Day 19

Today was maniacal. We woke up at our piece of shit campsite with a huge drainage problem. The sky was confused. Grey clouds flying overhead, white clouds both high and low, fluffy and thin up above, with the occasional splash of blue sky in between. The pressure was on its way down, and after the boys cooked us red river while I had a good search for a necklace worthy piece of limestone to match Mackie and bill’s, we were off. Wind turned into headwind, and though we’d planned to cover 50 some odd k, things were getting tough. We spotted an old hunting camp and ran ashore. It was a collection of gutted log buildings, full of junk and construction equipment. We happily looted the remains. I found: 1 pair military 500x zoom field glasses – 1 whetstone – a few hundred ft of flagging tape – a carpenter’s kife. Bill found: Some pants, some measuring tape, a level and a can opener that works. Mackie found: A ridiculous hood which he wears as a hat – a collapsible camping chair.

We paddled on, the headwinds almost making us windbound as we rounded a point. We took a break there and admired the incredible fossils of giant snails, and I found my stone – which I know wear on my neck. Feeling sentimental, I picked up a pieace of the chalk that is all over here, and wrote Attawapiskat ’06 on a rock and photographed it. Good for a slide show. After rounding the point it was sidewinds. We paddled far enough to set an angle for possible sailing, and we pitched our sail. We have never gone so fast in canoes in our lives. A storm was blowing in behind us, urging our assembly forth. Standing waves forced between our bows big enough to splash in and fill our boats up. The sterns dipped deep into the water as the boys strained to pull the sail back against the wind. Once the wind got so strong that the sail collapsed and the sudden deceleration caused our wake to catch up with us and almost wash over our sterns into our canoes. Once we got going again we hit a speed record. Mackie’s boat which was the lightest today, was planning. Only the bow and stern were in water, the centre of the boat was above the water, over am air space. As the sky grew darker we saw canyon walls pop up from the river banks. We sailed through swifts, the powerful sail tearing us over rocks as we rumbled through shallow sections just trying to keep the whole assembly straight. On the horizon lightning began to fork out of a black sky, so we began to scan the banks for a break in the cliffs to camp on. We spotted an exposed section of river bed and leapt at the opportunity. We set up quickly, cooked dinner and ate it under the tarp as the circling lightning all around us drew in tighter. Just as we began to think about initiating our lightning drill the wind picked up and we noticed a white wall of water sliding ominously toward ys from the west, obscuring everything it its path of sheets and sheets of rain. Lightning crashed and the wind violently picked up one of our 75 lbs prospectors and flipped it like a leaf, over and over into the water where it landed upright and began to float downstream. Mackie darted out from under the tarp in the chaos, and we all wavered our eyes, moving left to right, in apprehensive expectation watchng Mackie chase the boat and try to drag it back as the wall of violent white closed the gap rapidly. Mackie dragged it up., wedged it on some rocks just as the wall hit. We could barely see him running toward us, back to shelter. We sat out the next few strikes together, the 12 of us huddled, hoping it would all safely pass. Minutes later it did. A few more zaps here and there, and the sky cleared behind us, casting the sun onto white cliffs before a black sky. Day 19 – infamous day of insanity.