flames, instantly killing all four aboard.
I made a satellite phone call to the air service in Yellowknife to pick our group up at Lynx Lake near the headwater of the Thelon River in the Northwest Territories. They would pick us up just after six in the evening. It had been a tough trip, wind bound for over a week, extreme late summer weather causing us to change our itinerary and abandon descending the Thelon River. Instead, because we were unable to paddle, we trekked the open tundra in search of muskoxen and tundra wolves, hiking kilometres each day, the wind never letting up until the very last day. Even though we experienced a part of the beautiful headwater region of the Thelon that few people ever see, we all felt a little disappointed that the river adventure was thwarted, and for some they knew they would never be back again.
I called again when the plane was two hours past the scheduled pickup time. Lucky that evening could last up until midnight out here on the tundra. I wasn’t too worried. The Cessna Caravan landed on the beach at ten o’clock — four hours past due time. It was a three-hour flight back to Yellowknife and the pilot was anxious to get us out of there. We had to help him unload two forty-five-gallon drums of avgas for another air service. These had to be carefully rolled down the pontoon steps onto the pontoon, and then skidded down planks into the water. One of the drum bung-caps was loose and fuel spilled out (also letting water into the submerged barrel) and we quickly rolled it up onto the beach out of the lake. It was mayhem. There was now an oily fuel slick running down the steps of the Cessna and branching out into the bay; people slipped as they climbed the greasy steps and found their seats. The smell of fuel was thick inside. I helped the pilot load the gear into the back of the plane. He looked nervous.
“We have four more people to pick up,” the pilot told me. What … we already had a full load with ten people on board? Four Norwegian canoeists had decided to come out early and had made the call to the air service to come and pick them up. They never had a GPS with them and were lost in the labyrinth of lakes about one hundred air kilometres west of our location. They were told to light a smoky fire so the plane could spot them. The air service would also double their money on the back-haul by loading these guys on to our flight manifest, saving big on the fuel costs.
We spotted them after flying ever-tightening circles around the presumed location. There was no smoke to indicate the fire from a distance but we did notice the flames as it was now past dusk and near midnight, the sun having set about an hour earlier. We landed and I helped the pilot get the four men and their gear and Pakboats on board. There was a ton of gear and they were all big men. Huge duffels were piled down the middle aisle, infused with smoke which now blended with the smell of spilt fuel and old sweat.
“This is crazy,” the pilot whispered to me before we climbed in off the float. I didn’t answer him. I could see he was nervous. We still had a two-hour flight back to Yellowknife and the sun had long since departed. Only the Norwegians chatted amongst themselves, elated that they were plucked out of the wilderness and were heading home.
We landed without incident. The result of the spilled fuel barrels at the beach on Lynx Lake where avgas was dropped off for another air service, ended up in a nasty lawsuit. The fuel barrels had taken on water through unsecured bungs. The other air service was never notified of the potential spoiled fuel. When their plane went in to retrieve our canoes and refueled with the spoiled avgas the engine had a “flame-out” on take-off and had to put down roughly on the windiest section of lake. For two days, the pilot and his assistant tried desperately to keep the plane from crashing into shore rocks, meanwhile staving off the threat of hypothermia in near freezing temperatures.
High gravel banks oozing from once frozen permafrost lined both sides of the Coppermine River in Nunavut. There was nowhere to lunch as the shore was a scrabble of rock and course willow; eating in the canoe was an option but we wanted to get out and stretch our legs. Fifty vertical feet up, out of view, the tundra heath spread out endlessly; there was usually enough level moss matt to spread out and eat lunch on. We randomly selected a beaching site for the canoes, grabbed the lunch pack, and scrambled up the steep bank. What we saw at the top was disturbing.
Out of sheer coincidence we had chosen the exact site of a Cessna 180 crash site. The burned out fuselage and wings were a grim testimony of a flight gone awry. Pilot error or mechanical malfunction, bad weather or just bad luck, there was a story here that demanded an explanation.
Flying in to the trailhead is often part of the adventure and, for the number of flights made, there are few accidents. Getting in to a remote start point quickly by air can cut days, sometimes weeks of travel time off the schedule but there are enough close calls and deaths to warrant some trepidation when it comes to selecting an air service. Just as there are many reputable air charter services, there are as many operators and pilots who fly by the skin of their teeth. Just like guides, pilots can make poor judgment calls and there have been times that I’ve witnessed the pilot’s ego framing the potency of his ability to appraise situations and put everyone at risk. There really are no old, bold pilots as the saying goes. Northern charter services conscript young pilots who are eager to chock up air mile time — to the owner, rookie pilots come cheap and are expendable. There’s no shortage of fly boys available to commandeer any number of aging floatplanes out there. A few noticeable traits that you may want to be wary of when you slide in next to the pilot with the hangover from the night before, or the pilot who just got jilted by the bosses daughter:
1. The pilot suddenly slides forward on the edge of his seat.
2. He grips the steering controls too hard.
3. Beads of sweat appear on his forehead on a cool day.
4. He curses while manoeuvring.
5. Pilot asks you where he is.
6. He keeps clearing his throat but doesn’t speak.
7. There is duct tape holding things together.
8. A roach-clip is stuck to the flight log.
9. There’s a mickey of rye in the door pocket.
10. There’s oil dripping from the engine cowling.
11. The pilot pumps out floats on takeoff and landing.
12. The pilot asks you to load the plane.
I’ll keep flying even though I’ve seen it all. I am more selective now, though, and I’ll ask the charter service how many hours flying time my pilot has, especially if it looks as if he hasn’t started shaving yet. And when I’m up there, heart racing a little faster than normal, I sometimes forget that I’m not a religious man and I utter a silent prayer. So far so good, I say to myself when we land. The hard-pack trail looks better than ever, and the pitch of the canoe over the waves is comforting and earthly.
Fairy Point, Lake Missinaibi pictographs — a sacred place.
PART THREE
PATHWAY TO NIRVANA:
THE SPIRIT OF PLACE
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
— Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
Beauty always has a price attached to it; we either want to own it, exercise power over it, squander it, or lay waste to it. As is often the case, places of aesthetic pleasure have great alluring qualities to the adventurer; they also have a protective mechanism built into their personalities. The harshness of the environment may be a deterrent for some travellers or the level of whitewater too difficult and dangerous for others. These are physical characteristics that could define almost any northern Canadian river, mountain, or trail. Sometimes there is a deeper story about a place that beguiles any rational explanation or reason.