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| Arctic River Trips | The Caribou River
The Little Caribou River
Paul and I had talked about canoeing in the Arctic for many years and in
1994 we
made the commitment, packed up and headed out. We both felt that we were
experienced,
capable and up for the task at hand. We were quite wrong. We had the wrong clothes, the wrong
gear and we were unprepared for paddling in the Arctic, but we fumbled
and bumbled our
way to the our pick-up place and the airplane ride off of the river. We both
loved the trip and
had planned another bigger trip long before this trip was over.
The Big Picture
The Caribou River starts at Commonwealth Lake and just skirts the tree line
to Hudson Bay.
The shallow, rocky Caribou River started at Commonwealth Lake and eventually
dribbled into
the Hudson Bay. It was more of a walk than a paddle. It's not too far north
of
Churchill.
Packing out. It's hard to think cold when it's over ninety. That's Paul
sneaking something
into a stuff sack, maybe a little candy.
We flew Paul's plane from St. Paul to Fort Francis and then Red Lake. From
there to
Thompson
for more fuel and then on to Churchill. There was very little to look at on
the
ground except lakes and trees.
Here we are finally on the ground at Churchill. You can just see the Hudson
Bay in the background.
This was the Fixed Base Operator at the Churchill Airport. They serviced all
general aviation needs, which were few. They don't get a lot of transient traffic. This is a
destination.
Churchill's main street and longest street. There were a lot of cars and
trucks for a place
that only
had about six miles of roads. The railroad was the only thing that came here
on
he ground, and
that was three times a week.
We are staying at the best motel in town, the Tundra Inn. We ate at the
Tundra Cafe
which as
directly across the street. There's a theme here.
We loaded up Doug's plane at the seaplane base and headed northwest towards
the river.
We stopped at Caribou Lake and picked up a very clapped out canoe. From
there we
continued to Commonwealth Lake were Doug dropped us off. This is the off-loading at
Commonwealth Lake
and the headwaters of the Caribou River.
The river started just out
of the trees and followed the
tree line more or
less to the Bay. Trees
grew anywhere that
there was a little shelter, but not very
big. This region of the North is known as the "Land
of Little Sticks".
This is the scene that greeted us at the outlet of the lake where the
Caribou River began.
We started
too late in the season for this little river. Most of the water had
drained away
already. We got to
the river and immediately started to carry and drag our gear towards
the
Bay.
The river stayed consistently shallow and rocky making our progress very slow.
We
walked or
dragged the canoe and our gear most of the way on the upper river.
To makes things worse, our beat up canoe didn't have a
yoke. Every time we had to
carry it, we had to rig up our paddles to serve as a yoke. This was a frequent occurrence.
This was one of our harder, longer portages. The river just disappeared in
the boulder
field which
seemed to go on forever. It was too boggy to walk on the shore, so we had
to
boulder hop with
all
our gear and the canoe. That made for a long day.
This is somewhere deep in the boulder field. We must have stopped for a
rest.
There were some places with enough water for fish, and we caught them
easily. Paul is
holding
some nice sized grayling.
More shallow, rocky water. We walked next to the canoe dragging it over the
rocks quite
a lot.
We were stopped by high winds near the entry to Round Sand Lake and took a
break on the shore.
Round Sand Lake was very shallow and surrounded by sand dunes and stunted
fir trees.
You could walk in most of the lake but there were places that were three to
four feet
deep Paul is dragging the canoe through the shallow water. It was often easier to
walk
than to paddle.
We were pinned down by very high winds after the storm and spent the day
hiding behind
a sand
dune. In mid-afternoon we looked up and saw our canoe cartwheel over our
heads
and land about
fifty yards from where it had started. We tied it down
very carefully after that.
Your don't want to
lose your canoe.
This is Round Sand Lake with the afternoon wind on it. When we arrived the
night before,
the
water
was several hundred yards away from shore. We had a little storm surge.
Another view of Round Sand Lake as the storm blew itself out.
We walked out into the lake after the storm to try to find a way out. There
was almost no water
and we ended up carrying our gear and the canoe to the lake's outlet.
We dragged our gear to the outlet of Round Sand Lake. It was still very
windy when we
left the
lake and got going down the little river again.
We were not prepared for the bugs. We learned a lot on this trip.
The continents basement rocks were very visible along most of the river.
Smoke and low clouds on Caribou Lake.
There was an abandoned native cemetery on an esker on Caribou Lake.
Paul on Caribou Lake trying to figure out where we were.
The abandoned Hudson Bay Station on Caribou Lake was used by the local
people for
temporary shelter when they traveled in the winter. Their unusable items of gear and
clothing were left and
abandoned in the station and all around it, including a broken down
snowmobile and what had at onetime been a rather nice cedar-canvas freight canoe.
A beautiful evening on the river, somewhere past Caribou Lake.
A little no name lake, or rather a wide spot in the river. We caught fish in
every little pool.
There
were giant brook trout in the rapids. I have never seen brookies bigger than
these.
Some of them
were in the neighborhood of three pounds. That's a pretty big brookie.
We slowly learned how to deal with the bugs, stay dressed. Even though it
was often very warm,
a jacket, hat, pants tucked in your boots and hat and handkerchief would
keep the little devils from
eating you all up.
This was a sweet place to camp. Not many bugs and there were lots of fish in
the rapids.
We didn't have the right gear and clothes for the weather and bugs. The
black flies bothered us quite
a lot but we just soldiered on. Bugs rule the North in summer.
I wore a head net when it was horrible but discarded it whenever possible.
They are warm
and you
can't see very well. I'd rather get bitten than melt in the net.
As we got closer to the Bay, the country opened up and the lakes became a
bit more
frequent making traveling easier. It's easier to paddle that walk and drag the canoe.
The river never got big and deep. It stayed shallow and rocky to the end.
There were the occasional lakes or wider spots in the river but by and large, it was shallow and
rocky.
That made every day
slow
and hard. This was not a good choice of rivers to paddle.
Some no name lake farther on down the way. There were not many places like
this that you
could stick your paddle in the water without hitting the bottom.
We had some cool weather but most of the time it was hot. The cool weather
was
much easier
to deal with and kept the bugs down.
Another challenging rocky rapid with no place to paddle.
There was a lot of wood around and we could make a fire nearly everywhere we
stopped.
I may not look too happy but I was.
The kettle was boiling and dinner was going. No bugs
for a few minutes either.
More smoke on the horizon. We were in the smoke or smelled smoke on nearly
the whole
trip. This
flare-up was not very far from us. We saw a number of fires from our
plane as
we flew from Thompson to Churchill.
With the fires burning, the horizon was generally hazy. Sometimes visibility
was cut to almost
nothing. Earlier, we got lost on Caribou Lake in the smoke. We couldn't see fifty
yards.
More fires. This was a common scene for us. The smoke would flare up for a
day or two
and then
disappear for a day or two. We could smell it it almost all of the
time.
Looking back, we could see where we had been two days earlier. You can see a
long
way when
there are few or no trees.
The trip is over and we are back at Anoka County Airport.
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