Life on the barrens
Paddling and living on the Canadian tundra
Andrew Lodge Volunteer Staff
“Cursed wind.” I looked over at my friend who had just uttered the words. It’s true, the wind does at times seem like a curse here. When it blows, it blows hard and seems like it will never stop.
I am speaking of the Canadian Arctic, the massive expanse of land above the northern tree line known as the barrens or the tundra. I have been travelling in the region for the past six summers, and have come to love the land. When I am on the land, the sensation is impossible to describe. Northern travellers use a host of superlatives to describe the North, words like “raw,” “untamed,” “boundless” and so on. While the place does lend itself to that kind of descriptive licence, I find it easier just to explain what it’s like to exist up here for a time.
Travelling by canoe
When my friends and I travel, we get around by canoe. We are gone for anywhere from 35 to 60 days, but it doesn’t seem that long, especially in recent years. That is probably because we have gotten more comfortable moving around — it’s no longer a “man-against-nature” experience.
There is a bit of a trick to travelling on the barrens. The Inuit — the original inhabitants of this place — understand this well, as one would imagine. If there were a single defining personality feature that underscores this, it would have to be patience.
On the barrens, you absolutely need to be untiring. The conditions dictate your schedule and your actions, not vice-versa. The wind can prevent movement for weeks, it can be very cold even in summer and the lakes still have ice on them in July. Failure to understand the importance of patience can lead to an unpleasant time, or worse.
Living on the land
It’s strange — each year that I come up here with my friends we bring less food but end up eating more. That is because the northern prairies are dotted with caribou in summer and the rivers absolutely teem with lake trout, arctic grayling and arctic char. With a rifle and some fishhooks, you can live very comfortably.
Catching fish up north is almost as simple as deciding that you want to catch one. Just throw a spoon into the water and the fish will bite it — and they are huge.
Over the years we have all caught monster-sized trout. There is no one around to catch these beasts and they just keep growing larger and larger. Last year in a place called Artillery Lake (the most northern line of tree growth), I hooked a trout whose size actually frightened me when I finally caught sight of it. We paddled the canoe into shore because there was no way of heaving the thing into the boat, but getting it there was no easy task either, and the fish ended up snapping my 40-lbs test fishing line.
With caribou and fish as the two primary staples, you end up with ingenious ways to diversify meal preparation, with meals like curry, steaks, soups and everything in between. The different organs in the caribou also provide variation and ensure that nothing gets wasted. The diet can also be supplemented in August and September with berries that grow abundantly on the barrens — blueberries and cranberries are the most common. Sometimes I find myself sitting in a berry patch for hours in an almost trance-like state, unaware of anything beyond my immediate surroundings and the passage of time.
Berry picking is also a great way to pass the time during otherwise long hours when the wind comes from the direction in which you are headed and you have nothing to do but wait. I used to find being wind-bound somewhat frustrating, probably because I was focused on mileage and trip progress, but recently I find myself almost looking forward to being stranded by the wind. It’s a great excuse to explore the land for hours on end, to watch caribou, or to just lie around and rest those paddle-weary muscles.
Animals everywhere
There is also no shortage of wildlife to keep tabs on. In addition to the caribou, which are absolutely stunning in number, the barrens are home to grizzlies, wolves, foxes, wolverines, arctic hares and the prehistoric-looking musk ox. The musk ox allow you to get very close, since they rarely use retreat as a defence mechanism. Incidentally, caribou do not always run from people either, and may even approach in a seemed mixture of curiosity and playfulness. This trait leads Dene and Inuit hunters to describe a successful hunt as a relationship between hunter and prey — the caribou, it is said, gives itself to the hunter.
Wolves are also remarkably fearless. Sometimes they will hang around for hours, watching attentively but displaying neither hostility nor alarm. One of my most memorable moments in the North was rounding a bend in the river and coming up to two adult wolves — the mom and the dad, so to speak — with three pups all having a drink at the river’s edge.
The pups were young and could barely walk. The female wolf herded them back up the bank while the male stood guard. The female then proceeded to walk slowly along the riverbank just ahead of us, to lead the canoe away from the hidden den. She walked on this way for about a kilometre before turning and heading back to her brood.
You end up seeing all manner of wildlife, partly because there are so many animals up here and partly because there are no trees. In the southern forests, you sometimes end up walking within feet of an animal without ever realizing that it’s there.
No description of the barrens is complete without at least a mention of the bugs on the tundra. In a word, they are unbelievable. Fortunately, their season is short, peaking somewhere around July. To get an idea of their ferocity, go to the nearest swamp in southern Manitoba around dusk and hang out for a while. Then try to imagine the bugs being 10 times worse than that. That is what it’s like north of the tree line.
In that context, the wind becomes your friend, and when finding a place to camp you are constantly playing a balancing act. On the one hand, you want an exposed spot so that you can hang out somewhat bug-free. On the other, you don’t want to be too exposed in case the wind kicks up (which happens all the time) and ends up blowing you away and shredding your tent. No tent on the barrens equals no fun.
Wild waterways
Northern travel presents its share of hazards, none more constant than the danger associated with waterways. The ice is only melted from the lake surface for a couple of months a year in many cases, because of the very short summer. This translates into very, very cold water. A prolonged swim in the event of a capsized boat is extremely bad and dangerous news. The often-chilly air adds insult to injury because it’s difficult to warm once you are wet.
Given the temperature of the water and absence of help for hundreds of miles, travellers need to take precautions at every turn. Often there are long stretches of whitewater on northern rivers that need to be run with control. There are also huge lakes that can whip up into a frenzy in a flash — the wind has even more of an impact on the lakes of the barrens because there are no trees to provide shelter along the shoreline.
Sometimes, in order to avoid the wind on the lakes, we paddle at night, but this can be very cold. Also, by late August the hours of daylight become reduced, and paddling in the darkness can be interesting to say the least — navigating by sound with the help of a headlamp and a compass. Obviously night paddling presents its own set of hazards, but the wind is generally calmer in the evenings, so it can pay off, especially if you need to get from point A to point B at a set time.
Barrenland magic
These hazards I have mentioned are real, and travel needs to be undertaken with respect. But the dangers, along with the isolation and the bugs, also serve a purpose. It keeps the barrens they way they are, with people few and far between. While you see evidence of people — old tent rings, Inuit inukshuks (stone men), Dene cairns, and so on — you can travel for months without running into another soul. There are not many places on Earth like that.
On the barrens you move to a different rhythm. Your needs, your priorities, your very thoughts are completely transformed and the rest of the world seems very far away. To illustrate this: back in 2001 when events at the World Trade Center were changing history, I didn’t find out about them until almost two weeks later when my friend and I came off the barrens.
Although it’s fun to return to so-called civilization, enjoying the things you were without for that month or two, the feeling usually only lasts for a couple of days until I start to wish I was back out there. That is when I begin looking forward to the next summer.
