Baker Lake Vignette #219 (Paddlers)

(Originally released August 29, 2004)

Being situated in Baker Lake, the end point for many

on the many great northern rivers, has it's many

advantages.  All manor of refuse passes down these

fast moving rivers only to find their end in the

stagnant and grand body of water we call Baker Lake.

In the past it served as a sure supply of badly needed

drift wood.  As tree's are somewhat difficult to come

by around here, any piece of wood larger than a

finger's width (what you could easily find on a local

willow bush) is welcome indeed.  Mainly for it's use

in great bonfires and roasting smores I assume, but

likely also for making komatics and kayaks and even

skin tents.  Occasionally the rivers would spit out

other things like empty fuel drums, drown explorers,

and airplane wings but these type of things had

limited use.

    Now-a-days the modern bounty that the river deposits

in the eluvial vicinity is what we like to call

“paddlers”.  That is to say, people who are traveling

down the rivers, through the bug infested lands,

braving cold, rain and wind and calling it a holiday.

These people are great.  If they can put up with fifty

days on the a river then they can surely appreciate a

couple of days in Baker Lake.  This year we made a

point of meeting as many of these adventurous

travelers as possible.  You never know what

information you can glean from them or what supplies

you can barter for.  After two months on the land a

cold mug of beer is a real bargaining tool.  There is

the slight problem of ethics, however, when you

contemplate getting an entire camp of eighteen  year

old YMCA kids smashed on homebrew.  Luckily we never

did have to do this.  Typically the Y-kids have

nothing left to barter and their canoes always get

shipped back to Minnesota at the end of their trips.

    The good news is that there were plenty of other

interesting characters coming off the rivers who were

more than willing to come and visit our brew house.

The fact that we have gone through three kegs of beer

in the first three weeks since I've been back to the

north can only be attributed to the influx of paddlers

and have nothing at all to do with my own personal

habits, the last week of summer holidays, and the

stress of the first two weeks of school.  No, it's

obviously had to do, most of all, with the thirsty

paddlers who make their way down the mighty Kazan and

Thelon Rivers.  (If you are from the USA the rivers

are pronounced “Kahzohn” and “Thaylohn” which caused

me great confusion for the first five minutes of most

conversations .... “You came from where?”)  Our first

encounter with a paddler was the infamous Bob O'Hara.

He's been coming up north to paddle every year since

1969 (or “the 60's” as he likes to say).  He's been on

just about every major river you can name and quite a

few you can't.  Chad and I ran across him when we were

biking out to the paddler's campground on the edge of

town.  He greeted us with “Hey, who are you guys?  The

local police?”  Unbeknown to us, we were both sporting

green shorts and black t-shirts and  matching green

“Maynooth” ball caps.  I suppose we did look rather

intimidating on our iron ponies.

    After a lengthly conversation detailing the various

exploits of Bob, Chad introduced himself and told Bob

that he had met him years ago at Lakehead when Bob had

come to show slides and tell the same stories we just

listened too (while being eaten alive by mosquitoes).

We parted our ways after almost getting run over by a

water truck, after all we were standing in the middle

of the road all this time.  Later on we ran into Bob

again this time by the visitors centre where we were

stalking a group of 4 female canoeists from Minnesota.

We were able to introduce ourselves and give a brief

synopsis of our life stories up to now before Bob

intervened and told more of his “since the 60's”

stories.  The girls then informed him that they had to

get to the post office before it closed (it now being

10:00 am and the post office closing at 6:00 pm) so

they had to run along.  We used this opportunity to

hit up Bob for a canoe.  “Hey Bob, you should give us

a canoe.”... “I'd love to boys but I really have

nothing to spare at this time.  I could keep my eyes

open and see if anybody else coming in has anything to

spare.  Since the 60's, and the whole time I've been

coming up here, I have  been using the same canoes.

As a matter of fact they are right over there under

the Northern store.”  He then proceeded to show us his

stash of canoes under the northern store.  One of

them, a 20 foot long aluminum Grumman, he offered to

us for our personal use.  But as for selling.... well

he's been up here since the 60's and he's likely to be

doing many more trips in the future.

    A few days later, Sue, working at the community

library, met a number of other paddlers and invited

them over to visit.  The first two were  a couple of

40 something academics who also happened to be long

distance running enthusiasts.  Or freaks, as I call

them.  They both wighted about 120 pounds soaking wet

but somehow managed to paddle their canoe with two

months worth of gear all the way here from

Yellowknife.  “So, do you want to get rid of it now?”

I asked.  “Well as a mater of fact we just may.”  The

80 pound, 18 foot, Royalex,  Wenonah canoe  (which

these squirts found extreamly heavy) was actually

quite nice and after a couple rounds of beer we struck

a reasonable bargain.  They would leave it here for us

and if we got around to sending them some money in the

next couple of months that would be fine.  Good thing

I mentioned that I still have to send the money.  I

suppose even if they never do get a cheque from me

they must feel they were not too hard done by as we

did give them lots of beer, some cake, a dinner and

lots of fine conversation while they were here.

    While we were entertaining the Minnesotans, there was

a group four female paddlers trying to track down

Chad.  Seems one of them went to Lakehead with him and

knows him.  This led to another visit, another round

of beers, and showers for everyone (50 days on the

river without a shower is quite impressive).  “Hey,

got any canoes you want to get rid of?”  ... “No but

we do have a lot of gear from MEC that we have to

donate to a worthy cause.”  ... “Tell you what, why

don't you stay for dinner and we'll talk a little

further on the “worthy cause” thing.”  After some

exaggeration about the outdoor education part of our

school's program we were able to score $500 worth of

stuff suitable for remote river trips..... for the

school of course.  Chad went even further, by taking

advantage of these young woman's good nature and

having them teach all of his class for the next week.

Ok, we maybe not exactly, but it did seem that there

were more paddlers in his classroom at any onetime

than there was down at the campground.  I'm not sure

exactly what they did but I know there was a lot of

paint involved, most of which is still smeared around

the room in unlikely places such as computer monitors,

desks and the ceiling.

    Among the numerous guest speakers were a couple of

German Guys who just came in after about 3 months on

the land.  Even though they seemed real nice, laid

back and actually had a sense of humour I knew it

would be of no use asking if they had a canoe to sell.

I mean, they were German's afterall, more frugal than

philanthropic I assumed.  But still, it would be fun

to invite them to the house.  This was Sue's doing as

she was the first to make contact with them when they

made their way to the public library.  By this time

our house (may I remind you that Chad, Tanya, Sue and

I all live together with 4 dogs in small one bedroom

apartment) was looking more like a drop in center.  To

be equitable we told Tanya that she could be the next

to invite over guests.  Preferable in the distant

future.  Chad had already invited the 4 women over for

Poutine and beer (what else would you want after a 2

month canoe trip?) so how could you not have the

Germans over if they were all at the campground

together.  (the Minnesotans has already left by then.)

    Poutine and Beer!  What were we thinking.  First off

one of the women coming over was actually a real

French Canadian and secondly the Germans we coming and

they were going to drink our beer!  Then a crisis

erupted.  One of our kegs went empty (Damn American

lushes) and we had to switch to a green, partially

carbonated keg.  What will the German's say!  And the

poutine!  How can we really call it poutine when the

fries are frozen and the “curds” are actually bit's

cheese broken apart by hand to look like curd.  We did

manage to pull it off though somehow.  Our saving

grace was that we actually had real St. Hubert's

“poutine sauce” and if that wasn't enough to give

authenticity to our meal I don't know what could.  One

could forgive the frozen fries (McCain of course) but

if you just put any gravy on the fries then you really

run the risk or serving a total sham.  The beer worked

ok too.  The Germans said it tasted good.  Of course a

mug of partially fermented urine mixed with molasses

would probably taste good too if you hadn't had a beer

in three months.

    Most impressive of all was the fact that I was able

to cook 10 servings of poutine almost at the same time

for a hungry and undiscerning crowd of paddlers.  More

drinking and fine conversation ensued before the

evening began to tapper off and people started to

leave.  One of the first to go was Chad himself.  With

his guests, half-full mugs of beer in hand, still

whooping it up in the living room, he made is

apologies and bid them a good night as he made his

departure for the other end of the living room and

safe haven behind a loosely strung Hudson's Bay

blanket where he and Tanya keep their bed.  Some of

the guests looked about oddly confused.  “He's not

going far, he's just on the other side of the blanket”

I said, “that's his room.”  .... “Oh, well maybe we

should be off.”  You could sense that these paddlers

(who didn't have to teach school the next day) were

hesitant to leave a warm, dry house that was serving

beer to go to a cold wet tent that was a 3 km walk

away.  “That's alright, you could probably still talk

to him, he can't get away.”

    Our guests did finally leave after a few more drinks

and our house returned to a relative state of

normalcy.  It was great meeting all these paddlers and

we assume it won't be the last time either.  Seems

once you come north to paddle, you get hooked and keep

on coming back.  Look at Bob O'Hara; been coming here

since the 60's.  Eventually Chad did get a canoe out

of Bob.  He showed up one day and told him there as a

nice 16 footer with a hole in it up for grabs.  What

more could you want.  Hopefully we will see more of

these folks in the future when we are better able to

accommodate visitors.  Say like when we have a real

house or something.  Until then there is always room

around the table for one more stinky, dirty outdoor

enthusiast.