We took off from Fort Smith
Loading up
Approaching our first night's lodging
Pilots gassing up for their return trip
View of the campsite from atop the esker
The journey begins
Caribou not sure whether to stay or flee
Moose tracks
Night 2 - on the way to Lake Howard
Day 3 - paddling hard against the wind
Arctic Tern diving for food
Night 3 - A beautiful campsite on an esker with few bugs
Crowberries
Cranberries
A lonely walker - Jim
You can see for miles
At 3:30 a.m. the full moon was setting in the pink sky of the rising sun
Someone managed to sleep
Cloudberries - They looked like yellow raspberries and had a soft, slightly tart taste
After a long hard paddle - the Prairie boys
Ancient teepee poles
Heading towards an esker
Tracks everywhere but not a muskox in sight and we never did see one
Bearberries - not quite ripe
Dressed in our best dinner apparel
It's also the land of the big sky
Day 5 - On the Thelon River - 1st portage - Jim hefty 80 lb canoe
The rapids around which we portaged
Perfect calm waters - temperatures ranged in the high 20's
Lunch on an esker
Second portage of the day with female and male pack animals
Walking canoes
Night 5 - Enjoying my scotch for once outside the tent - usually the bugs forced us to retreat to our tent
Night 5 - we really got to love that tent
The setting sun - 10:00 pm
Bugs!!!
Day 7 - Male paddler with female pack animal - 4th portage
Wimbrel
Running a riffle on the Thelon
Night 7 - the Thelon River was for the most part quite shallow
Guess who?!!
Now what are those little red spots
Day 8 - Last portage, thank god. This one around a falls
The end of the falls & rapids
They looked wicked
A peregrine falcon quite upset by my presence - I think there was a nest in the near-by cliff
Jim navigating the steep downward slope
At the very end the put in - this was a long gruelling portage
Night 8 & 9 - relaxing after a tough day
You may think those trees are tall, but they were less than 10 feet high
As you can see
Ancient stone arrow head
Morning rain shower
We saw many spectacular rainbows on this one showery day, whose cold brisk wind reminded us that we were indeed in the sub-arctic
Guess who - a couple of survivors...
And the planes arrived
Woops, didn't know he was there
Successful landing
First the canoes, then the gear
And finally the people
The first plane takes off
Canoes were firmly lashed - I hoped
Watching the land below
One of several large forest fires we flew past
The end of the trip
Wood Buffalo National Park - Those bison aren't exactly small
Another big bruiser
Fort Smith - White Pelicans at the Rapids of the Drowned on the Slave River - they nest here every summer
Looks easy
View towards downtown Yellowknife from the Pilot Monument
View of Great Slave Lake
The famous Wildcat Cafe, where we had a scrumptious meal.
