River

It is one of the advantages of living where we do: the opportunity to spend a few days paddling or floating down a river, encountering hardly anybody, sometimes even nobody at all.

We’ve been doing this for many years with a group of family and friends, its composition shifting a little from year to year, often including visitors from Germany. We started taking the children along as soon as they were deemed able to understand that they had to stay seated in the boat, which was around age two. During those years, the stretch of the Red Deer River between Trochu and Drumheller was often our chosen destination. It is neither very fast nor very deep, and warm enough to make swimming enjoyable. An added bonus was the interesting landscape: if canoeing became too boring one could always get out and look for fossils or scramble up the hills of the badlands along the way. 

Lately, we have often canoed various stretches of the Athabasca, which is a lot closer and provides more of a wilderness experience. This year, however, we decided on the North Saskatchewan River west of Edmonton. 

We would be a group of seventeen, with eight canoes, which requires a bit of planning, of course. Magnus was in charge of logistics, who was to bring what: we didn’t want to run out of anything, after all - not that we have ever come close to that. Usually we have the opposite problem. He did an excellent job, and we all arrive well prepared at our point of entry. One vehicle has been left at the Genesee Bridge where we’ll get out, so that we have a means of getting the rest of the cars once we arrive. 

Our gathering place, the Willey West campground not far from Drayton Valley is fairly busy on this last day of the August long weekend, but soon after we push off around two-thirty p.m. the noise fades away. A bit of shifting to get into the right position for paddling, a few tentative strokes to shake out the cobwebs – we haven’t done this for a year, after all – and we are on our way. The river is fairly high, the current fast after weeks of rain, but the North Saskatchewan is a fairly easy river to paddle here, and we all feel comfortable. 

 

There are 89 km of river ahead of us, and we want to be home Wednesday night – that’s all the planning we need to do. We’ll spend the nights where we find a place that appeals to us, and we will not have to be in a hurry, likely will not even have to paddle very much to arrive in time. 

Not long, and the lazy mood of the hot summer afternoon takes a hold of us. We drift in small groups of two or three canoes, carried by the current, sometimes turned around so that we float backward. The water sparkles in the sun, barely even ripples, the gurgle hardly more than a whisper, almost singing us to sleep. One or the other of us keeps an eye open for unexpected obstacles: log jams along the side, or maybe even a drifting log – very rare, thankfully. Gravel banks stretching out from the tips of islands or from the banks are a potential hazard, too: they often extend under water, and when it gets too shallow canoes have been known to tip. We have stuffed our belongings in plastic garbage bags so that they keep dry, but nobody is keen on having to chase for them in the river. 

Even though we know that we are not really in the wilderness we feel far removed from ordinary life.  Sandstone cliffs with columns like organ pipes line the river bank, giving way to mixed forest of poplar, birch, and spruce, and sometimes we pass a pasture or a hay field, though we see cows only once. Rarely the roof of a cottage appears between the trees, or a fancier house towers high up on a hillside, presumably with a wonderful view of the river. The small group of canoes setting out around the same time we did doesn’t appear again, and once we pass a raft pulled up on the bank. After that, we don’t encounter anybody. 

After a couple of hours we stop for a break to stretch our legs. Tracks of a mama and baby deer are outlined clearly in the wet sand; maybe they wandered by during the night. The beach is full of beautifully coloured and patterned rocks, and there is a good supply of perfect flat skipping rocks to have a friendly competition. I remember my dad teaching my brothers and me the proper technique during a visit to the Edersee, not far from where I grew up: like whistling, making that special plaintive sound with a blade of grass, riding a bike or swimming it is something one doesn’t ever forget once it’s learned. Small purple asters, goldenrod and low willow grow in abundance. Abundant as well are the mosquitoes as soon as one leaves the rocky, sandy beach and enters the shrubby area further away from the water. On the river we are not bothered by them at all.

Around five p.m. we start looking for a suitable campsite. The North Saskatchewan has no shortage of islands, but tonight we choose the right river bank. Ideally, the perfect campground has enough flat, smooth area to accommodate our eight tents, a sandy area, preferably with a few big logs to sit on where we can build a fire, and enough driftwood to keep the fire going into the night. We are lucky: we find a spot that combines all of those ingredients, and soon tents are set up, and the fire is being built.  

For a while already dark clouds have gathered all around, and by now it looks quite threatening: this morning before we left we checked the weather forecast, and thunderstorms are a distinct possibility. It’s reassuring to have the tents set up and our stuff hidden inside, away from possible rain. The canoes are pulled up higher on the bank in case the river rises overnight – last year a six pack of beer was lost that way – and turned over. 

Once all those precautions are taken we can turn to the preparation of our sumptuous meal. The fire, lit as soon as we had landed, is burning brightly: we need a sufficient amount of embers to cook potatoes and vegetables, meat and the three whitefish caught along the way. Bread and salad round out the feast, with cookies and fruit for dessert. 

The weather, however, does not yet allow us to become complacent: the wind has picked up, and it is rumbling in the distance. Will we get wet after all? Slender driftwood trunks are rammed into the loose sand, and with tarps and string and many helping hands a shelter is erected. Now we can relax! 

The wind is unrelenting for the first part of the evening, and clouds keep shifting, sometimes revealing a golden window for the setting sun to peek through. Later, a few stars appear between the ragged, drifting sheets of grey: the storm has passed us by without doing any damage.

When I wake up around seven the next morning the fire has been revived already, and the water in the blackened pot is almost at a boil for the first coffee or tea. Our most avid angler has been fishing a bit upstream since daybreak, and has threaded a couple of fish on a pliable willow twig to be fried later. Breakfast, like supper, is an elaborate, unhurried affair, with porridge, bacon and eggs, bread, jam and cheese. Tents are zipped open, and one after the other appears, stretching, rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

By the time we have packed everything up, made sure that the fire is extinguished completely and dragged the canoes to the water’s edge it is about 10:30.  

The second day passes much like the first, often just floating, with a few stops for swimming and stretching. Small tributaries along the way have added their water to that of the North Saskatchewan, and by now it is quite a majestic stream. We pass a few gravel pits and sometimes can see part of one of the big excavators from the coal mines that belong to the Genesee Power Project. Mostly, however, civilization is out of sight and thus out of mind.

Finding a suitable camping spot takes a bit longer the second night, but eventually we find a place we are happy with. Again, we sit around the blazing fire until late into the night, ignoring as best we can the whine of the hordes of mosquitoes. As soon as the breeze dies down around sunset they attack in full force. 

The night sky is beautiful, ablaze with stars, the four wheels and drawbar of the Big Dipper high above, Cassiopeia’s long “W” stretched out in the eastern sky. Every once in awhile we get a preview of the Perseid meteor shower yet to come on the 11^th, a streak of light burning across the sky for a moment. Coyotes howl in the distance, the river murmurs quietly nearby. One more night, one more day, then it is over for yet another year. How would it be to just keep going, having not a care in the world, living the life of a Huck Finn? 

It wouldn’t be the same, of course, if it lasted forever. Most of us are not made for that kind of life, and soon enough we’ll return to our comfortable homes, our busier lives, happy to once again enjoy the luxury of a shower. Yet, a slight longing remains, and it is not without regret that we see the Genesee Bridge appear behind a bend in the river on Wednesday afternoon. 

It could last just a little bit longer ...