Churchill River (part 1)

By paddle: 73km; By air: 68.5km.

For tourists like us, Churchill is synonymous with polar bears, tundra, windswept winter wastelands and a toady, cigar-sucking, aristocratic prime minister. Back in Britain, when someone made the mistake of asking our proposed route, they would nod knowingly at Montréal; their enthusiasm would wane by the Mattawa, perking up slightly at the mention of Lake Superior and then vanish at about Quetico. They offered no further sign of life except a brief flirtation with genuine interest at the mention of the Churchill River ("Oh really?"). Words like Athabasca, Peace and Fraser have no meaning for them, so they were more relieved to arrive in Vancouver than we will be. Ascending the Frog Portage (yes, it's uphill from the Sturgeon-Weir River to the Churchill—we'd expected that it would be a shallow descent into the larger river valley) the mighty waterway appears over the brow of the gentle hill as a tranquil, reflecting lake. In this ordered wilderness, former nine-to-five-thirty working incarnations (the network has gone down again; how do you prevent shared library name conflicts?) seem a long way behind.

The Churchill River offers yet another manifestation of the Canadian Shield—familiar rounded rock-slab banks bound large lakes that chain together to form a river. Between each lake a determined current tumbles over rapids or small falls. But this river seems much bigger than the previous, intimate watery trails you've followed through the shield—only the upper reaches of the Winnipeg River compare in scale.

Though we had intended to battle as far into October as we could, perhaps reaching Île-à-La-Crosse, La Loche, or given freakily warm weather, Fort McMurray, a succession of wet, breezy days and chilly nights that followed us through September and onto the Churchill (with its promise of exposed lakes, wading and portaging ahead) convinced us that we should soon stop for this season. It doesn't take much wind to make canoeing significantly more tiring. Besides, we're over halfway. When we arrived at "Jim's Camp" on Nistowiak Lake for a celebratory anniversary night in a warm, dry cabin (it's a miracle we're still married at all!) we had decided to end for the winter when we reached Missinipe, near Otter Rapids, and then return by car to The Pas (since it was the last largish town on the route.)

At the camp were two fellows from Moosejaw, staying there for a fall fishing trip. Because fishing on the Churchill is so reliable and easy (you don't wait to catch one, you wait to catch a bigger one) they spent more time lightly frying pickerel and northern pike in flour to eat with their home-grown cherry tomatoes, potatoes and onions to produce delicious gourmet meals (to our porridge and rice attuned palates) than they spent fishing. All they missed was the company of their wives who refused to "rough it" with them. Obviously, what constitutes home comfort is relative. Gord and Jim expounded the merits of La Ronge as a possible wintering location: lots of facilities, friendly people, a daily bus down south and Robertson's Trading Post—a real, live fur trading post which apparently sells everything and more. As we canoed onwards, we thought about how we could transport the boat and gear to La Ronge—it wasn't until we reached Stanley Mission that it occurred to us that we could paddle there.

Our Itinerary