Discovering Eden: A Lifetime of Paddling the Arctic Rivers - Softcover

Hall, Alex

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552632210 ISBN 13: 9781552632215

Publisher: Key Porter Books, 2003

Synopsis

West of Hudson Bay in Canada’s Arctic, an enormous triangle of tundra, twice the size of Alberta or Texas, sweeps north to the polar sea and forms the largest single wilderness left on the continent. Although the word "tundra" may conjure up an image of a desolate, treeless plain, the mainland portion of the Canadian Arctic is far from featurless and vibrant with life. The area is home to millions of geese and other birds, and is the haunt of some of the world’s last, great, migratory herds of large herbivores and the predators that follow them. It is also an area where great pristine rivers cut through ranges of rugged hills strewn with boulders and serpentine, sandy eskers course over the landscape.

Discovering Eden explores this unspoiled, perfect, natural world, revealing a place that still exists far beyond the modern world’s concrete jungles and polluted air. The book explores the lure of the Barren Lands and why it is , for the author, a personal Eden. The book is also filled with adventures- a personal, inner one for the author, and the thrill of canoeing this untouched wilderness for those who travel with him.

About this title

About the Author

Alex Hall lives in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, where he operates Canoe Arctic Inc. conducting wilderness Canoeing expeditions. He is deeply concerned about the recent changes taking place in the arctic Barren Lands where Industrial development threatens vast areas of wilderness. While there is still time, aboriginal communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are working together with the support of World Wildlife Fund Canada to protect substantial areas of tundra in their pristine, natural state for future generations.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Big Wind In the North, there are strong summer winds; we never experience tornadoes, but small cyclones or whirlwinds are not uncommon. I've seen corridors through the bush where one of these wind funnels has flattened a swath of trees, and once when I was on a solo canoe trip a whirlwind ripped across a small lake in from of me, raising a frightening waterspout at least fifty feet high. A few years ago I got some idea of what it might be like if one of those whirlwinds actually struck you out on the water.

We had just made our final camp on the Thelon River. Our float planes were due to pick us up the next morning. It was thunderstorm weather: a hot, still afternoon with big dark clouds some distance away, but moving steadily in on us. Just before the wind whipped up, there was an unusual straight line in those clouds. If I ever see a line like that again, I'll recognize it for what it is - big trouble.

I don't know if the wind that slammed us that afternoon was a whirlwind or a wind shear, but whatever it was, it was by far the most violent wind I have ever experienced. It only lasted a few minutes, but it tore our camp apart.

It had been a quiet afternoon up to that point. We had over-turned but not tied down, our five canoes on a rock beach about thirty yards from the edge of the river. The beach ran along beside the river for about a quarter of a mile and ended on a sharp bend. My own canoe is twenty feet long and weighs 110 pounds. Nonetheless, the wind picked up all of those canoes like bits of paper and flew them down the full length of the rock beach, with only one or two touchdowns, before tossing them into the river.

The Thelon is fast at that point and, luckily for us, the canoes all rolled over in the river with the wind and filled up with water. We found them another half mile downstream, washed up against an outside bend on our side of the river.

It pays to have the best equipment! That tumble down the rock beach would have broken lesser canoes, but mine are constructed of Royalex, the toughest and most flexible material on today's market. Apart from a few scrapes and two broken bolts on one thwart, there was no significant damage except to my twenty-footer, which suffered a small hole. All we had to do was empty them out and portage them back into camp. It only took minutes to make a permanent repair on the twenty-footer and it was none the worse for wear.

Edition details

• Publisher: Key Porter Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1552632210
• ISBN 13: 9781552632215
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224