I just signed on to do a far north trip this year. I'm really psyched. I've never been that far north. It's a guided trip. But I'd still like any info I can get before I go. So if anybody finds a link to background info or has personal experiences thay can share I'd really appreciate it.

Dates July 1-12

I've read Che-Mun's outfit 100 &  101. Plus the 2nd group after Back was Factor James Anderson, and my name is James Anderson. So should my tripping name be Factor?

I'll be doing more online searches. But there's lots I won't find too, so if you see sometime interesting please send it my way.

Thanks

What is the route you are taking?  

Jim:

Years ago I read a great piece on Back's descent of what was then the Great Fish River (now the Back River). I believe it was in "A Company of Adventurers", or possibly Breton's "The Arctic Grail". An amazing story, made me want to paddle that river.

Trips with Wanapitei Outfitters.

Start at Moraine Lake, Bailey River's headwaters. Sounds like a smaller technical river, some nice C-II wavey/wet stuff.

When we get on the Back we'll go to below Hawk Rapids for our pickup. I'm thinking we might go along the north border of the Thelon Game Preserve.

Here's a link to Che-mun's write up of a trip in 1962.

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Solus, Lots of history to catch up on. Wish I knew this was coming up this summer, but the discounted seat kind of landed in my lap. One of the benefits of a tough economy I guess.

This thread was move to this location at the original poster's request.

Nana

Ice reported still on Moraine Lake where the Bailey River starts. 5 days till we're scheduled to land and start paddling.

Last minute packing dry suit and extra woolies.

BWJ has a nice trip report on the Thelon, just south of the Back. Alex Hall has a good reputation from everyone I've heard from.

I'll post pics and report here when I return.

Have a SAFE and fun trip!!
Just read the BWJ article you mentioned.
From the pics in the story, it doesn't look like there are many trees to hang a tarp from?
I guess you could bring some poles, but I can't imagine a trip without a tarp of some kind!
Look forward to the pics and fish tales ;)

Just got back. Great trip. Arctic Wolves, Caribou, Arctic Fox, Musk Ox.
It's a stark beautiful land. Still had lakes frozen up as we flew out.

1 or 2 bugs  ;D

My camera batt quit halfway, cold/old batt. I need to get pics from trip partners.

This trip has me seriously rethinking how much vacation time I'll use for Quetico in the future.

ST, If your looking for work, go to Yellowknife. It's a frontier town still. Everybodies left town to work in the diamond mines. 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. Plenty of time to explore. But summer's short. The rivers were dropping 2-4-6 inches a day. It was pretty tough weather in late June, highs 10 c. Barely had open water to land and start our trip. Starts getting tough again by mid-August. Funny to see it get dark at night back home. We were taking landscape pictures at 1:30 AM.

Oh, we had a bug tent. Kind of a teepee design. Solid fabric on top and bug screen on the bottom half with roll-up solid panels if it's cold/hot. One pole and lots of lines staked out. I'll post a pic later.

I'll post some more stuff, but it'll be a while.

JJS,
 I was wondering how your trip went, or if you made it back?
I knew about the work situation. Q-Dave had mentioned it too me, but family obligations prevent me leaving MI, but would jump at the chance under different circumstances.
Looking forward to pics and some kind of trip report ;)
Also gear report on your OTB boots?
I bet a back-up camera will be on your next far north excursion ;)

when i was in yellowknife last season, i asked a local about the job situation. he said "if you can get out of bed in the morning, take your pick."

with the long mild summer daylight, people don't seem to pay much attention to the time-you see whole families out walking around at 12AM.

Glad I scheduled some time for YK, but 2 days is enough time to see most of it. The local book store had a wall of nothing but arctic and canoe tripping stuff I'd not seen before.

ST, I bought a back up battery. Probably should get an extra memory card too. OTB's were perfect. Used a 2mm NRS wetsock and a NRS Hydroskin liner. There was still some ice floating down the river with us. Solid footing. Slightly tight kneeling in the bow and getting the boots under the seat. But still OK enough to feel safe if I needed to do a wet exit.

Check out outfitters; Black Feather, Wanapitei, and Nahanni River Adventures. I got a list of rivers from the other trippers I need to do. Mountain, Bonnet Plume, Nahanni, etc.

First couple days on the Baillie we were running ~25 sets a day, CII & a couple CIII. All scouted from the boats on the fly, except one CIV. You could see the river falling away. 8 kph with just the current. Decked  canoes, a couple Old Town Discos, knee pads, but no thigh straps. Decks worked great. You could pull the skirt up or down like a wind breaker as the weather changed.

JJS, Nice trip!  I paddled the Back four summers ago right in the area you were at - What a trip!  My only complaint was it was too short (10 days).  I would go back in a heart beat but finance/costs have kept me away.  How much was your float plane?  I had to get out my photo album...

About 8k for a turbo-beaver, arctic west?? airlines. We needed to stop twice coming back from Hawk Rapids to refuel. Pilot took off from YK at ~ 6 AM and we were back in YK ~ 6 PM. Pilot was cool. Picked us up below Hawk Rapids and flew low through the canyon on the way out. He was having as much fun as we were. Fuel stops are wherever they leave some 55 gal drums. Used a diamond mine for one stop.

I went with Wanapitei. I don't think these outfitters make much on these trips. $$'s add up fast.

We (6 crew/3 canoes) flew out from Yellowknife in a Twin Otter using Air Tindi, We didn't have to stop to refuel once.  They dropped us off at Jim Magrum Lake and we were picked up at Hawke Rapids.  I was surprised the Baily had so many rapids, I thought that it was much more mild than the back.  How was the fishing?  I has in absolute heaven - Big Lakers and Arctic Greyling, with that magic hour of dusk almost lasting all night.  I definitely want to go back.

I'm been trying to get some pics posted, so I'll try again.
Spent a few days in YK walking around. Lots of shacks in old town, here's a great place to eat.

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The town was getting ready for Canada Day and repainted these craved into the rock.

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Here's the view from on top of old town looking to the new town section.

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Flew out July 1. Here's our fuel stop at the end of Slave Lake, Ft. Reliance. The airlines just stash their fuel barrels where ever, using a nice beach with deep "open" water, no large rocks.

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That's a trashed plane next to the storage container.

Back in the air we begin to see the end of trees.

In the air we see Artillery Lake is still frozen up.

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Our original lake is still frozen too. So we find place to put down farther up on another tributary. It works out this was a better place to start, no portaging.

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1st camp, plane is gone, ice up-stream, good flow heading down-stream. The ground is spongy and lumpy. The frozen permafrost is holding ponds and puddles everywhere.

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1st day on the river and it's beautiful weather, probably in the 50's. Here's a lunch stop at a tributary joining us. We've already traveled threw a few rocky swifts.

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Here's another camp. You can see the circus tent we used for a dinning shelter. The bottom had netting and solid panels we could open or close. One pole and stake out the sides.

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This ice was just left sitting on rocks at the mouth of a tributary joining us.

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The river was flowing about 5 mph. You might be able to see the slight boils in the water. Always some snow in sight somewhere. We were running 20-25 sets of rapids each day. Scouting most drops from the boats by just standing up. We used two Old Town Discos, 16' and 17'. The outfitter in YK already had wind nuts on the larger one so we could remove everything to nest them together for the flight.

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We had plenty of time to hike around. The expanse of the country was hypnotic. Kind of messed with your depth perception too. We were always on the lookout for Musk Ox and would get fooled by a rock in the distance. When we got close enough we saw the rocks were usually smaller than we'd thought. We started calling them "Musk Rocks".

Here's some of the ground cover.

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Here's view from a top one of the low rises.

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One trick I picked up. Camp on gravel bars. Find the right size stones and look for a smooth vein of smaller size gravel for your tent pad.

It's less buggy and the muskeg can turn into a big wet sponge it rains any. Seemed to work pretty good.

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JJS,
That is some desolate looking country.
Beautiful in a sparse, minimalist way.
I was going to ask if you could use a Fly set-up, but I see now that you would have to bring poles for that.
Not much use for the old camp hammock up there ;)

Had a great time traveling down the Baillie. Saw two eagles the 1st couple days and we heard moose were coming into the area, neither is usually there. Climate must be changing. We were far enough north that there weren't any beavers so we dipped our mugs straight into the river to drink.

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Some of the rapids we ran.

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Always kept an eye on the weather. The storms can be violent, and there's little shelter.

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Beyond this campsite we saw signs of someone else on the river.

After lunch the next day we found 8 young guys from the twin cities going to the Back, Meadowbank, Quoich, and Baker Lake, about 30 days. Said there was a group of 5-6 girls ahead of them. I think we saw their bus come into YK while we were there. The youngs guys were traveling at night. It never really got dark.

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We'd seen 2 solo musk ox, but near the Back we found this nice big herd. I counted 15. There were some young ones, so I'm guessing that's why they herded up.

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Caught some nice Grayling. Wouldn't recommend them for eating, locally they're called white fish. The scales are larger than lake trout. Caught a nice 30" laker in the Back. Skinnier than Q trout, but more fun. It ran around the river more since there wasn't a deep spot to run to. I guessing it was fitter living in a river. Everything was barbless too.

Back River was huge, good flow but less rapids than the Baillie.

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Big country.

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Just a tad buggy at times.

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Back River Hawk rapids, awesome spot. Some great tripping guys, I gained a bunch of knowledge from each one. It'll be tough trying to top this trip next year.

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Playing around with my photo stitcher program.
Baillie River Panorama.

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Does this last panoramic photo expand when you guys/gals click on it? If it does, look for our tents along the river, near the center of the photo. If it works, it's a nice way to post a landscape. I just have to use the correct setting when I take the shot.

Must be my monitor resolution/quality?
Picture loaded okay, but looks like a water color picture, which in itself is pretty cool ;D

wrote on Sep 7^th, 2008 at 4:34pm:

Does this last panoramic photo expand when you guys/gals click on it? If it does, look for our tents along the river, near the center of the photo.

Looks fine to me.  Need to zoom up a bit to pick out the tent location.

dd