The stories are usually heritage stories, the ways of earlier travellers or dwellers in a remote environment well-suited to outdoor travel. Here the integrity of the land and the water is often something to revel in. What a country we live in! The stories in some cases are more dream-like than concrete heritage finds. A concrete find is seeking out Raymond Patterson’s wood stove on the Wheatsheaf Creek of the Nahanni River. A dream-like story is pondering the Penny Ice Cap, vestige of the last ice age, while ski-touring on Baffin Island, or contemplating all those who have struggled in spring’s semi-ice-covered lakes throughout the north.
But there is never a sense of being aimless or lost. What is sought and often found is the joy of entering a story. I, like many, seek to be a participant in the story and in the evolving, ever-emerging landscape, which is enlarged with each new story added. When I have travelled with a good story, I become a livelier storyteller. And, like Thomas King said so eloquently, “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.”[2]
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1
A Mara-Burnside Trip/Conference and the First
Franklin Expedition
“And would we have survived, too, if given a chance? Kept peace and sanity and most of our toes? Kept hope when cell phone, wristwatch, and film advance failed and borealis was the only electric thing within range?”[1]
— Elizabeth Bradfield
Is it a canoe trip or is it a conference? Can it be both at once? How will fourteen professional educators and travel guides all used to leading trips work together? What about differences in terms of practice and philosophy between the six countries represented, not to mention fourteen dynamic personalities? These were certainly questions on everyone’s mind as we gathered in Yellowknife in 2010 for what we all thought was a first of its kind: a wilderness educators’ conference and canoe trip.[2] We would paddle the Mara Burnside rivers to the Arctic coast at Bathurst Inlet.
We were tired of meeting at conferences in Sheraton Hotels around the world. Personally, it always feels disingenuous as an outdoor educator to gather in Ballroom A anywhere in North America and discuss issues such as, Can the “no trace” camping philosophy fit with a “you can be home in the wilds” philosophy? For the record, the conference with keynote speakers and concurrent sessions isn’t the only way (or the best way) for professionals to meet. Here was my chance to test this theory! It was also the closest I have come to the specific landscapes of the first Franklin expedition, 1819–22.
The canoe trip/conference was the idea of the eminently qualified Morten Asfeldt, who cut his teeth guiding for Nahanni River Adventures in the 1980s before travelling to many (dare I say most) Arctic rivers with students at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta in Camrose, Alberta (see Chapter 10). This would be Morten’s fourth time down the Mara-Burnside river system. Along with Morten, the co-organizer was Simon Beames, a Canadian outdoor education scholar teaching at the University of Edinburgh. The two of them made fishing for lunch; regular sightings of wolves, grizzlies, muskox, and the Bathurst Inlet caribou migration; not to mention days of runnable whitewater and esker camping all a reality for those who responded to the invite. Together, Morten and Simon saw this canoe trip/conference to completion. Why the Mara-Burnside? It offers a bit of everything that Arctic rivers can offer. Of course, I would focus on the history.
But first, the conference idea.
Here’s how it worked. Thirty invitations were sent out, and twelve folks signed on. Morten and Simon would have their canoe trip/conference. Delegates came from Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Japan. We were to write two papers to be distributed to delegates before the canoe trip. These papers served as conference sessions: one a curricular item of practice, the other an important theory to us as individuals. English would be our common language, though Scandinavian dialects were often more practical at times. Sessions included rethinking how we use metaphors to teach, how to use a group writing journal, understanding the body on a canoe trip, the importance of water for life, nature interpretation, how to wisely engage students, finding tools on the land, generating group discussion on environmental lifestyle, and peppering ritual and heritage into the experience.[3] We discussed our personal views of our carbon footprint in coming here, learned of local political issues (the possible coastal shipping port at Bathurst Inlet), and argued the merits of journey-based and local outdoor education. I have just scratched the surface here. Suffice it to say, I only remember dozing off once (or twice) during evening sessions after a full day on the water and my turn on dinner detail.
Certainly there was tension between life on the trail and the need to fulfill our interest in a successful professional conference. That said, it worked! We learned together. We had time for follow-up discussions on esker walks, around (or inside) the bug tent, or in canoes. We had time to expand our practices and ideas with much input from respected and non-distracted colleagues. A canoe partner on the mostly portage-free, lining-free Mara and Burnside rivers affords ample opportunity for the thoughtful dialogue and critique academics love. Though, critique led to an overly wet rapids run for a bowswoman when an enthusiastic conversation distractingly led canoes into the standing waves. The stern paddlers continued the dialogue over the roar of robust waves: the wrong line through the rapid. Such is the way of outdoor educator paddling academics.
As for the overall route, we started just downstream from the usual launch at Nose Lake. As hoped, the lake ice was a minor factor, but early season paddling ensured we would have reasonable headwater levels. By day two we had encountered our first of six grizzlies. By day three, the long, shallow rapids (not an easy go in rubber-bottomed Pakboats) gave way to kilometre after kilometre of easily runnable rapids. By day four on the Mara we were in the midst of the region’s annual caribou migration, travelling a dominant esker beside which we camped on two occasions. In total we had two portages to the Arctic Ocean, one being the infamous five-kilometre carry around the final river gorge. We also had several wind-bound days — good for conferencing, bad for paddling.
The Mara-Burnside river system trip is a classic Arctic River run. There is good fishing, great wildlife encounters, opportunities for long esker walks, few people, lots of bugs, and runnable rapids. We all had our special interests. For some, it was fishing, for others, wildlife sightings or paddling rapids. For me, I’m a happy generalist, with a special interest in the area’s history. The Mara-Burnside is not a historic river corridor like the Coppermine, Thelon, or Back rivers.[4] It is not a primary heritage river route, but it does have an interesting secondary role. Yes, there is a story to tell, and I had the opportunity then to share in some of the connection between the Mara-Burnside and the first Franklin expedition, but some of the story I learned following the trip. I will start with the ending. Sometimes it is the best way to begin.
Bob and Takako Takano on the Mara-Burnside river system.
Photo courtesy of Hans Gelter.
Liftoff! The winds were strong. Our Twin Otter airplane would travel from Bathurst Inlet on the Arctic coast to Yellowknife on the shores of Great Slave Lake. That’s the length of the barren lands of Canada. We would fly low, affording an easy view of the lower Bathurst Inlet; the Mara, Burnside, and Coppermine rivers; eskers aplenty; barrens to treeline transition; waterways as a corridor for easy travel; and a mass of lakes messing up any notion of water as a useful navigational aid. In the air with this excellent visibility, I was thinking of navigation, not because I would ever walk the long distance across the barrens but because the first Franklin Arctic land expedition did so in 1819–22.[5] Might I see Belanger Rapids and Obstruction Rapids, where river crossings by canoe and hastily made cockleshell canoe respectively exacted so much time and energy from the crew.[6] Might I see some dominant eskers as linear features that might have helped Franklin and company once