it is supposed to arrive by priority mail just a few hours before the race. Say that piece of gear you are missing are these extra special, one of a kind running shoes that make you go twice as fast. Well, in the real world, those one of kind shoes translate into our dear friend and fifth pack, Karen Stanley. Having been with us in spirit for all of our training so far, Karen is flying into us for real with our resupply in a day and a half (or tomorrow), just in time to race with us, just in time to give us a new boost of energy and enthusiasm to make the next big push. So my friends, in this trip of many different chapters, part one is coming to a close and part two is just beginning. Our group of four will become five, we will leave the lakes behind in search of new rivers, and we will soak up the energy of the land that surrounds us.

July 13th: I Followed You Big River When You Called

July 13th, 2008; Day 36

Rocky Defile Rapids, The Coppermine River, Nunavut

Author: Beth

Well, we have spent the last week on the Coppermine River following its course as it descends towards the Arctic Ocean. The Coppermine is a river well known to those who travel in the Canadian Arctic -- one of the big names, and I feel a bit intimidated to try and do it justice with words. It is unlike any of the other rivers I have paddled up here. After Rocknest Lake, not far from the headwaters, there are no more lakes to interrupt the current, as the river flows steadily north, with only the pace of the current and the land around it changing.

The first couple of days on the river were filled with fun whitewater -- almost all of it runnable, with swift current in between. The banks of the river were rocky in places or lined with bright white sand bluffs, and the shore rushed past as we flew down river. The weather was very kind to us for the first few days, too: warm and sunny, not very common up here, and we had a few days that really felt like a typical summer vacation. Mid-week we reached a great milestone of our trip, crossing the Arctic Circle. At 66 deg. 30 min. north, it marks the latitude at which the sun stays up for 24 hours for at least one day each year. Coincidentally, just about the time we crossed the Circle, the clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped, and we were treated to a couple days of typical Arctic weather -- cold wind out of the north, spitting rain. This may sound miserable, and it could be if you let it, but bad weather tends to bring out the funniest in my trip mates (so we think). Our most recent strategy for staying warm is to practice our telemark ski turns (basically deep knee lunges) on our breaks. Nina and Emily teach Meg and me the technique as we laugh at ourselves tripping over rocky uneven shores.

The change in weather coincided with another change in the Coppermine, too. We began the 80 mile stretch of river with no rapids. There is still current, however, and it is still strong at times, but when the wind is in your face, it can be difficult to make headway. This stretch of river flows through a large river valley. The terrain feels at once both mountainous and expansive, with a wide valley surrounded by large rocky hills, sometimes forested and sometimes open tundra with occasional pockets of snow remaining. Often we felt like we could see the river going down hill and we were just sliding down with it. The bright reds and yellows of our clothing and canoes pop against the deep blues and greens of a landscape and the grey of the sky. We look very small and very bright, which I love for some reason.

Today we woke to sunny skies and yet another change in the Coppermine. The river banks closed in and the river picked up speed. We ran a few rapids this morning, then continued somewhat cautiously knowing that we were approaching a large rapid known as Rocky Defile. The river took a bend to the left and as we came around the corner, it looked like the earth had been picked up and cracked in half to allow the river through. Two hundred foot cliffs rose into the air on both sides of the rushing waters, a breathtaking thing to see. We decided to portage the rapid -- the waves in the canyon were huge. On the portage trail is a monument to two canoeists who drowned in this rapid in the early 1970s. It was a powerful experience to stand and look at the gorge, the incredible rapid, and the monument overlooking it. A mixture of awe and sadness filled me. But I felt at the same time acutely alive and so fortunate to be able to be standing exactly where I was, taking it all in.

Tonight we are camped at a small sandy beach below the rapid and tomorrow we will turn off the Coppermine to go up the Kendall River. I am a little sad to be leaving this big river. The rest of the Coppermine between here and the ocean is supposed to be incredible too, but there are other rivers to explore; always more rivers to explore.

July 6th: To the Little Rivers Who Don't Always Make the Headlines

July 6th, 2008; Day 29

The Coppermine River

Author: Meg

To most people, northern canoe expeditions bring visions of rivers cutting through old glacial features with whitewater and still watered streams running like a freight train to the Arctic Ocean or Hudson Bay. If you're familiar with Northern Canada, names like the Elk/Thelon, Kazan, and the Back might even come to mind. We refer to this renowned collection as the BIG 10 - that is, the rivers that make all the headlines. As I sit alongside an unruly, barreling stretch of rapids on the Coppermine River, an elite member of the BIG 10, I'm inclined to pay homage to the little rivers that brought us here; the lesser known, but no less in character: the Parent. Just over a week ago, we left the waterways that dump into Great Slave Lake and joined the downstream travel toward the Arctic Ocean. The Parent River would bridge the 40-50 mile gap before reaching the Coppermine. We didn't have specific expectations for this section of our route simply because there isn't much information to base them off of. It was a stretch to rekindle our style and communication as tandem whitewater partners, and enjoy the change of downstream current. The Parent River must have smelled our nonchalance as it was anything but a mere bridge to the Coppermine. First, the water. In three words: tight, technical, and bouldery. We run in 17 foot, fully loaded, low riding canoes. Stick that in a fast boisterous boulder garden, and the moves get a little tricky. I recall running a long winding set with Emily last week, all the while yelling "Good! You're on your line! Great! Good! Now move right! Great! There's the triangle rock! Okay, now, go! Oh shoot! Oops! Sorry! I didn't see that! Okay we're cool! Wait! Oops! Sorry! Didn't see that one either! Shoot! Great! We're good! Awesome! Okay! Nice job!" After congratulating each other for a set well run, we looked back to what resembled the fountain ripples a small boy would float his toy sailboat in at the park. That's the Parent River: small hydraulics, but it makes you yell.

If we weren't lucky enough to find a way we could run our boats down a set of whitewater, our second option was to line them from land. We LOVE lining our boats. It's an incredibly graceful practice of standing on shore, one person holding a rope attached to the bow and the other one holding a rope from the stern. The objective is to walk the boat alongside the rapids, letting the current pull the boat as the liners steer a path. As you hop from rock to rock, easing the boat over curlers and in and out of eddies, the technique resembles that of a skilled fly fisherman – balanced and fluid. On the Parent, however, two things stood in our way of embodying such balance and fluidity: the multitude of boulders and the inch of slimy lichen that covered them. Don't get me wrong -- we had our moments of grace. But after the 8^th, 9^th, or 12^th hour of unwedging stuck boats, bush whacking willowed shores, and all that slimy rock hopping, we began to resemble not a fly fisherman, but rather just some guy, slow and stumbling, without a rod, trying to catch a greyling with his hands. That's the Parent River: you can line, but you can't stay dry.

When paddling or lining a set of whitewater wasn’t possible, the third option would naturally be portaging. But in case you didn't read Nina's update about the HOL last week and the 23 portages we did on the Emile River, you can safely bet we'll come up with some awfully creative ways to get down the river before we'd opt to portage. So we dragged it down a lot. Yes, fully loaded, barge-like canoes. We yanked them up and over all kinds of obstacles. When the water gets too deep to stand, we'd hold onto the gunwales and ride a bit with the current. Sometimes we'd be surprised to see that both the bow and stern person were riding at the same time, and that therefore no one actually had control of the boat. We even revisited a technique we used during our 2005 expedition to maneuver amongst ice. When there's adequate water and current to keep the boat moving, but enough obstructions that an occasional foot was needed to pry or help pull, we'd sit on top of the bow and stern deck plates, paddles in hand, riding the canoe more like a horse. I attribute my expert display of running the end of a rather large set in this position to growing up with draft horses. Thats the Parent River: you can get down, but you have to use your head and damage your gear a little.

The Parent River held many more surprises than just the work of the water. It was nestled in extraordinary tundraed stretches of rocky cliffed walls, sandy beach pits, and eskers, oh the eskers. These running ridges of glacial deposits make-over open expanses and offer the bird's eye view to the fortunate and wise who choose to climb their peaks. From the top of an esker, we saw the edge of the tree line which we had descended back into for the time being. The meeting of the open tundra in the army of black and white spruce trees will have to be described in a later update. It's far too complex of an occurrence for this tired canoeist. The roar of the Coppermine River is still filling my ears, likely suggesting that I stop reflecting on the waters of yesterday and start thinking about tomorrow. The Coppermine's whitewater is a little bigger. And by a little bigger, I mean it's like a moving lake with very few options and waves measuring in feet. More to come on these adventures next week, but for tonight (its midnight and the sun is just near setting), here's to the little rivers who don't always make the headlines.

June 29th: The HOL

June 29, 2008; Day 22

Parent River
GPS Coordinates: 65 deg., 5 min. North; 114 deg., 24 min. West

Author: Nina

You've heard about Meg's memories of 2005, Beth's summer vacation and Emily's wildlife encounters. Now it is my turn. I'm here to tell you about something a good deal less pleasant. That something is the HOL. The HOL is our name for the traditional Dene route that connects the Emile River with Grenville Lake, the Coppermine Watershed, and the Barrons. For us, the HOL involves three days of portaging with a day of piling across Mesa Lake thrown in. It's an apt name both because it is short for the height of land that divides two watersheds and because the correct pronunciation of the HOL is a mix between "haul" and "howl," as in the howling of your back muscles as you haul your gear from one river system to another, which, in short, sums up the majority of this past week.

The first rule of the HOL is you do not complain about the HOL. It doesn't matter if you're walking through muskeg or foot sucking mud, crawling up a cliff or crossing a boulder field; don't say a word, just keep walking. It doesn't matter if the caribou trail you're following descends into a tangle of willows; take a beating and keep walking. It doesn't matter if the black flies' rising clouds greet you on each portage; zip your bug jacket, muster a smile and get walking.

The second rule of the HOL is you do not complain about the HOL. Yes, your thirty days worth of food forces you to take three trips on each portage turning every mile into five. Yes, your one day of paddling on Mesa Lake will be against a headwind so stiff your progress is reduced to a slow crawl. Yes, every portage will seem uphill both ways. What did you expect? It's the HOL.

The third and final rule of the HOL is to remember that for all of the hauling and suppressed howling, the HOL is worth it. As we paddled out onto the sun silvered waters of Grenville Lake, a fast hill rose behind us, rinsing away the aches and blisters and leaving us on the verge of a new stage of our expedition. The HOL has given us an opportunity to learn more about the history of this land. We have with us an archeological report that details the Dogrib use of the Ts'etino Hoteh -- the sea of far away portage -- between the Emile River and Mesa Lake. There is also a rich oral history surrounding the portage out of Mesa Lake to the north. Here, in the 1820's, a treaty was negotiated between the Yellowknife and Dogrib Dene that ended a decade long war. These stories and others gave a new depth to the lands we traversed.

The HOL has also brought us to the Coppermine Watershed and waters flowing north. Grenville is the headwaters of the Parent River, a tributary of the Coppermine. For the first day and a half, it's mostly meant the occasional waiting and dragging. But after our two weeks of climbing the Emile, the fact that this waiting and dragging is downstream makes all the difference. This afternoon, we finally reached some run-able whitewater, most of it a thin narrow chute of turning water. As Emily and I plunged down it, after carefully scouting, of course, I was reminded of a bobsled track or a water slide, albeit, one with a little bit more of a roar than usual.

And finally the HOL has brought us out of the trees and onto the tundra. Ours is now a world of green hills and sandy eskers fading to blue on the horizon. Without trees to give it scale, it is hard to tell whether the far shore is miles or meters distant. Our days seem short and artificially circumscribed compared to the sun's wide flung arc. Each night as we sleep, cradled by a carpet of cloudberry blossoms and Labrador pea, a prolonged sunset fades into sunrise with little to distinguish them.

So we continue north through this eerie and beautiful land, happy, healthy and more often than not, doubled over in laughter. But even as we give thanks for each moment of this experience, our thoughts are often with those farther to the south. Two days ago on Grenville Lake, we encountered a raft of ice. This 20 square feet or so reminded us of the Manito-wish trips on the Dubawnt River and the summer of 2005 when we saw so much ice, where the lakes seem as clear and blue as those you have encountered so far.

Also, to Rick Stirr, we will be thinking of you tomorrow. Happy Birthday! And finally, we got around to painting names on our boats. They have been christened "Stan" and "The Jenny," the two very special people down south who they are named after. Thanks so much for helping us get here.

Pictures from the Roadshow, pt 1

1. The trip begins with Nina, Meg, and Emily

2. Gas Station in Minnesota

3. Meg and Emily at the Canadian Superstore in Regina, Saskatchewan

4. Meg and Emily at the Canadian Superstore in Regina, Saskatchewan

5. Emily sleeps

6. Meg drives strong

7. Nina writes letters

8. Heading north on the Mackenzie Highway

9. Rainbow outside High Level, Alberta

10. Rainbow outside High Level, Alberta

11. Crossing into the Northwest Territories

12. Crossing into the Northwest Territories

13. Driving late

14. The Hay River

15. Falls on the Hay River

16. Stopped for a break between the Hay River and Fort Providence

17. Charging the sat. phone with the solar roll

18. The Mackenzie River ferry crossing

19. The Mackenzie River ferry crossing

20. Looking out toward Great Slave Lake

21. On the ferry

Pictures from the Roadshow, pt 2

22. Driving north toward Yellowknife

23. Wood Bison

24. Visitors Center in Yellowknife

25. Beth arrives at the Yellowknife Airport

26. Beth arrives at the Yellowknife Airport

27. Our last meal at the Wildcat Cafe (oldest restaurant in Yellowknife)

28. Our last meal at the Wildcat Cafe

29. Repacking at our campsite outside yellowknife

30. Putting in our tie-in system

31. Tieing down the boats, one last time


32. Packing up our resupply at Ursus Air

33. Karen and our food will be flying in on the smaller plane

34. The Maul Lunar Rocket that will be bringing in our resupply

35. The hanger at Ursus Air

36. Working out logistics with Blair and Jay

37. Meg with her new Nikon D-80






38-43. Assorted pictures of us starting out at Rae on Marian Lake

June 22nd: Up the Emile

June 22^nd, 2008; Day 15

Emile River, "Sand All Around Lake” (as known by the Dogrib Dene)
GPS Coordinates: 64 deg., 47 min. North; 115 deg., 27 min. West

Author: Emily

This morning I woke at 5:00 a.m. to a loud splashing sound right next to me. Our tents were pitched about 20 feet back from a sandy beach at a wider opening of the Emile River. I sat up abruptly in my sleeping bag, making enough noise to startle the large bull moose walking along the shore between our tents and the water. We stared at each other for a moment through the tent screen -- me in awe of the large mammal in such close proximity and the moose likely in awe of the strangers along his beach. He turned around and went in search of a less crowded place and I fell back asleep.

During the last week, this river has surprised each of us with its stunning rocky ridges and amazing wildlife sightings – an unexpected gift. Yesterday we watched a wolverine for a solid five minutes while he continuously galloped up the river bank and back down along the shore line as if searching for something he lost – way more involved in his own business than with his audience. The day before we paddled up to the beginning of a portage and found a snowfield where we had expected a spring creek. The snow had compacted into layers of ice flowing out between two cliff bands and gave the feel of a glacier – so much so that while sitting in our boats, where the blue ice met the water, a good five feet above our heads, it was easy to imagine ourselves in Greenland, rather than in the Boreal Forest of the Northwest Territories.

Our travel up the Emile has been slow, yet steady and deliberate. Progress up river is earned in traversing each portage three times with our heavy loads; it teaches a patience and satisfaction of truly being where you are, not looking too far ahead. Tomorrow we are planning to rest, stretch, eat more food from our packs, and prepare for the height of land portages which will transition us off the Emile and toward a new chapter in the trip. Not only will we be portaging into a new river system in which we will actually be traveling with the current, we also will be shifting out of the tree line and into the tundra for awhile. The familiarity of life out here as a small group makes it easy to forget that we are far enough north to emerge into tundra, yet the height of the sun in the sky each night and the chilling wind blowing across the lakes reminds us otherwise. We celebrated the summer solstice last night with twizzlers and multiple toasts to the Emile River, to portage trails through the Muskeg, and to wonderful wildlife. (Nina and I have checked 25 bird species off the list I picked up at the Visitor Center in Yellowknife.)

Our thoughts and best wishes go out to the six expeditions from Manito-wish starting out on trail in the past week. May your bellies be full, your laughter be strong, and your horizons be clear. We are thinking of you.

June 15th: My Summer Vacation

June 15^th, 2008; Day 8

Basler Lake on the Emile River
GPS Coordinates: 63 deg. 50 min. north; 116 deg. 3 min. west

Author: Beth

Well, today was day eight of my summer vacation. Hard to believe that I took an exam just 10 days ago. I had no idea how fast I would feel the changes of being on trail. Just looking at my hands tells me that I am no longer sitting in the library and studying all day. They are brown from the sun and rapidly getting rough and calloused from hard use and long days in the wind and on the water. It has been a difficult week, no doubt; we are traveling up river, which means a lot of paddling against the current and portaging. And of course, this is northern Canada, where the wind is almost always blowing in your face. Our bodies often are sore and tired.

My three trip mates and I also are adjusting to each other again. A lot has happened in all of our lives since our last trip together; we all feel older and, hopefully, we are a bit wiser. Besides that we are missing Karen - our fifth partner in crime - and it is not the same without her. While I have definitely had my moments of wondering what possessed me to leave the 95 degree weather in Columbus, Ohio for the wind, rain and bugs of the Northwest Territories, I have also had many reminders of what continues to draw me back up here. The other day we sat down to eat lunch by a rapid and watched a wolf catching fish from the other shore just by pulling it out of the fast moving water with its paws. The other night I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain on my tent and when I stuck my head out to close the rain fly, I saw the brightest, most vibrant rainbow I have ever seen. This is, of course, only possible because we are far enough north that it is light all night long. Our campsite tonight is on a beautiful beach; we look out of our tents at a lake with tall, rocky shores and it looks even more beautiful and inviting after a day of pounding our bodies over nasty portages. Those same portages make my dinner taste better and my sleeping bag more comfortable than I ever imagined. Not such a bad deal, really.

We are all doing well and laughing a lot and, after careful observation, I believe I have identified the exact muscle in my butt that is most worked by carrying 90-pound packs uphill, putting my knowledge of anatomy to good use.

Also, we wanted to say Happy Father's Day to all our dads, who are so very far away. We toasted you tonight! We will continue up the Emile River for another week to 10 days. Look for another update next week.

June 8th: Marian Lake, Northwest Territory

June 8th, 2008; Day 1

Marian Lake, Northwest Territory

Writer: Meg Casey

Exactly three years and ten days ago, I sat among the shrubs and spruce on the bank of Wollaston Lake, Saskatchewan. I was completely dumbfounded by the ice. Quiet ice. The kind of ice that doesn't creak, crack, groan or give any other indication of heating. Although the silence of that ice weighed so heavily in the air, my recollection is that it didn't come even remotely close to shadowing the raw will and desire my four trip mates and I brought to the Boreal Forest that summer. We were hungry for adventure and willing to take on the unknown. And how unknown it was. The following 95 days brimmed with experiences we never could have predicted.

Tonight I sit among the shrub and spruce once again. No ice just yet, but no doubt a great adventure is on the horizon. After a four-day drive to the end of the road at Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, we picked up Beth at the airport, ate our last supper at an historic mining restaurant, and spent a great morning with the pilots of Urus Aviation (our resupply outfitters). Finally we headed for the water. The native children of the small town, Rae, played with our gear and asked us a million questions like "Why is your jacket orange? Why are you camping? Do you like her?" We took photos, gave them all high-fives, and paddled away.

It was clear long before today that this is not merely a replication of our 2005 expedition. Our insatiable hunger for adventure seems to have taken on a new shape -- a personal and defined need to take this land with great intention and soak in the lessons of each challenge as they come. A favorite author of mine, Wendell Berry, described the combination of some of the feelings we are feeling today (excitement, curiosity and fear) as exploring.

We'd like to express our undying gratitude to our families for so, so much support in so many ways. We love you all so much. I'd also like to tell my grandpa that I saw the world through his eyes today, as it has always been his dream to get to Great Slave Lake. I love you and I wish you well.

Heading North

Emily and I are about to drive away from our amazing base camp here in Madison, the Stirr home, and head North. We can't say thank you enough times or in enough different ways to Rick and Gail for hosting us, feeding us and putting up with us taking over almost every single room of their house with expedition gear. We can't begin to imagine how much more difficult this process would have been without their support and care. Thanks so much Rick and Gail!

Our first stop is Boulder Junction where we will pick up Meg and our second canoe and say farewell to all the folks already up at Manito-wish. It's an exciting time at Manito-wish right now: summer camp is about to start and there not one or two but six expeditionary level trips headed out to the Brooks Range, the Pacific coast and Nunavut this summer, as well as numerous shorter trips. We wish all the best to everyone working at Manito-wish and taking part in summer camp, outpost and leadership programs!

Early tomorrow morning we will be starting the four day drive to Yellowknife. If all goes well we will be there to meet Beth at the Yellowknife airport on Saturday afternoon and put in at Rae sometime on Sunday. Rumor has it that it's a late spring up north so we're fully expecting Marian Lake, where the trip begins, to be frozen. (Fully expecting might be a bit of an exaggeration, but after our experience on Wollaston in 2005 let's just say it will be a pleasant surprise if we can push our boats off into open water.)

As we leave our computers behind we will be handing off all of the technical details involved in posting our updates to Rob Williams--good friend to four of the BPE, and fiance to the fifth (I'll let you guess which one). While we're on the expedition we plan to send updates back once a week, probably on Sundays so you should see them appear on the blog during the first couple days of each week. If you want to receive the updates directly by email you can let Rob know at rlwilliams12@gmail.com.

More to come soon from the roadshow and beyond...

More Packout Pictures

More pictures from packing out here in Madison. The plan is to start driving north next Tuesday, June 3, so watch for another big update early next week. After that blog posts will be weekly while we are on trail. If you want to receive blog posts via email, shoot an email to Rob (rlwilliams12@gmail.com) who will be maintaining our website and posting on our blog during the expedition.

Packing out fruit and veggies from Just Tomatoes.

Meg creates a spice kit.

Trying on our new PFDs from Kokatat.

Emily packs out peanut butter from the Superior Nut Company.


Going through the first aid kit.

Putting the L in TL

At Manito-wish, TL (Trail Lunch) is pretty much the same every day. Which isn't a bad thing -- what more could you want than peanut butter, honey, bannock, cheese and sausage? While we nailed down a couple of our TL essentials a few months ago with our sponsorships from Bob's Red Mill, Usingers and Cabot Creamery, we have also had a couple of sponsors step up in the last few days to cover the rest of our TL needs.

Superior Nut Company, a local Cambridge, MA company is providing us with 30lbs of peanut butter. Enough to keep us well-fueled through all of those late afternoons when the wind rises and the glare is in your eyes. There is nothing more central to a great TL than peanut butter and we're psyched to have Superior Nut Company on board.

Another key TL ingredient is honey and we've been lucky enough to receive 10 lbs of "pure, sweet honey" from Willi van Haren. Thanks also to Ambra for helping us make the connection!


A classic TL on the Back River in 2005:



Notice the peanut

Packout Pictures

The Stirr's basement with our wonnegon (courtesy of John Stanley) front and center.



Emily pulls out a new Whisperlite from Backcountry.com




Meg tries on our brand new gear from Kokatat, and our new Chota boots.





Meg putting together our repair kit.



Setting up our new Stretch Tiros and Stretch Dome from Sierra Designs in the back yard.

Packing out

Emily, Meg and I have finally converged at the Stirr house in Madison to begin packing out. The To-Do list at this point is out of control but at least we can start making some serious progress now that we're all in one place. Yesterday we sorted through the BPE explosion in the Stirrs basement and tried to figure out how many nalgenes and how much extra seam grip we need to buy. Getting all the gear laid out in one place is both reassuring and a little intimidating -- at least it's all here, but then again there's so much of it!

We also sorted through the boxes of food that have been arriving here all spring. After some complex calculations Emily discovered that we have enough mini Luna Bars to eat six per day for the entire summer. And they are caramel nut brownie flavor!

On the agenda for today: sorting through maps, a trip to the hardware store and a conference call with Karen and Beth who are still at work in North Carolina and Ohio, respectively. Stay tuned for more updates and pictures. Also a special thanks to Lisa Goodman for stopping by to chat yesterday!

Expedition Essentials: Mitchell & GMCR

What could be more essential to a canoeing expedition than a good quality paddle? Luckily Mitchell paddles, a family-run company based out of Canaan, NH, is hooking us up with 10 brand new paddles. Each of us will be ready to draw and pry through even the gnarliest set of rapids with our new Premier whitewater paddles. And when it comes to making miles on the flatwater, we'll be able to pull out five matching Leader bentshaft paddles. Mitchell paddles are both beautifully crafted and tough enough to stand up to two months of daily wear and tear on the waterways of northern Canada. We're excited to have Mitchell on board!

Speaking of things that we can't live without... some of you may have heard stories of (or even have first hand experience with) the infamous BPE caffeine addiction. Early morning with the BPE isn't a pretty sight anyway, but early morning with the BPE sans coffee is, well, let us not speak of it. Thankfully Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has signed up to provide us with enough coffee to motivate us out of the sleeping bag each morning. In case it still isn't obvious how seriously we take our coffee here's just a small sampling of coffee related pictures from the 2005 expedition:

The Countdown Begins

This week's conference call focused on finalizing our schedule for the summer so that we could purchase our tickets home from Kugluktuk. Here's the rough plan:

• Mid-May: Emily, Meg and Nina meet in Madison to finish packing out.
• June 4: Begin the drive north -- Madison to Yellowknife via Boulder Junction.
• June 9: Start paddling at the Northwest corner of Great Slave Lake.

• July 22ish: Resupply at the Dismal Lakes on the Kendall River.

• August 10: Reach Kugluktuk, Nunavut on the Arctic Ocean.
• August 11: Fly out of Kugluktuk for Yellowknife where we'll have left the van.
• August 16: Back at Manito-wish to give a slideshow during the 90th Anniversary Celebrations.

This plan puts us on the water in just 50 days! Within that time Meg will be relocating her life to the East Coast, I have to write a Second Year paper, Karen has to get Seafarer up and running for the summer, Beth needs to finish her first year of Medical school and Em plans to run a half Iron Man in Idaho. Not to mention packing out 600 pounds of food, checking, rechecking and triple checking our gear list, putting some hours in on the river, and squeezing in as much time as possible in flip-flops and sundresses.... Wish us luck!

BTW: If you're planning to paddle up north this summer and need to fly home on First Air, buy your tickets soon -- they are currently having a Summer Seat Sale.

Wilderness Paddlers Gathering

Early in March I was lucky enough to be part of the Wilderness Paddlers Gathering at the Hulbert Outdoor Center in Vermont. It rained all weekend but no one seemed to mind much as we huddled indoors watching slideshows and talking rivers. I was especially taken with some of Al Stirt and Wendy Scott's pictures of Richmond Gulf on the Ungava Peninsula. Maybe Al and Wendy only take the camera out when it's sunny but it sure looked idyllic. Maybe in 2009...

Good luck to everyone on the rivers this summer and special thanks to Deb Williams for inviting me, to George Luste for river advice, to Mike Robinson for sharing his maps of the Snare, Emile and Parent Rivers and to Kendall, Zand, Naomi & Co. for staying up late looking at maps with us.

Canoe and Kayak Magazine

We're on the front page of Canoe and Kayak's website, under Paddling News! The full story is here.

In case you were wondering what "trench hand" looks like...

If you're interested in seeing more pictures from our 2005 expedition check out the online version of the slideshow we gave throughout the country after the trip ended.

Sierra Designs

There's absolutely nothing like knowing that no matter what the elements are throwing at you all day long you'll be warm and dry come night. Sierra Designs is pretty much single-handedly making sure that is the case for this upcoming summer. SD provided five amazingly warm drizone sleeping bags for our 2005 expedition. In 2008, not only are the sending five more sleeping bags our way -- their Drizone Electra -20 bags no less -- but they are also providing two tents, Chockstone primaloft jackets and ember base-layers. It will be great to be able to pair their toasty sleeping bags with their Stretch Dome and Stretch Tiros tents -- both bombproof, four-season mountaineering tents that can stand up to tundra winds with barely a shrug. Personally, I'm also really, really excited about the Drizone Packable Mitts that they threw in at the last minute. These waterproof prima-loft mittens just might be the answer to "trench hands" -- reoccuring blisters and sores that some of us got on our hands from the cold in 2005.