I take my hat off to anyone braving the elements & the bugs above the 60th parallel!  

I was surprised to see 3 canoes of canoe-campers "passing through" (toward Hudson's Bay, I suppose) last week while I was up on Selwyn Lake.  A fairly intense thunderstorm flashed up on us quickly shortly after we saw them.  While our native guide was able to whisk us away in our Lund using our Honda 4 stroke 40, those paddlers had to deal with big lake wind & the hail & the waves on the spot.  I can tell you that the shoreline wouldn't offer much protection, either.  Those trees weren't very thick & couldn't have been much higher than 10 feet tall, on average (if that).  Also, protected bays were often few & far between.  My assessment: the elements are "in your face" at all times.  You need to take extraordinary care.  That's probably especially so for these Arctic river paddlers!  Anytime we got NEAR a river the bugs went WACKO!!

While staying at the Lodge (the only habitable place on that immense lake), I picked up a book about such canoeing.  It's entitled "Cold Summer Wind II" by Clayton Klein.  It's a follow-up book to - you guessed it - "Cold Summer Wind I".  So far it's a good read.  Despite the in-your-face elements, such tripping kind of caught my fancy... enough to "read" about it, anyway.  I might even consider taking a whack at it, if only I could figure a way to do it.  Logistics, money, & time requirement considerations are quite considerable, I'm sure.

There IS a stark & different kind of beauty about the landscape up there.  However, I don't see myself converting from being a Quetico paddler to an Arctic paddler anytime soon.

Thanks for sharing the link!

Jimbo   8)