The Carswell/William River – Athabasca Sand Dunes, Saskatchewan,

 June 14-27, 2009

 

Chunks out of three bang plates, five cracked paddles and the bottom of our freshly re-coated Kevlar Hellman Prospector looks like Kojak. It was a tough, challenging  trip with easterly winds the entire time—and easterlies always bring bad weather in this part of the world.  Water levels are always a major concern on this bony river  and I was major worried for months previous to launch that we wouldn’t have enough—it had been a low snowfall winter and a very dry spring.  I  had a backup set of topos for another trip ready to go at the last minute and notified the brigade of the iffy situation  ten days before the  launch date.  Another brigade, from Minnesota,   I was sharing info with, pulled the plug.  Then in the last week before launch, I heard hints  (and that’s all you get of weather  reports from the uninhabited north) that it had rained.  The forest fire situation—the worst in ten years—plunged from 450 to just five. That bobbed my eyebrows.  I was also in contact with another brigade, teachers from La Loche (the bush town/Indian reservation closest) that they felt confident it was a go. With that, I gave the expedition the nod, though still not without concern.
 

The pre-paddle fete in our backyard.

 
Lake Athabasca is 30X175 miles and Canada's eighth largest.  It's in the top left corner of Saskatchewan at latitude 59. If you look carefully, you’ll see the William River running south of the largest sand dune field down to a long lake, Carswell, running NE-SW, which was our launch site after an 11 hour drive.  (It’s at the center of 38k wide Carswell Meteor Crater.) The river runs along the right, east side of the large dune field to the huge delta. And we paddled the wide bay just to the right with the second largest dune field bordering it. The ice went off the lake while we were on the  William. It was c-c-c-cold.
 

 The traditional  Voyageur Champagne popping ceremony, followed by beef tenderloins and European wine and Single Malts and cigars.  We paddle in style.

 
We punched across all 16 miles of Carswell Lake the first day against a slight easterly breeze.  This gave us a fourth full day off later on, which we concentrated on the dunes and south shore of Lake Athabasca.

 
Touching shot of father and son bonding on the canoe trip


 Our first sight  of the dunes, unforgettable. But by this time we had bashed through more rock gardens than I can count.  I was too busy trying to miss rocks to take any pictures of them.

 
One of several #3 (and 4 shelves). Much of the forest was burned out last year along the whole length of the trip. Chris, who is an absolute master with whitewater, sterned many through and he was on point the whole time.

 
It was an uphill battle all the way.  That’s Bow Buba.

 
Chris, from Scotland,  made running pushy water easy.  He’s an artist in water, graceful as a dancer, seemingly teasing the river.

 
Desert "pavement" on the dunes which we were careful not to step on.

 
The Dragon Lady with one of the ten endemics, a felt-leaf willow, which grows “almost exclusively” in the sand dunes.

 
The final run of rapids were something else.  Actually, the whole trip until the  sand dunes was just a slightly lighter variation of this – seemingly endless rock gardens. These ended in a #4 falls - which Chris shot, finding a squeak point. If you look carefully you’ll see him standing by his red canoe by the falls, top left.

 
The east side of the river was burned out but the dunes side was fine.

 
Oops,  needed a bath anyway.  They got through though they shipped some water. Lawrie, like Chris, is a brilliant canoeist. He was on sweep.  Amazingly, no one dumped though there were several half swampings, and several times getting hung up on large pillows.

 
Not a bad chunk of real estate to park MEC Wanderer Two.  The wind and rain would come...again...the next day.
  

Yes, it was often windy and cold. We were borderline hypothermic a few times and I often slept in my down vest with my toque and socks on.

 
The Dragon Lady with Lilly Dipper. Our tents are in that green oasis just to Su’s right.

 
The William's delta is enormous and pushes way out into Lake Athabasca.  The  fog was so thick I had to take a compass bearing before we  scouted ahead by foot to see if the daunting roar of surf was going to stop us.  It didn't and we navigated around the shallow, sandy delta through the chop, my only way to “see” the shore was by following my GPS, with my compass as backup.

 
I was startled to find  along shore what I mistakenly called Venus fly-traps but which are actually sundews.  There were huge bog beds of them.  I spotted a couple of pitcher plants as well.

 
This enormous lake trout earned Lawrie the river name of "Get the hell back out there again!" from Mrs. Heron Legs.  Somehow we have to shorten it.  Man, was this fish good eating. Not surprising, the world record lake trout – a behemoth weighing over 100 pounds – was taken here in a gill net in 1961.  Heron Legs had also nailed a big one and a large jack at the start of the trip.  They broke up our boring diet of moose stew, wild rice, bannock, pancakes with maple syrup, “Canadian” bacon (just back bacon to us Canucks) and like “Canuckisms.”

 
Navigating 16 mile long Thomson Bay was a tough slog - big wind and waves in our face the whole time and cold as hell.  I wasn’t the only one that cursed this lake.

 
Beaver Point in the distance was our final destination.  There we had a 600 meter portage into small Cantara Lake for our pick up.  I didn’t mention an earlier 750 meter one through loose sand with the wind making wind vanes out of our canoes.

 
Finally...I've been trying to teach Lilly Dipper to fish for over twenty years and he finally got the hang of it.  Everyone was throwing back 15-25 pound jack and Chris caught an ever bigger one.   And absolutely delicious, even big ones like this which are normally tough and woody further south.  Nothing went to waste. I’ve never had a brigade eat like this one.  But then I’ve rarely had a brigade work as hard as on this  one either.

 
The Twin Otter couldn't get in the first morning because of fog, and after flying 110 miles one way, but the next morning was picture perfect.

 
Lake Athabasca...finally calm and beautiful...just as we’re flying out….

 
Saskatchewan has 100,000 pristine lakes and rivers and these are some of 'em.

 
Class picture. If it looks like we're leaning to one side it's probably because of that damned easterly wind....

Left to right: Malcolm “Cherry Popper” Lawson, Chris Dickinson, Wharren “Walt’s man servant” Blahey, Jason “Capt. Magnus Twat” Schoonover, Su “The Dragon Lady” Hattori, Matt Tremaine, Lawrie “Get the hell back out there again!” Stewart, Keith “Heron Legs” Hamilton, Pat “Mrs. Heron Legs” Hamilton, Sally Dickinson, Walt “Lilly Dipper” Blahey and Candy “Bow Buba” Wilson.

Helluva trip, very challenging and wild and everyone lost weight—but the dunes were awesome.
 
This will be posted at jasonschoonover.com with other trips.                                         
 

Cheers – Capt. Magnus Twat