We may earn commissions if you shop through the links below. Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address Subscribe First marking on map: Start Saturday, June 01, 2002, 1000h. Elevation 1424 m, location N 51 degrees 59.023 minutes H 116 degrees 47.799 minutes. Join REI and Earn $30 towards your next gear purchase. I am taking this reading just before I launch myself onto another page of my own history. I am excited, thrilled and nervous. I feel like a voyageur keeping careful track of an adventure into the exciting unknown. At 41 years of age, standing 5′ 10″ and very fit despite neck and back injuries from a car accident, this will be the first time I have ever gone off anywhere alone and for so long. This is supposed to be three weeks of external exploration and inner personal discovery while sea kayaking the length of the North Saskatchewan River. My campsites will be wherever I find myself one hour before sunset. The weather is fine at 10 C, cloudy skies but otherwise dry and clear. I scouted out an alternative put-in point Friday, May 31 shortly after arriving at The Crossing Resort. The alternate put-in point is about 2-3 kilometers north of the Glacier Lake hiking trail, which is one km north of The Crossing Resort and about five kilometers upstream of the put-in location I had originally chose using a map. Access to the river is a gravel road about one hundred meters in length from the highway. A hanging steel cable off blocks the access road to prevent people from driving right up to the river. The open area right beside the river is sheltered by tall evergreens that create a darkness that generates a sense of foreboding whenever I look deep into their midst. That feeling arises from the fact that there have been many bear sightings since arriving, both black and grizzly. I am not worried though, the river moves so swiftly that I will move quickly past any bears I see. I packed my gear into the kayak to keep an equal weight distribution from bow to stern. I pack and unpack my gear a couple of times as I remember things I need to do but forgot because of the excitement I feel. Once everything was packed and safety equipment in place, I prepare to launch. My wife, Judy and her brother Jerry, are there to see me off and photograph the event. The kayak is very heavy so Jerry helps me lower it down the three-foot embankment into the water. I eased the bow onto a submerged log and let the stern rest on the thin shelf of mud at the bottom of the embankment. This arrangement helps to create a perfect berth for the kayak despite the fast flow of the river current. After carefully boarding the kayak and tying the spray skirt in place, I used stomach wrenching rocking motions to launch the kayak into the water. The heavy kayak slowly slipped into the current, which immediately wrenched me downstream into the center of the river. I twisted my torso and craned my neck to look back at Judy and Jerry. They were quickly shrinking in size as the river hastily put distance between them and me. I waved back at them, showing them the biggest grin I’ve had in years. They were now going to speed off to the bridge that crosses the river on Highway 93 to watch me pass under it on the way to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. They were there to spot me and make sure I got to the original put-in without incident. That was where I would end this first leg of two or three on my quest to paddle all the way to Hudson Bay. This is exciting! This is living! Woo Hoo! As I sped along my river route I saw the high mountains that were brilliantly covered with last winters snows, while the alpine forest was bursting with the new color of greening sprigs of new growth. The mountain air is fresh, filled of the scents of freshly flowing evergreen resin and the sap of poplars and brush. There are birds flying from tree to tree. On the drive in I saw elk, mountain goats and countless deer. I know there are four black bears in the immediate area as reported by a man who saw them just last night. I also know there are three grizzlies within a few kilometers at Thompson’s Creek: a mother and two cubs, I took their picture. I am surrounded by life taken from the sparse offerings of mountain terrain. I feel so free and alive, much more so that I have in the many years of living in the center of the now sprawling city of Edmonton. I soon had to turn my attention to navigation. The river current was fast and increasingly required all of my attention to scan ahead for boulders above and below the water surface. As I passed around the first curve I saw white water in the center of the current flow. I paddled hard left to avoid submerged boulders. As I watched the boulders go by I immediately had to paddle hard right so that I could pass through small standing waves. I whupped up a loud yahoo and smiled to myself thinking how wonderful it was to be able to go where few people are willing to risk. It was then that I felt a whump under the kayak as it slid over a rock. I laughed aloud, thinking that you can pass some but you can’t always get around the others. As with life, bumps are impossible to avoid. I wasn’t worried about the structural integrity of the kayak; the bottom has graphite powder mixed into the epoxy so she can take quite a scraping without serious damage. At this point the gravelly plain that was on the right side of the river when I started the trip gave way to heavy moss-carpeted forest. The shore was now composed of more solid but level rock. The second curve in the river offered me a choice of channels. The right channel was a wide sweep of shallow water with visible gravel, so I took the left. The river was doglegging to the right and the current was flowing very hard and fast against the bank, now a low rock wall. I paddled with a combination of forward left strokes and right braces to steer for the center. I relaxed once I was clear of the curve and watched ahead to scout out my next path. Ahead was a short straight choppy run that ended with a slight curve to the left. I ran through several very cold two-foot standing waves and got a good soaking. The waves left me breathing hard and fast from the sudden shock of cold on my chest. The heavy-laden kayak flew steady and true through the waves, making them all the more fun to cut through. This was some of the excitement I had hoped for. More big smiles! I stayed in the center of the current and concentrated on scouting for more submerged boulders and whitewater. At this point I was not very focused on how the terrain was changing. The initial excitement of kayaking in the mountains was still too fresh on my mind for me to think I could be entering difficulty so early in the journey. I breathed the pure, cool and crisp air that stirred so refreshingly above the swirling water. The graveled banks were giving way to stony banks that became low rock walls that were growing rapidly in height. I barely noticed that I was entering a gorge! Apparently there was a neon orange sign attached to a post somewhere ashore at this point. It warns paddlers to stop, get out and portage to the other end of the gorge. I did not see this warning sign. Not only was this sign small but installed at the point of no return and at a section of the river where there are three very large standing waves. I saw the waves before I saw the sign so I never saw the sign. It was at this point that my misadventure began. The rock walls had risen to as high as a three-story building immediately after the sign. Within seconds of rounding the corner that occurs just past the sign, I began to hear the echoing sounds of thunderous water flow. I had no concerns about submerged boulders at this point because the water flow become very deep and turbulent with those standing waves I mentioned. They were about three feet high but navigable. I couldn’t paddle around the waves; the current was picking up speed. The troubled waves wash over the deck, slapped my chest and washed over my face as I rammed through them. They quickly became the least of my worries. I sensed that the water flow was accelerating faster. I am now very concerned and instinctively began to back paddle with uncertainty clouding my thoughts. I stopped smiling. The skin-numbing water of the glacier-fed river was dripping off of my face as I peered through my water-smeared glasses, my vision distorted by the rivulets of water streaming down the lenses from the splashing of the waves. I arched my neck to see ahead but saw only more uncertainty. I could see the surface of the river but something was missing past a certain point. The water is flowing so very fast that I have little time to entertain any cohesive thoughts about what is happening. I am now thinking instinctively; my thoughts guided by the previous experience of a landlubber. It is with grim realization followed by brief but intense panic that I realize why I am feeling so much uncertainty. The damn river has disappeared ahead. I can’t see past that certain point because it just isn’t there. My ears suddenly focus on a roaring thunder that I have heard many times before from the safety of the catwalks at both Johnston’s Canyon and Athabasca Falls. Falls! Oh, shit, there are falls ahead! Oh my God! Falls! With heavy panic set in, I frantically back paddled with ineffectual strokes. The current had a magnetic hold on me that I just could not overcome. This cannot be real, it isn’t happening to me. I’ve lived a tepid life so far with not a lot of danger involved. Nothing happens like this to Canadians like me; this happens only to other people, adventure seekers. God, I feel stupid, embarrassed and more afraid than I have ever been because I have time to let uncertainties and imagined fates whip my fears to their worst conclusion. I forced myself to switch mental gears as I see the top of the fall. I know panic will do me no good, that it will probably kill me. If I want to have a chance at survival I have to take on the fall as if I meant to run it in the first place. I swore to the gods through grit teeth that come life or death I would fight all the way through this peril. I was not betting on life at this point. I felt as if I had stupidly surrendered all control of my life unto the rush of freezing water and uncaring rocks ahead. What the hell am I here for? Why didn’t I scout out this part of the river better? I didn’t want this! The uplifted rocky outcropping that divides the river in the center appears ahead and I am barreling straight towards. High rock walls on both sides, which rose at least three stories each, guarded this section of the river. I could see two seething foam edged chutes just twenty or...