O Canada, Take Four!

Tomorrow I leave for Canada for what HAS to be the final leg of my Hudson Bay journey. I am all packed and raring to go. Deb lll and I have gotten together a couple times to get to know each other and practice canoeing a bit. It will be very strange not to be paddling with Deb l and Deb ll. They have been my constant boating companions for the last 22 years.  I just hope that I can adjust to the changes that come with 1) having different people in my canoe; 2) having a different canoe; and 3) not being in charge. But the landscape will still be the gorgeous Manitoba north, the river will still be the beautiful Hayes, and the goal will still be the same: to get to Hudson Bay.

Before our canoe trip begins, Deb lll and I will take a teaser train expedition to Churchill to see the sights there, including polar bears and beluga whales. Then we will meet the other six people in our group in Thompson, Manitoba. From there we will fly to Knee Lake where we will begin paddling. This will be a guided trip, so the calamities that befell us last year should be non-existent.

At the moment there are 121 uncontained wildfires in Manitoba, at least one of them near Thompson. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the fires and the smoke do not interfere with our travel plans. One unforeseen issue that has affected our schedule is the extremely low water levels in that section of the country. The mighty Nelson River is by necessity being pooled up behind the hydroelectric dams in order to create enough flow to turn the turbines fast enough to create power. This has reduced the river flow more than expected, especially on the days they shut the gates at the dams. Because of that, we are not able to get picked up in York Factory on Hudson Bay on the scheduled day. There will simply not be enough water in the river to get through. This has shortened our trip by one day, meaning that we will not be starting at Oxford House, which was the original plan. Why is this important? It’s only important to me, and is only important because I wanted to paddle every mile of the Hudson Bay watershed, beginning in South Dakota. The rearranging of our trip will mean that I will be missing an approximately 20-mile section of that planned route. Can I do it later? No. It is in the middle of nowhere, and inaccessible unless I do the whole thing again. C’est la vie. Everyone has unexpected issues and unforeseen problems. This is only one of many. Even Eric Sevareid hitched a ride on a commercial boat up Lake Winnipeg. We didn’t stoop to THAT wimpiness!

Stay tuned for the exciting end to this saga. (Coming to you in about 3 weeks–this year we don’t have a bouncing ball for you to follow our progress.)