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We left work at noon to drive from Saskatoon to the Johnson River in northern Saskatchewan. Every summer a group of us from work went on a canoe trip in northern Saskatchewan and each summer the trip got a little tougher. We had started with lake trips only a few days long, then we ran some easy rapids, then more rapids, then the upper Clearwater and, on this trip, the Geike. Everyone on the trip wrote software at SED Systems. My wife thought it was pretty funny that 6 software nerds were going to run the Geike (pronounced geek-ie). Going on the trip were 6 people and 3 canoes. Mike and myself, Brent, in my old 17 1/2 foot aluminum Grumman, which didn't have more than a couple inches on it that weren't dented. Every spring I pounded the dents out and away it went. I bought the canoe used in 1989, 6 years before this trip, for $750, which was about half the price of a new one. The guy I bought it from said he figured it was half worn out so it was worth half price. If it was half worn out then, its was about 300% worn out before the trip. When Mike went on a trip, I usually paddled with him. I'm not sure why; maybe it was because he would put up with me yelling at him. Because it was my canoe, I always went in the stern through rapids. Rapids got me pretty excited and when my bowman didn't do what I wanted, I got even a more excited. Sometimes I quietly spoke a few words to him or her. Rick and Alan were in Rick's roylex Mad River Explorer. Rick bought the canoe used a year before the trip and was pretty happy with it. The Explorer was a leap forward in canoe technology for Rick; before it he used an old wood canvas canoe. Rick's old canoe was definitely a conversation piece. When someone else with a wood canvas canoe saw Rick's old canoe, their mouths would drop open. Most people treated wood canvas canoes like collectors items and took very good care of them. Not Rick. The wood was rotting and many of the ribs were broken. Rick had patched the wood with fibre glass but on every trip a few more ribs were broken. The wood was in good shape compared to the canvas. The canvas was rotting and pulling away from the gunnels. He also tried to patch the canvas with fibre glass, but it would just peel off. During trips the old canoe would leak steady; Rick needed a baler for calm, lake paddles. The wood would get water logged and the canoe went from around 70 lbs to over 100. Rick would try to stop the leaks with duct tape; sometimes there was more grey on the bottom of the canoe than red. Its amazing that the canoe survived as many trips as it did. Warren and Tim were in Warren's roylex Mad River Explorer. Warren had the canoe for about 7 years before the trip and it was still in very good shape. He had glued on kevlar scrape pads on the front and back keel. These were a great idea; he had almost destroyed the front one running into a rock at high speed. He had also glued in thigh straps to use when he paddled solo. Of the 3 sets of partners, Mike and I were the worst at running rapids. Having an aluminum canoe didn't help; the damn thing stuck to rocks. I don't know how many times I hit a rock just under the surface, got spun around and went down the rapid backwards. One advantage of the Grumman was its stability. When I stuck on a rock in a rapid, I didn't panic. I just got out and pushed it off. The real problem with our rapid running was I had quite a bit of problem reading the river and our technique wasn't that great. Basically I was, and continue to be, pretty much a klutz. Warren was the best at running rapids and that was why Tim was in his canoe. Warren was an Olympic gymnast in 1984 and he was still in great shape. He was very good at reading the river and in maneuvering the canoe. He was the only one with experience running white water in a kayak. On the other hand, Tim really was more interested in fishing than canoeing and had very little interest in white water. To get Tim to come along we had to promise him that there would be some really good fishing. We really didn't expect the fishing to be all that great but we wanted Tim to come. Rick and Alan made a pretty good team, with Rick in the stern. Rick was pretty good at reading the rapids and Alan had great technique. Alan had trouble in the back though, because he really had problems reading the rapids. Given all the trips we had taken before, we were pretty careful about what gear we took. Everyone had a waterproof backpack for their sleeping bag and clothes. Each canoe had a second water proof backpack for tents, sleeping pad, etc. We had a nylon pack for the cooking stuff, one medium nylon packs for food, one bear chewed water proof backpack for food and a big, canvas pack for the most of the food. We used garbage bags in the food packs to make then water proof. Each canoe also had a small day pack. This adds up to 3 packs + day pack in each of the Explorers and 4 packs + day pack in my canoe; on all our trips I always carried one more pack than everyone else. The Explorers could fit 2 packs in front of the center thwart and one behind, turned sideways. The Grumman could fit 2 behind and 2 in front of the thwart. Having the extra pack was good for one thing: excuses. We used that pack to explain why we were paddling slower and why we couldn't make that turn in the rapids. We were all pretty excited about the trip. Rick, Warren and I had been planning it for several months. The Geike is a standard canoe route (see the trip guide), but we didn't intend on doing it the normal way. The standard route is a fly in trip and we (really just Rick and I) were way too cheap. It would be over $500 per person to fly in. Instead we looked at the maps and decided that we could go up the Johnson River, which runs parallel to the Geike, cross a height of land, go through some small lakes and get onto the Geike (Here is a link to our trip map). To haul the canoes, gear and people we had two vehicles: my old Dodge K-car and Tim's elderly Ford Bronco. My K-car was the designated canoe car. It had 200,000 km on it and the year before had been trashed when left just off the road near the Haultain River. Someone had smashed in a side window, cut up the front seat and slashed two tires. We got the tires repaired, put a seat cover on the front seat and bought a used side window, all for just over $100. The tires were still on the car for this trip - on the back mind you (my father taught me to always put your good tires on the front in case of a blow out). We put my canoe on the K-car. The Bronco pulled Mike's old trailer with the other canoes and most of the gear. The drive to the Johnson River was a long one and mostly on gravel roads that were are in tough shape because of all the trucks going back and forth to the mines. The summer of 1995 was pretty dry and we saw a few forest fires on the way. The smoke in the picture below was from a forest fire just north of LaRonge.
At Brabant Lake, the smoke was so bad that they were only letting traffic go one way at a time. We had to wait for traffic coming the other way and then we followed a lead vehicle. It took us about an hour to get through about 30 km. We arrived at the Johnson River about midnight and camped at Courtney Lake government camp ground a few km north of where the river crossed the road. The camp ground was very sandy; not rocky as it was a few 100 km south. The picture below was taken the next morning.
On checking our packs, we found some of the water proof backs had holes in them. They had bounced around in the trailer and hit some bolts near the top of the trailer. We had put tarps under the bags to keep them from rubbing against the wood, but hadn't protected them from attacks from above. |
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Mail me! Warren Long |