Crossing Ungava 2014

Crossing UNGAVA

via the Kogaluc & Kuuvik/Kangirsuk (Payne/Arnaud) Rivers, Nunavik, 2014

L&L's Crossing Ungava presentation for the Wilderness Canoe Symposium:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBxtAhGJuAs

http://www.wcsymposium.com/content/ungava-crossing-2014

Huge Thanks to Chris Rush for the Video Compositions:

To Those Who Were There BEFORE US: UNGAVA RUINS - Inuit & Viking

Preview: Ungava Crossing 2014 Teaser

Crossing Ungava Episode 1: SEARCHING for the KOGALUC - Landing & Lost

Crossing Ungava Episode 2: SLOGGING UP the KOGALUC - Uphill & Upriver from Hudson Bay

Crossing Ungava Episode 3: PERRONEL RIVER to LAC BARVILIER - Up & Up, Bugs & Wind

Crossing Ungava Episode 4: The HORRORS of LAC BARVILIER - "Cold and Wet, Wet, Wet"

Crossing Ungava Episode 5: BARVILIER LAKE to PAYNE LAKE - Over the Height of Land

Crossing Ungava Episode 6: PAIN on PAYNE LAKE - Give Up or Keep Fighting?

Crossing Ungava Episode 7: PAYNE RIVER to KANGIRSUK - It's all Downhill from Here!

From video shot on this Expedition: HAPPY HOLIDAYS! - Flora & Fauna

Tide coming in: Hammer of Thor Timelapse

Jenny's A to Z compilation: Ungava Crossing A to Z

Map of our progress: < Click to Watch us Move across Ungava! 5 weeks, July 5 - August 10

Successfully finished our traverse!! - In spite of being windbound by the easterlies for 1 of 5 weeks.

Incredibly tough team with great attitude - lots of struggles, lots of laughs & lots learned.

Awesome landscapes & wildlife (no polar bears, but lots of black ones).

Lots of stories, pictures & videos.

Click on the icons on our Progress Map for our "Message of the Day"

Topo Maps & technical description

We are surprised that we only did 15.41 km of portaging

(in 48 portages) over the whole Crossing.

Though, as Chris says, the "total" portage distance

for those of us who did 3 carries will be 5x the 15.4km = 77km,

of which 46 would have been under full load,

which kind of makes up for all the hiking we didn't do!

The Ungava peninsula is the very northern tip of Quebec, Canada.

Laco & Lynette have spent many long summer vacations exploring,

documenting and mapping many canoe routes in Ungava.

Their trip reports and maps can be found on a Google Site

if you type in "LandLTrips" as one word.

In the summer of 2014 we – a group of 6 paddlers, 3 men & 3 women - crossed it west to east,

taking 5 weeks to go up the Kogaluc River on the Hudson Bay side, then over the height of land to Payne Lake

and finally down the Payne River to the Inuit village of Kangirsuk on the Ungava Bay side.

As far as we know, we are the third canoe expedition to have paddled this route:

The first was a 1948 scientific expedition led by Jacques Rousseau.

You can find their trip documentary online at the National Film Board of Canada.

The 4 scientists, supported by 2 Inuit from Puvirnituq and 4 Montagnais guides from Sept Iles,

went up the Kogaluc to Tasiat Lake. From there, (since there were few useful maps for the area then),

they tried to follow a direct compass bearing to the cache they had dropped at Payne Lake.

In their film, they called this a "20 mile portage", but in reality, it was largely lake-hopping,

with the 2 Inuit returning home (west) after reaching Payne Lake.

The Second expedition was paddled by the Hide-Away Canoe Club, 4 men, in 1990.

This group veered off Rousseau's route at Lake Anartalik, where they continued up the Perronel River.

From Lake Anuc they went through a series of portages directly east to Lake Barvilier

and from there again through a series of portages North-East to Payne Lake.

Due to time restrictions, we will show portions of the overall video compiled by Chris Rush.

Chris hopes to submit a complete version to the Waterwalker Film Festival.

For our 2014 expedition, we were dropped by Air Inuit at an unexpected location south of the Polemond River,

due to Air Inuit's incorrect coordinates in their database of landing strips

and visibility that day was too low to search for it.

This mistake cost us one very hard day of heavy portaging

just to get to the place where we had expected to be dropped, just north of the Polemond.

In general we followed the HACC route, but from Lac Anuc we devised our own route

which followed rivers & creeks as much as possible, thus avoiding many portages.

L&L's Eastern Canada Canoe Expeditons

Red = already completed Blue/green = 2014 Crossing Ungava

For 5 weeks, L&L + 4 friends paddled across the Ungava Peninsula in Nunavik, an Inuit Territory. We were following the route of a group of Canadian scientists who explored the area in 1948. This 19 minute video from the National Film Board of Canada depicts our route and the conditions we are likely to encounter:

Jacques Rousseau, expedition leader

Scroll down our PUVIRNITUQ 2011 page for more research on Crossing Ungava by Canoe.

Weather reports at the start & end points & overall:

http://weatherspark.com/#!graphs;a=QC/Puvirnituq

http://weatherspark.com/#!graphs;a=QC/Kangirsuk

https://www.meteoblue.com/en/canada/weather-ungava-peninsula

IN CONCLUSION

Thanks to much improved weather once we crossed Payne Lake, and after our last struggle over the very difficult portage at it's exit rapids, we actually managed to finish safely and on time. We managed to find & explore the Viking settlement sites on Payne Lake that Rousseau had documented, but which have been ignored and 'swept under the rug' by Canada, in order to protect Canada's sovereignty in the north in our opinion. Our complete trip report and maps can be found online if you type “LandLTrips” as one word into Google Sites.

CREDITS

Expedition Members: Laco Kovac, Lynette Chubb, Chris Rush, Iva Kinclova, Lee Sessions, Jenny Johnson

Photographs & Video: Chris Rush, Laco Kovac, Lynette Chubb, Lee Sessions, Jenny Johnson

Macro Photo & Video Compilations by Chris Rush

Aerial Kite scenes by Lee Sessions

Trip Report: Lynette Chubb, Chris Rush, Jenny Johnson, Laco Kovac

Trip Maps: Laco Kovac

Prologue – The TEAM

Getting the final crew together for this trip took more effort and angst than usual. This kind of ambitious expedition and environment is the type to bring out the worst (and the best!) in people, so it was crucial to assemble a team that would work well together. The trip was Laco's idea, and as soon as L&L pitched it to Chris (a former participant on 2 of their other trips), he was on-board. For most of the winter it looked like it was going to be a three person expedition, but all of a sudden, in the spring, some interest finally materialized from others. Lee from Oregon and Iva from Toronto, (both of whom L&L knew from meetings at the Toronto Wilderness Canoe Association Symposiums and by reputation from other paddlers) “signed up” as well as one last paddler from Ottawa. This last paddler was known to L&L only by reputation of being a former BlackFeather guide & an extremely competent whitewater paddler (placing well in Ontario slalom competitions). L&L had a good initial interview, however, subsequent group discussions via conference calls revealed significant differences in solving trip logistics, “styles of travel”, and willingness to bend to group sentiments & majority decisions. These differences did not bode well for group cohesiveness on trip, and seeing them becoming insurmountable before the trip was even under way, the sixth WAS “voted off the island” and that spot opened up again. After more misunderstandings, Lee highly recommended Jenny from Washington State, so she was accepted to complete the crew of 3 men and 3 women. So, we were 4 Canadians (of Slovak, English, Welsh and Czech heritage), and two Yankees. 3 of us had paddled together before, 5 of us had extensive experience canoeing in the north and our 6^th came highly recommended as an adaptable, tough, experienced wilderness traveler and skilled whitewater paddler with the right kind of attitude. Between the 6 of us, we had varying amounts of up-river experience (Lynette used to joke that “Paddling uphill is against my religion!”), but what we did have was quickly shared & the plan was to pack as light as possible for the time frame involved.

LOGISTICS

After exhaustive research of multitudes of travel options, the final plan of attack was to assemble in Ottawa, rent a van, drive up to LaGrande Airport near Radisson in James Bay, board a chartered twin otter, and be dropped somewhere (TBD!) near the mouth of the Kogaluc river on Hudson’s Bay. Many, many thanks to our volunteer driver (thank you, Eric Kujala!) who returned the van for us. This won out over flying commercial to Puvirnituq and then trying to either paddle the coast (70+km) or hire local freighter canoes to take us down the coast from the village to the mouth of the Kogaluc. Although it would have been a little cheaper to go for the latter options, there were too many risks involved. First of all, the risk that all of our luggage would not make it to Puvirnituq on our flight - the day we wanted to leave Montreal, the aircraft was a Dash-8 with limited cargo capacity. This (waiting an extra day for missing & crucial luggage) had happened to us two years earlier on flights to Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island. Paddling the coast by open canoe would be entirely dependent on 'perfect' weather, never mind the fact that it is polar bear territory & 2 members of our expedition, having survived much-too-close polar bear encounter experiences, were rather averse to tempting fate again. The third variable ('wild card'!) was getting a reliable boat taxi to take us to the river mouth (in the end, our experience with trying to charter a boat taxi to Pamiok Island in Ungava Bay at the end of the trip highlighted the problems we might have faced). The last variable was the weather on the Bay itself – if all the ice was off, and we had a reliable boat taxi, high winds & rough seas could potentially have kept us stranded in the village for days.

The ROUTE

We budgeted five weeks for the trip and planned to travel more than 600 km between the mouth of the Kogaluc river on the Eastern side of Hudson Bay to the small Inuit community of Kangirsuk on Ungava Bay, traversing the Ungava peninsula, the barren northern tip of Quebec in Canada. We would ascend the Kogaluc and take one of three options to get to the huge, 80km long Payne Lake, paddle it, then descend the mighty Payne River. To our knowledge, the route had been traversed twice before in modern times by teams of men: first in 1948 by a scientific expedition led by Jacques Rousseau (which was filmed for the NFB); and then in 1990 by the HACC (Hide-Away-Canoe-Club, aka the Peake brothers) of Toronto. Our planned route was generally similar to the others, except that our options between the watersheds were somewhat different from theirs.

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IMPORTANT NOTE!: All km marks in this trip report are based on our original pre-trip measurements, which were changed after the trip on the maps we published, so our notes here DO NOT exactly match our maps with regard to distances.

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EQUIPMENT

Canoes - We used three folding Pakcanoes with spray-decks and took all our home-dried food with us, with no re-supply. Dietary restrictions were shared months ahead so we could all plan and pack so we could share by taking turns cooking for everybody. We took one fuel stove with 4 litres of fuel for emergencies and 2 twig stoves, expecting an abundant supply of twigs along the river valleys.

Raingear – We all had DOUBLE RAINGEAR so that we could use 2 layers in really wet weather which we have much experience of on the Ungava peninsula. Most of us had full drysuits and some of us drypants as well, to be used for upriver wading.

Shelter – We used 3 Hilleberg expedition tents, built to take a beating from the wind on the open barrens & Chris used his trusty light but old Northface. L&L had a huge 3-person which would accommodate extra people in the event of a tent disaster & the 3 were in 2 smaller 1 & 2-person models. The folks in the 2 smaller (lighter weight) tents regretted having such limited space for the 5 weeks, especially when everything was soggy. We took 2 cook/group shelters – one low, warm one (Cooke Custom Shelters) designed for wind resistance & rain & bug protection & Chris' taller (Nemo) tarp for bug protection & shade if the weather got hot & still.

Communications - This was the second expedition where we used our DeLorme InReach device for communication. Before the InReach, we had used a combination of a SPOT communicator and a satellite phone. For the first time, Laco wrote & set-up a special Perl script which: 1 - handled the e-mails sent by our InReach, 2 - modified our online progress map accordingly, and then 3 - generated a nice email (wrapped around the InReach message) which was then automatically forwarded to all 74 of our recipients. We experienced only one small glitch, which we did not anticipate or test for (because one pays per message, we did very little testing before we left): When recipients received an email via our Perl script, they could not see which InReach the message came from (we had 2 InReach communicators that we were sending messages from - one belonging to L&L – the other to Chris, so there were two authors who were taking turns sending the messages). It was possible to see who wrote the message on the “reply-to” page, but you would have to look carefully, or know where exactly to look. On this trip, in general, Laco sent the InReach messages during lunch and Chris sent at night from the campsite. We would get replies from Chris's unit to L&L & vice-versa, which tended to be confusing. MANY THANKS to all the folks who sent us weather reports when we were pinned down by rotten conditions & hoping for change! ...And to the folks who just plain prayed for us too!

Trip Report – Crossing Ungava 2014

July 3 – Assembly in Ottawa

Iva arrived in Ottawa and slept on the studio floor of L&L's house (because the girls visiting for the summer from Slovakia were occupying both of our spare bedrooms).

July 4 – Logistical Relief

Lynette picked up Lee & Jen at the airport at 11:40am. We all packed & repacked food, packs, etc. Eric (our volunteer chauffer) & Laco picked up the rental van (Econoline van with seats for 7). Chris arrived at 5:30 and we left at 5:50pm. It was a very tight squeeze getting everything and everyone in, but we were amazed that it all fit. Chris and Laco had gone to measure the truck dimensions the month before, but you never know until everything is packed in. Everyone was looking forward to the 1400km overnight drive (not!). At 8pm we filled up with gas at Grand Remous and we reached Val d’Or at 11:30pm for a late “dinner”. There was not much open so we ate at Tim Hortons, but gluten-free Lee had to go for a hamburger & lettuce (no bun) at McDonalds. Eric insisted on doing all the driving to this point.

July 5 – The Longest Day

Stopped for gas in Matagami, then on to the James Bay “highway”. It is a very lonely road, mostly flat and more or less straight but with lots of frost heaves necessitating keeping below 100km/h. Laco drank coke and was “wired” for his portion of the drive – this is what caffeine does to someone who only occasionally ingests it - what a drug! I don’t recall seeing another vehicle on the road the whole way. Nice fox beside the road in the early morning hours. Laco used his third prednisone pill (out of 4) to ease his poison-ivy suffering. Just after 7am we were at Relais Routier 381 for breakfast (the only food/gas stop on the James Bay highway, and 381 km from Matagami). After bacon and eggs, Chris told us he doesn’t want to know any World Cup football results until he’s back home when he will watch it all recorded on his PVR. Hmm…good luck with that. Laco had big problems with his Samsung smart phone & Google navigation - every 30 minutes, the navigation seemed to turn itself off and then it was impossible to restart because there was no cell phone signal/reception. It was also bad when we drove the same route in 2013, but it was worse now, in 2014. Laco thinks it is caused by some glitch in the software plus the fact that both the mobile & data connections get lost during driving.

It started to rain as we passed Wemindji exit and from then on, it rained on & off. We stopped to admire the Broadback river, resplendent in the orange glow of the early morning. Next we stopped at the bridge over the Rupert River, to see the still impressive Oatmeal falls (even after 2/3 of the Rupert flow had been diverted by Hydro Quebec a few years before). We arrived at LaGrande airport at 10:30am. We weighed in & our Cargo weight was 480kg + 6 passengers + their daypacks = total payload ~1000kg. We were told we could not take our bear spray on the plane (“new rules this year”), and only after pleading with the rather officious cargo agent were we allowed to bring the white gas for our cooking stoves.

Where to Land the Plane?

The plane was a DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 with tundra tires, based out of Great Whale. Pilot Hugo speculated as to where to drop us - their database showed a really weird spot for a “runway” that was assigned code “TUL” (not to confused with Tulsa, FL, USA) - south of the Polemond River (for clarity, let’s call this Spot A). He then called the senior pilot who told him that TUL was actually a bit north of the Polemond (for clarity, let’s call this Spot B). That made us happy as it would mean an easier portage to the river. Hugo wanted to get going as he said a big storm was blowing in off the Bay and he wanted to outrun it. After saying goodbye and thanks to Eric (who was going to drive up to Radisson before heading back to Ottawa), we took off at 12:40pm for the 2 hour flight with a stop for re-fuelling at Inukjuak. Initially the weather was nice, but since the route took us over Hudson’s Bay we ended up hitting the storm, with rain pounding the plane and visibility dropping to zero (although most of the passengers were not aware of this as they were fast asleep, except for Chris who took pictures of the snoozers). The weather cleared in Inukjuak, from where it should have been a short hop to the TUL landing site. But soon after takeoff, the weather closed in, becoming cloudy & rainy again as we flew north (how otherwise? - it always seems to be like that up there). The pilot banked the plane and flew many long low circles trying to find the landing spot that the on-board GPS was telling should have been there, making us all dizzy like recovering addicts and scaring the caribou into running for their lives (there were quite a few dotting the landscape). The “landing strip” was nowhere to be seen. The plane circled lower & lower as the cloud cover dropped, to the point that it seemed a couple more meters & our wing would scrape the tundra...

Flying into the Caribou

The cloud cover didn’t allow the pilot to see very far, and he had to fly really low, scaring some of us as well as the caribou so close below us. Lynette thought he was deliberately shooing the 'bou off his chosen long esker, but then he continued flying further circles. Running out of time (it was about 3:45pm?), he chose a (I thought) rougher landing zone, but maybe it lined up better with the wind. He dropped us about 2 km west of spot A (see our maps) on an esker, as spot A did not look like it was good for landing. Laco is still not sure why the pilot didn’t try to investigate spot B (it remains a mystery), but Chris remembers him trying to fly north towards the Polemond, but the clouds were even lower there. When we landed, the pilot said that he could not fly higher, which he would normally do so that he could more easily spot the “missing runway”. It turns out that the onboard GPS had the wrong latitude for TUL by 3 km, which is why he couldn’t find it (TUL turned out to be a sandy gravel runway close to a hunt/fish camp called “Tulugak Outfitters”; it is actually visible on a Google satellite map). Our landing place (Spot C) was on the west side of an esker, with a small lake just north.

As the plane took off, we pitched our tents on the “runway” (there were no other scheduled flights here today, so we assumed it would be a safe place to camp! In fact, probably no-one had ever landed there before).

Camped at a beautiful spot about a km short of the falls, looking up at them. Cold. Wind kept bugs down but as soon as it weakened, the mosquitoes became crazy. Lee opened his food pack to find that his over-proof (151) rum bottle had broken (a 1 liter plastic bottle). Crying shame. We were all unhappy about that. And the rum soaked the contents of the food pack as it was packed within the plastic liner bags. Lee desperately tried to collect what little rum he could from the bottom of the plastic bags, but couldn’t save much. And what was salvaged tasted like cardboard. Lee decided to make spaghetti as the noodles were soaked in rum and needed eating. They fell apart as they cooked, but hey, it tasted like spaghetti. What a waste of rum. Lost Rum Camp at 8pm at km 604

July 8 – Endless Waterfalls and Portages

A cold night, but it was hot in the tent in the morning. No wind (later, oh how we would wish for no wind!) meaning lots of mosquitoes. No caribou all day - I guess they were hiding somewhere from those bloodthirsty bugs! A warmer, but still cool breeze built by the end of day, with clear skies. It was a short paddle to the falls, which we portaged on river right. This last falls on the river is BIG and beautiful. A short paddle got us to the second and third rapids of the day. A fourth rapid did not seem to be marked on the maps, but was an R3 and a short portage. Had to line past some points when the current was too strong to paddle up. Lots of eddy hopping along the shorelines. Poling really helps in the shallows. Laco thinks Lynette is now a master poler, but he hasn't seen any “real” poling. Ferried across to take inside corners sometimes.

Everybody is working really well in their teams. Portaging heavy packs is really hard work and us older ones are stiffening up quickly at dinner and moaning & groaning when we have to move again.

We picked river right for the last portage of the day (km 595) but a channel marked on the map (which would have been a shortcut) is dry, so it looks like a river left portage would have been easier and shorter. However, after we (Laco, Jenny and Chris) scouted the area it was decided a 500m portage directly from camp into a bay formed as the river bent north would skip the next falls (“seagull rapids”) and also allow us to skip fighting the strong current on both sides of that falls. So in fact the side we chose to portage on was the correct one.

Now on the lake, we paddled about 2km into the wind (coming from the east) and decided to camp above the falls that drained the lake so that we could fish. It took quite some investigation, speculation & negotiation to agree on a spot, but eventually we settled on an OK site that, by the looks of it, usually geese camp at. It was pretty boggy and wet, but flat. Iva caught a lake trout and Chris three speckled trout, so we ate like kings. Stuffed. After dinner we all hiked to admire the impressive Qullutunga Falls. Quite a buggy campsite, and a warm night.

Goose Green Camp at km 584 after 11 km

July 10 – Cold and Grim

We (L&L) heard yelling in the morning. We thought it was a wake-up call. Very slowly Laco got up and out only to find that nobody was anywhere to be seen and that it was 4:00am. Later we figured out it was Lee yelling, trying to scare off some vicious animals, because he heard pots rattling (pots had been left stacked under the shelter as an “early warning system”). Turns out it wasn’t animals that rattled the pots, but the shelter had blown down as the winds picked up during the night. Laco observed nature for a bit and then went back to the tent to prepare mentally for the day.

It was to be an ugly day, very cloudy, with rain and cold wind, 5°C. We were on the water relatively early, at 8:45am. Visited Qullutunga Inuit cabin, not far from our campsite - quite nice & clean. Back to paddling into a chilling wind. Visited another “Neakunguac” cabin - very nice, too, although it was surrounded by junk including a disintegrating snowmobile. Big fishing lures hanging on the wall of the cabin got Chris salivating – there must be big ones in the nearby lake! There was a visitor’s book with entries like “search for missing Inuk” and someone expressing a “deep need for weed”. Lee signed the book for us.

Reluctantly, we exited the shelter of the hut back out into the bleak, gray day, hugging the shoreline as we paddled into the freezing wind. Our hands stiffened from the cold, even with neoprene gloves. We reached Neakunguac falls at the head of the lake - the biggest and most beautiful so far - we just wish we had better weather to enjoy it more. From the west shore, where we found ancient tent rings, we speculated for a while about how to portage the falls, but we ended up crossing to the east side for a shorter, easier portage. We ate lunch huddled together in the cold, and then portaged up a steep sandy slope which warmed us up again - we sure needed it - there is nothing like a good portage! A short paddle (750m) brought us, at about 3pm, to Siegfried Falls, which is really a rather big rapid.

We camped here even though it was a bit early, as the wind was strong in our faces. Great fishing – a big laker and four brookies led to a fish feast. Stupidly(cursing at himself), Chris cut his thumb while cleaning the fish – even minor injuries out here can become problematic. The wet paddling environment is not the best for promotion of healing. Luckily, Chris is a doctor and knows how to keep it from becoming infected, but his hand would be sore for paddling for a few days. We had time for some body-washing too – a sheltered spot out of the wind and in the sun allowed the bravest a lightening fast immersion. We hope not to get wind-bound here, because big Lake Mangnuc is next. The sun lasted late into the evening.

Windy Camp at km 571 after 13 km

Jenny, Chris and Laco built two inuksuit up on the hill, then hiked around the island. Lee recorded constant 50 km/h wind with gusts up to 62 km/h. That was a great improvement since yesterday, yahoo!, but still not paddle-able. We washed ourselves, including our hair, and did laundry. Stuff dries FAST in the wind! We ate dinner in the early afternoon in hopes of an early evening paddle, but the wind actually increased with time. Kiyoko sent a weather forecast - same for tomorrow – more big wind from the east. The plan now is to paddle as soon as the wind drops, no matter what time it is. Laco was getting worried as we were now two full days behind schedule. The barrens are not the best environment for a “white man's schedule”! There was a really amazing sunset at 10pm with intense shades of orange and red mixed up with fast moving dark clouds. The alarm was set for 2am anticipating that the wind would drop...

Wind-bound Island Camp @ km 544 = 0 km

July 14 – Escape from Wind-bound Island?

No chance of the wind dropping – it was really howling during the night. Chris woke up at 3am with his tent flapping like crazy. The bottom of the rain fly had torn in three places where rocks that had been placed on the pegs had worn through the fabric. Well... putting the rock there had seemed like a good idea at the time… a duct tape repair was made and then back to bed until 9am. In the morning we packed the bug shelter away for its own protection, and cooked breakfast in the lee shelter of “Bone Beach” (sooo many caribou bones…) on the west side of the island in a protected cove. Iva caught a fish with her jig and cooked it over a driftwood fire between 2 rocks and draped over 2 caribou antlers, adding a smoky taste to the result. Yummy! Jenny made grits with bacon, cheese and onion for breakfast. We decided to test the shotgun that Iva had brought as bear protection. Lee satisfactorily shot a few holes in a target set up in the bushes.

Jenny: “After the second day I found that my right achilles had been strained and now both of them are very sore. I think that the barrel I am carrying is too heavy and that my river shoes don’t offer enough support for that kind of load. Going uphill is painful and even walking on level ground hurts sometimes. I’m taking anti-inflammatories and hoping it eases off. I should probably just be resting my achilles on these wind-bound days, but instead I go off exploring. I am curious and want to see as much of this area as I can.”

Just above our camp, we found sign of caribou and wolves. We also found two food caches right above the little protected cove where we ate breakfast. The shoreline of this cove was littered with bones. It had the remains of at least 15 different caribou skulls. Must have been a fantastic hunting spot, I-don't-know-how-long-ago.

As it was too windy to paddle, the whole group hiked around the island, this time anti-clockwise, eventually finding a nice lee slope where we could sleep in the sun. We found a big fat dead lemming just lying there on a caribou trail – it can’t have been dead very long. Also found two sets of old poop - clumps with hair, feathers, a duckling beak, berries, beetles, insect shells, etc. Lynette thought it might be black bear, but also wondered if a fox would poop multiple times in one spot? We got back to camp and cooked an early dinner, after skipping lunch that day. One of the sealed packages of cooked bacon had started to go green so we ate it fast. Just kidding. We burned it in the fire – what a waste of bacon! The romano had also aged badly and tasted somewhat like blue cheese. L&L decided that we need to delay packing food to the last minute or pack only very dry food. We found 2 big boletes and added them to dinner, but they were not adequate compensation for the lost bacon.

At camp I (Jen) watched Chris fish and filet. It appears that the lake trout are feeding off of other fish and and snails. Chris returned to camp with a pot of fish for us. He is the only one who didn't have any down time at all.”

At lunch-break we found a big but seemingly empty fox den, and an old wolf skull complete with teeth. There was an interesting rectangular rock nearby. A short hike up a ridge revealed an old Inuit hunting blind, and a great view of the lake-like river ahead. That evening we camped at the last big rapid on the Kogaluc, on a little hill. Chris caught 3 big fish for dinner, and lost only one lure to a monster. For the first time, we used Chris’s Nemo bug-shelter which has mesh all around and is cooler than Jenny’s borrowed bomb-proof shelter when there is no wind. A light breeze came from the west in the evening. To bed early, exhausted.

We then quickly crossed Lake Alorutchaak to the continuation of the Perronel River. The outlet rapids were big and long... It was about 5:30 pm by then, with drizzly rain falling and the cold darkening sky dampening our spirits, making the decision to camp right there for us. The better campsites appeared to be on the east shore, but the majority seemed to want to camp on the west shore, even though tent spots were sketchy. Big rapids are waiting for us tomorrow!

Chris made pesto pasta with bacon, toasted pine nuts & freshly grated parmesan cheese; for that he even brought a proper grater (which then got used many times later in the trip). Everyone was so hungry, the ration seemed not enough! After eating, we scouted up the high banks of the west shore, with clouds of bugs hovering around our heads. There were beautiful views of Lake Alorutchaak to the south.

We decided that the best plan of action for the next day would be to cross to the east side to progress upstream. Everybody was very tired and some even a little cranky. It rained and drizzled intermittently through the night.

The 1948 expedition was much further south on Lac Tasiat at this point, and the 1990 expedition was further north, having chosen pond/stream hopping into the northern part of Lac Barvilier. We planned to follow this river to its confluence with the Barvilier River, up to the southern portion of its namesake lake before traversing the height of land into the Payne river watershed. Relieved, we noted that it seems to be a good-sized river (looking at satellite maps, it is always hard to gauge how much water these small rivers hold). Now we hoped it would prove to be a pool and drop river rather than one with continuous current which would make the upstream slog hard.

We immediately hit some current that we could paddle against with only a small amount of tracking necessary. The river looked very beautiful. After a few kilometers we reached the first marked rapids where the river is split by an island. It was now cool and raining again. We decided to take the shorter portage (110 m) on river left where most of the drop was over a ledge as opposed to the longer R2 on river right.

After a simple paddle we stopped to scout the next falls. Lee excitedly came down from the knoll from where he was scouting to tell us, “it is so beautiful, bring your cameras!” He was right, Tsirnish Falls is a complex feature with an upper “triple” falls as the river splits around two islands, and a lower river-wide ledge below the islands. We took a lot of pictures, both scenic and hamming for the camera.

From our viewpoint on river left it was obvious that the portage route was on river right. We had to ferry the lower ledge and then portage for 330 m. It was a 'no-brainer' to camp at this beautiful spot. Iva caught one fish and Chris two more. He decided to stop fishing after what must have been a huge one grabbed a lure and took off to the end of the rapid before he could adjust the drag, snapping the line. One more lost lure.

We had another short (20 m) portage at Kujala Falls, where we ate lunch on the rocks under sunshine in a beautiful setting. The river then opened up into a series of fair sized lakes. A rainstorm blew through, throwing big fat raindrops into the water, but it was still warm. We found bear scat full of berries at Middlesbrough Rapids portage (60 m), and jealously speculated about shooting this class 2 rapid if we were traveling downstream. It was now raining lightly but steadily.

A short paddle of maybe 150m brought us to the outlet rapids of Lac Barvilier. Wow. We had made it! It was a complex feature with the lake spilling out via three channels that tumbled down a ten foot drop.

We called it Pingasut (three) rapids. L&L portaged on the south side which looked like the shortest route, but the portage was very difficult with green slippery slime all over the rocks along the shoreline, which was then fringed with a tangle of overgrown bush, and high steep rocky ledges. Lynette walked up the treacherously smooth slippery rock to avoid Laco’s tangled willows route. The other two canoe teams portaged the longer route over the main island on the north side, which ended up being a much faster portage, then waited patiently for L&L to catch up again.

With cheers we embarked on Lac Barvilier with the wind now behind us, encouraging us to paddle as fast as we could to take advantage of this rare occurrence. The rain picked up and the temperature dropped as we headed north. Lac Barvilier is a complex lake, which, without a good guide, would be impossible to traverse. It seems more like a series of small lakes and bays connected by some narrow waterways. After 8 km we reached the small rapids that separated the north and south sections of Lac Barvilier. We pulled the canoes up on the west shore and scooted up the knoll to scout.

The wind was now howling, driving the rain sideways. Lee was soaked and verging on hypothermia, Laco looked quite miserable, Lynette was stoic but cold, and even Jenny, who never complains, was chilled also. The decision was made to stop before things got worse, even though the wind at our backs tempted a few of us (well, OK, only Chris) to want to keep going. The west portage route was very exposed and there were no good campsites, so we headed back to the canoes to ferry across the rapids. Chris and Jenny found their canoe water logged, slapping half submerged against the shore - the wind-driven waves had shaken it loose from shore and one of the gunwales was underwater. As Chris reached for his bilge pump, he remembered that he had broken it accidentally on a previous portage (what else was left for him to break on this trip?), so Jenny, thinking quickly, doffed her helmet and bailed the canoe with it.

We emerged for breakfast at noon when the rain finally stopped. Laco dressed in his drysuit hoping we would be paddling, but the white-caps in our tiny bay finally convinced him otherwise. L & L, Jenny and Chris went for an afternoon hike and watched the surf on the lake. The scenery was just spectacular. It looked hilly in the distance to the north where we would need to tackle the height of land, so we speculated about how tough it would be. On the hilltops we played: leaning 35 degrees into the wind, letting it hold us upright. We found some shelter behind a big rock and sat and talked about life. We grazed on lots of berries on the lee sides of the hills.

Then Chris went to try his luck fishing at the bottom of Desperation rapids because L&L’s bacon had now all gone bad and we needed some protein. At first he wondered if there would be any fish at such a small rapid. After hooking 6 with 6 casts, all doubt disappeared. These lake trout were huge! Each fish we landed got progressively larger. We kept 3 for dinner. The gulls moved in quickly for the fish carcasses after we filleted them at the shoreline.

The wind shifted again and was now buffeting the tents even in the little gully. The plan was to get an early start the next morning if the wind dropped overnight. Chris’s tent pole broke in the high wind AGAIN - he was running out of repair sleeves, and that multi-repaired, crappy #%@&#! Chinese pole was getting so fat with repair sleeves that it was very difficult to thread through the tent sleeve in the first place!

We collected and ate lots of blueberries. Lee was ecstatic after he managed to create a pee bottle from the empty plastic one liter fuel container – finally he didn’t have to go out into the howling wind during the night. We read Thomas E. Lee’s articles from the 1970’s about the alleged Viking ruins on Payne Lake that we were hoping find (if we ever get there!) We were getting antsy waiting for the wind to break, but were regaining strength. It had been overcast all day with fast moving low clouds, now it was getting cold again, but it hadn’t rained since morning so the wind had dried everything.

Camp Desperation at Desperation rapids at km 399.5 after 0 km

July 23 – Jenny and the Giant Trout

No early morning wake up call. We are as wind-bound as we were yesterday. The loons were happily singing though, as it drizzled on and off. Lee measured the wind-speed at 70 km/h average with his little wind meter device. Laco collected and cut firewood, seemingly his favourite pastime when he is this bored. Lynette took the time to make quiche for a late brunch. We built an inukshuk by the campsite. Jenny and Chris built a big cairn on the knoll above the campsite, leaving messages inside in plastic bags, wondering if anyone will ever pass by this lonely place again to read them (not likely!). Lynette and Laco portaged the 3 canoes over to the tents, just for something to do (they had been dumped quickly in a depression close to the take-out point during the maelstrom). Desperation was slowly setting in (Hmmm…maybe that’s why we named this site “Desperation Cove”). Laco put on his drysuit again, just to keep a bit warmer. He went back to the tent and bed for a drizzly, wind buffeted afternoon. We all lazed around and have now had lots of sleep!! Jenny caught a huge fish (the biggest yet) on her second cast (the first cast had also hooked a fish but it shook the lure off), filleted it and made dinner for us all. That fish fed all six of us. We are all proud of her.

Jenny: “When I ask to borrow the fishing pole, Chris was eager to come along, just to have something to do. He told me how to cast and I hooked a fish on the first cast out. I let up on the tension a little and it got away. I caught another one on the second cast and Chris helped me land it. He then offered to fillet it, but I wanted to learn how to do it myself. (If I learn how to fillet then I can help him with the time-consuming job of filleting every time we have fish for dinner.) He talked me through the process and it goes smoothly and without injury. I am delighted to learn a new skill.”

After dinner we discussed our plan of action. Laco was outvoted on his suggestion to break camp and try to paddle for a few hours (perhaps until 11pm) as the wind had dropped slightly in the evening. He now felt always outvoted, as in the provincial elections, but everyone else felt well ensconced and well fed in our desperation camp.

Jenny: “After dinner Laco wanted to leave camp and start moving because the wind had dropped slightly. He wanted to take the Western route which offered very little protection from the wind. We only had a couple hours of daylight and camp was fully setup. By the time we would break camp and start we wouldn’t have much daylight at all and there were still whitecaps against us. I understood Laco’s desire to get moving, but I didn’t think we’d get very far tonight and sheltered camp spots are not easy to find. In the end, Laco is out-voted. I suggest an early start and Laco gets everyone to agree to go without taking the time for hot coffee and hot water in the morning. We then pack the group shelter and the kitchen. We organize ourselves and then turn in, prepared for an early start.”

The weather forecast received via our InReach called for less wind the next day, so the plan was for a 4am “get-up-and-go”. Hmmm... we shall see how that goes... Easterly wind forecasts for Payne lake had us all worried. It was cold and damp, feet were very cold. To bed at 9pm.

Desperation Camp at km 399.5 after 0 km

July 24 – The Hope of a Newly Discovered Creek

It rained all night. Up at 4am and packing up in the drizzle, as the wind had dropped a lot and had now switched to “with us” instead of “against us” - Yay! L&L passed out protein bars and we were on the water at 5:20am. This is our fastest start yet. It was gray with low clouds and visibility of maybe 200m. The wind now encouraged us forward a little. Showers on and off all day long today. We were now about to traverse the “gray zone” between Lac Barvilier and Payne Lake that we had pored over many times on satellite maps in the months before leaving.

A different Route:

Laco had discovered an alternate route on the map, more west than the original plan, and it seemed to make more sense – we would follow a tiny creek (we called this “Muran Creek”) draining into the western side of the lake and pond-hop up it, instead of attempting the eastern route taken by the 1990 expedition which appeared to involve less creeking and more portaging between small lakes. It turned out to be a good plan - we found the going pretty easy. We were able to paddle or walk up many small rapids and only had to do four portages (430, 260, 200 and 110 m) where the creek was really too small and gnarly to drag or haul. The first portage came as the creek finally narrowed and dropped steeply over shallow rocks for about 300 meters as it tumbled into the 4km long Saltburn Lake. This would have been a portage even going downstream. This led to a big clover leaf shaped lake (Igitsaup Niqinga). A rocky stream connected this lake to the next, necessitating a tough but short little portage through knee/waist high willows. Tikiraujaq Lake was framed by a nice escarpment.

The creek connecting to Johnson Lake was relatively wide and shallow, with big rocks parting the swift current. Whilst the others scouted a portage route, Chris and Jenny hit it dead on, poling, hauling and paddling up, convincing the others to abandon their thoughts of portaging. The creek got smaller as it connected to Tiggaq Lake, which is heralded by a small triangular white rock standing on an erratic as if marking the way. We had lunch with the mosquitoes at the rock. A really small stream necessitating a short portage now connected us with the more easterly HACC 1990 route. There were falcon and hawk nests in the cliffs surrounding the lakes – a falcon screeched as Lee approached to take photographs. We finally reached a tiny, narrow waterway choked with willows that led into Sukkuangajuq Lake, near the height of land (HOL). Chris wanted to keep going, but was outvoted by the tired crew (Laco isn't the only one to be outvoted!).

We camped by the lake and the bugs came out in force to welcome us. Ate hot chili with quinoa and some headed to bed ready for another early start tomorrow – finally the height of land!! Laco, Jenny and Chris went for a long reconnaissance hike as thunderstorms threatened, but Laco had to retreat as he did not want to soak his only dry footwear (again).

The continuation of Muran creek looked hopeless – almost no water, and we would have ended up in a lake requiring a portage through one of three boulder strewn ravines to reach the penultimate lake of the HOL portage route, Tursaq Lake. As the light faded, disappointed, they turned around and chose what seemed to be a more direct route back to camp. On top of a small hill, Chris got momentarily disoriented – in fact he felt completely lost. His mind raced. OMG, we may have to spend the night out here with the bugs! This was full bug net territory. The scouting mission had gone much further than originally planned and they had not brought a GPS, compass or maps. Thankfully Jenny seemed to have a better sense of direction – she crested the next ridge and spotted the tiny tents in the distance.

On returning to camp close to midnight, Chris crawled into Laco’s tent to report on the scouting.

He agreed with Laco that a direct portage line towards Payne Lake would probably be the best route. Rats - a big portage loomed. In fact, there seemed to be what looked like a line of ancient inuksuit along the ridge leading directly towards the big lake, probably for the same reason. Late that night we got an interesting message, via our InReach, from Michael Peake, a member of the 1990 expedition, telling us to watch for the peregrine falcons on the cliffs on the lake we had just left. It is very strange being able to communicate with civilization like this. And comforting to know that the falcon nest is still occupied after all these years!

High Lake Camp at km 374 after 25.5 km

July 25 – The Height of Land (aka “Inconsiderate Day”)

This morning there was another misunderstanding. The original plan had been to get up early and continue creeking.

Everyone had slept through the planned 4am wake-up, but Chris and Laco got up at 5am and decided to let the crew sleep a little longer as they knew that the day would bring a big portage, and went back to bed. The wake up was re-set for 7am with a cold breakfast, then the portage. At that time, emerging from her tent, Iva approached the rest of the group pretty upset, calling Laco inconsiderate and expressing her feeling of being “excluded from decision making”. A further complaint was “I don’t understand why we can’t have a hot breakfast and coffee”. At this point we are three days behind schedule, and facing a grueling portage.

Some of us had been up late scouting to help make the route decision, while Iva had been sleeping. So this accusation leveled at Laco upset Chris, so he had to defend his buddy who was just trying to get us to the end of the trip on schedule and is one of the most considerate people he knows. Ahhh – group dynamics again - under stressful, exhausting conditions – brings out both the best and the worst in anybody. With some diplomatic intervention to smooth things over, we grouped up behind the lee of a big erratic rock for cold granola, then loaded up and were on the water by 7:30am.

We had about 200m of paddling to get to the start of the portage. The eastern part of Sukkuangajuq Lake is quite shallow at a narrowing and required a bit of a push/walk over to get to the far shore. The portage was up and then down a slope littered with erratics, dry rocky ponds and stands of bush.

Big swells bobbed us up & down, but the smooth water looked like mercury, reflecting the threatening sky. We wore raincoats but did not get rained on. We paddled for five hours and 22 km before we called it quits, but it took about another hour to find a campsite. This would become a recurring theme on Payne Lake – there are not many good campsites. Low water, wind and rocky shallow shores made landing difficult but finally, after several negotiations, Chris found a suitable flattish mossy point. Iva made chili and Lee shared a flask of Irish whisky that he'd saved for our “height of land crossing celebration”. Even Jenny shared in the drink!

After the big morning portage, Laco christened L & L’s barrels Heavy Bastard (food) and Light Bastard (kitchen stuff). Chris had already christened Jenny’s heavy barrel the Cheese Barrel, as it contained all of Lee’s cheeses.

He could have opened a cheese shop on the shores of Payne Lake - we think he had about 25 different types. Lucky for us, he was generous in his sharing of them & they were worth the carrying. Now we understood why she kept offering others yummy cheese for lunch - to lighten her barrel!

West Payne Lake Camp at km 350 after 24 km

July 26 – Wind-bound on Payne Lake

Jenny: “The wind picked up and blew like crazy all night. Iva and I went down to the shore and carried rocks back up to place over the tent and shelter stakes. There were white caps rolling across the lake and waves crashing onto our shore. We go back to bed thinking that we may have a wind-bound day.”

The wind started howling overnight and the surf is now surging. It is so noisy! With very heavy wind and wild waves crashing against our shore, there is no way we could even launch the canoes, never mind paddling into the headwind. We were so happy thinking that the rest of the trip will be “all downhill from here!” and should be easy, and, yet again, we find ourselves wind-bound. We are now wind-bound every third day on average.

It was a gnarly night with the wind howling through our 4 am planned wake-up. Iva came to L&L’s tent at 6am and claimed it was less windy and paddle-able. Laco put his contacts in and dressed, but meanwhile Iva came back and said that it is now too windy. So we slept in longer, Laco with his contacts in, and finally climbed out of the tent around 10am. We packed slowly as the wind dropped a little. It looked somewhat okay, except for the surf breaking along the boulder shoreline. At 1pm we finally dared to go for it.

Jenny: “Waves were still rolling in and we scouted out possible loading/launching sites. People seemed to be in slow motion. We should launch quickly before the wind and waves build. Everyone had put their spray-decks on the night before so we just had to load the boats. We all helped L&L load and launch first and they hung just offshore waiting as Chris and I helped Lee and Iva load and launch and then we do the same. By the time it is our turn the waves were much bigger and it was more difficult, but we managed. I’m sure glad that I had my dry suit on. Finally we were paddling again and we were in lumpy water. I felt like I should have been in a sea kayak not a canoe.”

Loading and launching was a dicey operation but once out in the swells the spray-decked canoes were quite seaworthy as we quartered into the east headwind. L&L soon disposed of their wood pole (they just threw it unceremoniously into Payne Lake) because it didn’t fit on top of the spray-deck without hindering their paddling. It had served them well on the upstream leg, and we had intended to bring it as a present to Jusipi in Kangirsuk, but the spraydeck made it impossible to stash it.

As we cut south, sheltered behind a big island, Chris spotted a hawk nest on top of a huge, tall erratic, with 3 almost-fledged chicks. We stopped and hiked up to have a look. The fledglings looked down at us with what seemed like real attitude; very cool. We ate lunch on a smaller island before slogging into the wind to cross to the south shore of the lake. Big swells had us all bobbing up and down but we were facing into the biggest waves and could brace or change our angle for the biggest ones. With hard paddling, we made what seemed like slow headway but managed almost 3 km/h. By 5:30pm we had done about 12 km which wasn’t bad, considering the conditions. Most of us agreed to go a little further, but after rounding the next point, the wind really picked up – we were now down to about 1 km/h, making it imperative to find a campsite, which thankfully we did. It was a serviceable spot, somewhat sheltered, but no more than that.

At least there was a nice sunset, and Laco fried up a lot mushrooms that we found around the tents. We anxiously awaited the next weather forecast via our InReach – but it was for continuing easterlies, meaning we would have to continue fighting our way across Payne Lake. Groan... whatever happened to the “prevailing” westerlies?! Not on Ungava! Otherwise the weather was great with occasional sunshine and a few showers. Jenny and Chris hiked up the ridge behind camp to check out a big lake. They spotted Iva doing what looked like a pagan contortionist ritual on top of a hill… yoga perhaps?

Central Payne Lake Camp at km 338 after 12 km

July 28 – Decision Day

Woke up to - what else but wind - from the NE, but only (!) at 30-50km/h. But.. there was beautiful sunshine with a blue sky and puffy clouds. Laco was up at 6:30 am for breakfast, but Iva already had coffee on. We were on the water at 9am and immediately fighting the headwinds, managing about 2 km/h. As we were on the south shore and the wind was from the NE, the waves are constantly trying to push us onto shore where they were pounding the rocks. Somewhat scary. We would hug the shore as close as we dared, looking for any wind shelter we could, paddle for about an hour, make our 2 km, then stop to let our muscles recuperate. At our lunch stop, a very cute and curious ermine darted all around us, staring for a few seconds between diving under rocks. He had a beautiful yellow-brown coat with a white flash on his chest. I can guarantee you that this little fellow had never seen a human before!

Iva is really not happy to have to be fighting nature (the wind). Nobody else is either, but she keeps saying “I see no point in going on”. Finally at one rest stop, as we walked the hills along the shore, soaking in the incredible vista, she stated that she did not want to continue in these conditions. She wanted to wait the wind out, even suggesting that we paddle at night. Iva is a western arctic paddler, used to 24 hour light and better weather than what you usually get in Ungava. Barring perhaps the northern tip of Labrador, the Ungava peninsula is unique in Canada for its geography. Although we were below the Arctic Circle, at around 60 degrees of latitude, it juts into three frigid bodies of water (Henry Hudson’s Bay, The Straight of Hudson, and Ungava Bay) that play havoc with the weather, forcing the treeline considerably further south than anywhere else in Canada. The landscape is tundra and there are only, on average, 25 frost free days per year, with conditions more brutal than the further north Alaska or the Yukon. Ungava Storms are legendary, as is the wind. At this point, it was obvious to most of us that this wind was not guaranteed to stop anytime soon, and often actually picked up during the night; this latter finding and the fact that it gets pitch black when the clouds are low would make any extended paddling at night potentially suicidal.

So here we were, less than half way to our final destination with eleven and a half days to go (out of our five weeks), and we were contemplating remaining “wind-bound” again. Lee had taken an extra week of vacation in order to be able to go on this trip – he had told us that he HAD to be back at work on schedule. Chris also had no choice but to be back at work on schedule. As they were the only two on strict deadlines (Laco had said that his work wouldn’t kill him if he was late), Chris took Lee aside and laid out the options. If we were to stop and wait out the wind, it could take days before we were paddling again, and it would be highly unlikely that we could make Kangirsuk by August 10^th. What would probably happen then is that we would have to call for a twin otter pickup somewhere on the banks of the Payne river at a cost of around $8,000. Since there were only two of us on deadlines, that cost would be split only two ways. But that’s not what bothered Chris. He wanted to complete this trip as planned, not meekly fly out before reaching Ungava Bay. Lee also stated that he would like to complete the trip as planned but was otherwise quiet and non-committal. Chris then called everyone together and addressed the group. He explained that he and Lee had deadlines - they cannot be late reaching Kangirsuk. He explained the situation, where we were, how many days we had left, what the options were – waiting out the wind followed by a probable twin otter pickup on the Payne River, or splitting the group – those who wished to push would go, and the others could wait it out. We had 50 km of big lake travel followed by 280 km of river. A three-day push into this wind could have Chris and Lee off the lake in three days (1-2km/h x 12 hours/day should do it), leaving eight days to shoot the river (which we were hoping would be possible, even though we had very little information on the river as it has only been paddled a few times previously in modern times from Payne lake). But he made it very clear that it was unfair of him to ask everyone else to do the same thing, because, after all, this was a vacation. So he was not going to be inconsiderate and ask anyone else to push.

Lynette responded: “That’s fair. I’m willing to push. But I am not willing to push doing zero kilometers an hour”.

Chris said: “Neither am I. And if that happens, we’ll stop and rest, and when the wind drops, then we’ll push. And we’ll do it at midnight if we have to. But it’s unfair to ask other people to do that.”

Lynette commented, “I personally would prefer to stay as a group and if we’ve got to bust our asses, we’ve got to bust our asses”.

Chris replied, “I hope we stay as a group and we finish on schedule and accomplish something, but I know that not everybody is into busting their ass because it’s their vacation, so…what does everyone else want to do?”.

Lee wanted to keep the group together, and wait another day before making any decision to split the group. Jenny and Laco wanted to stay together and push. Laco really does not like being behind schedule. Iva didn’t say anything at all. So this time, it was Iva who was out-voted.

So, with the “election campaign” over, the majority vote was to stay together for now and keep working as hard as we can to make up time. We headed back to the canoes to continue, but Iva had wandered up the hill by herself. Lee went to talk to her, and she slowly wandered back to her canoe without saying a word. So we paddled hard into the heavy headwind. And yes it was tough - certainly nobody's idea of a vacation. Chris too would like to be lying in the shelter of a rock and soaking in the sun, but if we wanted to finish this trip, it was simple, we needed to go. Rounding every little point was a struggle - muscles were exploding with pain.

We finally pulled into a pretty little sheltered area (“Sandy Cove”) for a shore dinner at 5pm at the narrowing before the lake bends south. Cheese and crackers, taco soup, fried mushrooms, tea. It was obvious everyone was exhausted. Lynette stumbled while fetching water and fell on the rocks but fortunately her lifejacket absorbed the impact on her ribs, so she suffered only bruises and a torn raincoat, not more serious injury. When Chris saw this accident, he felt guilty having pushed the group into doing perhaps something that was becoming dangerous. Maybe we should give in to mother nature, wait it out and call for an plane pick-up before Kangirsuk. He had a private word with Lynette and told her that perhaps it was the wrong decision to push - in our exhausted state - someone may get seriously hurt. But Lynette is tough, she replied, “No, I'm OK and I want to continue”.

The wind seemed to drop a little so we headed back into the lake at about 8pm. We had decided to cross to the north shore at this narrowing, as the lake was less than a kilometer wide at this point, to try and get some shore protection from the wind. Someone must have been listening to our prayers as the wind suddenly dropped to a breeze, making the crossing rather easy, and actually quite beautiful as the sun started to set. The colours out on the lake were absolutely gorgeous: the cloudy sky changed from glowing yellow, through flourescent orange, then blended it's way to a deep, rich violet. We made good time along the north shore, so decided to risk crossing two big bays in one shot to save hours of paddling. It was 3 km of open water as the crow flies instead of maybe 6-7 km by following the shoreline.

July 30 – Vikings!

It started to rain soon after retiring to the tents, continuing until morning, and the wind blew hard all night long. The rain for the first time ever started dripping into Chris’ tent - it was time for a re-waterproofing - it had received a good pounding on this trip so far. In retrospect, it had been a good decision to stop and camp where we did. We had a slow breakfast and then were on the water after 11am in the wind and rain. It was cold. It rained all day long with the wind in our faces, as usual, but the wind was “only” moderate now. L&L were glad to have their double waterproof layer of drysuit and raincoat. Jenny was in her bombproof black drysuit as usual. Some of the others were getting soaked through and hypothermic. We stopped regularly to stay close together in the limited visibility.

We were now on a mission looking for the Norse sites. We somehow didn’t find the Gauthier site but did find Bernier (at least we think it was Bernier, if not it was a new unmarked site). But the crown jewel was the Cartier site and it was on the south shore, about a kilometer away. It would mean a nasty, windy, wet, cold crossing, and Iva did not want to attempt it. Lee, Laco and Chris looked at each other and there was no question that we were going to cross and find this site that we had all been longing to explore. So off we went. The site was quite impressive. The main feature is a rather large rectangular stone foundation that is definitely not Inuit. We took pictures of it in the rain.

Lynette discovered the remains of the old red canoe used by Thomas Lee, as described in his journal. We sheltered under a thicket of unusually tall, gnarled willows for a quick soggy lunch. It was theorized that this ancient willow thicket could have provided long and strong enough branches to support a roof structure on the small longhouses. We wished we had better weather to visit this ancient, mysterious site. We hiked a little further east to see the Black Spruce archaeological site. From a practical point of view, it was easy to see why one would build a village here – it was a nice flat grassy site, as opposed to most of the shoreline of this lake. But it was a few kilometers from where the lake ends and where the caribou cross on their migration routes.

“Paddle hard or die” is written on one of Laco’s headbands. It proved appropriate here. The only way to stay warm in this kind of weather is to shelter under the cockpit spray-deck cover and paddle hard. The wind slowly dropped as we approached the end of the lake marked by a strong swift. It seemed to us that we have experienced the “Curse of Payne Lake” – it is extremely windy but only when we are on the lake! Exactly when we hit a strong downstream current (finally!), the wind dropped. There is another archaeological site here, the Michea site, right on the north shore where the lake ends. It is very different (of a different culture?) than the Cartier site. It has few stone structures, but many obviously man-made deep depressions. It is a nice grassy site that would be good for camping, hunting and fishing. Right on cue, a small herd of caribou entered the river about 50 meters from us and swam south, obviously migrating already. We collected many mushrooms and puffballs here.

Everyone is relieved that we have made it off the lake – we had done the last 50 km of the lake in three days - as we had hoped to. We are now looking forward to the downstream paddle and getting to Kangirsuk on time, although we are still well behind Laco’s original schedule. But we did have hope…we had the 1990 HACC expedition Che-Mun article where they described shooting the Payne in one day less than what we have left. However, we are also still at the mercy of the weather - right then, the unrelenting rain had us all soaked and cold... or cold and soaked. We continued downstream, with the current helping us along, up to 10 km/h. Miraculously, we saw group of cabins and what passed for a twin otter airstrip on the left shore ahead! Was this a mirage? No, it was the Payne Lake Lodge camp (oddly, many kilometers from Payne Lake), whose website we had discovered beforehand on the internet, although none of us had been able to find its exact co-ordinates. Wordlessly and in unison we descended on the camp hoping it was in good enough shape that we could expropriate it for the night. Lee was hypothermic again, and no-one (except maybe Jenny in her bomber suit) was comfortable.

We had to strip clothes off at this point, standing on the tallest rocks trying to catch the breeze to shake the bugs, and switch to “hot weather bug gear” as it was now quite warm. The next section went through a small gully engulfed in tall willows and was perhaps the trickiest section. When the canoes were portaged through, all you could see were the canoes seemingly floating above the green bushes. This led to a really pretty, flat open area, elevated so that the breeze kept the bugs at least out of our faces. Looking carefully, we found some really old stone tent rings! Again, the nicest areas we find on this trip were obviously the places that the original inhabitants of this land also found the best. Several of us stopped and had lunch here.

Then there was another push through more dwarf birch with uneven footing. With three carries necessary to carry all our gear, it was pretty difficult to find the same route each time. The last section was a boulder field. Chris and Jenny had had enough at this point and took their gear down to the river to run the bottom 300m section of the river, close to where the Ajapriqvik River joins the Payne from the south. Lee and Iva had gone a little further down, but followed suit. Poor L&L had taken some gear right to the bottom of the rapid already and had to finish the whole distance through the boulders and down the steep bank.

There was quite a bit of wildlife on this portage: There were caribou running back and forth and lots of geese, with the parents abandoning the goslings hoping we would follow them instead. Lynette, on a slightly more inland 'shortcut' on one trip back, walked over a rise and came face-to-face with a beautiful white wolf 30-50 m away. Startled, both took off in opposite directions and when Lynette mustered the courage to take another look over the rise, she saw two, then four, then six of them in the distance, all running off downriver. The portage took us between 11 am and 4 pm. If you got off the caribou trail in the brush sections it was tough going - thank you, caribou, for showing us the way! Laco felt like Lynette saved his life when she went back to help him find the trail when he was carrying the canoe on his third pass, semi-blinded by the rolled up spray-deck.

It was almost too dark to see, but definitely a dark bear silhouette against the water about 50 m away. We shot off a banger and it ran away and disappeared. We cleaned up camp and put pots on the food packs, and Lee set up his motion detector alarm. Chris shot off another banger because he had some old ones and he wanted to test them. Or maybe just for fun.

Jenny: “Chris cut a hole in the top of his spray deck and rigged a camera mount to the right side in front of him. The plan was to shoot video in the rapids (tomorrow). Iva pointed out Northern lights. They were just a few small green streaks in the sky. I have never seen Northern lights before so I felt pretty lucky.”

Camp Persistent Bear at km 254.5 after 23 km

August 1 - Paradise

The bear did not disturb us overnight but it had hung around – Chris was woken up by Jenny telling the bear to “go away”. It was circling our camp. It was a beautiful hot sunny day. The water temperature wasn't horrendously cold, so no-one wore drysuits. We headed down the river at around 9:50 am, easy paddling. There was no sign of life for the first hour or so, then we started to see caribou swimming the river and loping along the hills. Moms and babes and yearlings mostly, running from the bugs along the shore. Their migration south must have started. The caribou separate into different herds, either mostly males or females with calves. L&L and Lee were naughty, chasing several caribou for close-ups of them exiting the water.

The caribou were so close we could see their eyes bulging and their nostrils flare as they swam. It was obviously “rush hour” on the Payne River, but perhaps we needed “traffic lights” as we had to change course to avoid many of them! The calves swam nose to tail with their mothers & were 'sucked along' in their wake. Eventually there were so many swimmers that we stopped being intrigued by them. They were crossing single, or in small family groups of two or three.

Current Assist

After a few hours of relatively flat water with good current, the horizon line dropped as the river snaked to the left, although the map showed only “rocks”. This turned out be a very enjoyable, fun 5-6 km class 2 rapid that just seemed to keep going. Chris almost felt like portaging back up so he could re-run it.

Jenny: “ We were moving downstream toward a big rock with a hole and a wave. I’m paddling in the bow trying to change lanes but I don’t seem to be moving very fast. I yell out, “Are you with me?” (MEANING… Are you paddling with me?) Chris says, “Yes, I’m with you.” (MEANING… Of course I’m with you, I’m sitting right here in the back of the boat.) So, I’m in high gear paddling to move the boat and Chris is still working with his cameras. Finally he picks up his paddle and sees the rock and wave. At this point I’m yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” But we don’t completely clear the edge and a wave comes over the front side dousing me good. I realized that I hadn’t clarified my paddling specific communications. We’d been paddling for about a month together and I had forgotten to talk about downriver running communication and just assumed we were speaking the same language. So we talked about communications and cleared things up. No harm was done and we were able to laugh about my mis-communication. We then hit some super fun rapids that ran for about 5 km.

Jenny: “As the temperature climbed we took layers off. While I paddled our boat downstream, Chris washed his t-shirt. It went so well, he also washed his woolly socks (for the first time) and hangs them on the deck to dry. It is a good day to do laundry since everything is drying fast.”

Chris was still trying his luck with fishing, but no bites at all. Far ahead, Lynette got really sleepy waiting, so laid back in the canoe and fell asleep while Laco paddled and drifted, taking photos, waiting for the others to catch up. We landed to scout a very scenic class 3 rapid at km 159.5 when a caribou suddenly appeared right beside Lynette, 3-4 meters away, hesitated, then cluttered into the water, plunging in to swim across a small bay. We ran the rapid on the right side at the top and river left at the bottom.

The river has lots of current, with long sections of constant gradient. It is relatively shallow and the riverbed flies by fast. Campsites are now very hard to find – the shoreline either too steep, or thick with dwarf birch, and the flatter “grassy” spots are actually swamps. Chris finally found a flat spot on the left bank above a muddy flat with dry tent spots and zillions of caribou and bear tracks. A single cloud rained on us briefly as we were setting up camp. Lee, Chris, Laco and Jenny went for a hike up the ridge behind the camp for some nice views and were joined by lots of bugs. Back in camp, something barked at us like a dog, but we were still 150km from civilization so it was no dog. Through the binoculars we could see that it was a rusty brown wolf, watching us warily in the fading light from about 100m. We may still get to Kangirsuk on time if both the river and the weather continue to co-operate.

Camp Mud Flat at km 152 after 56 km

August 3 - Too Hot In Ungava?

Awoke in the hot tent to bright sunshine at 6:30am, the temperature outside the tents was up to 15°C by 10am. Lee managed to make us a complicated breakfast quickly, so we were on the water by 8 am. At breakfast Lee said he could clearly hear Laco talking in his tent between 4 and 6 am, but Laco denied it was him.

We decided to hike up the hill behind us after lunch, but this plan was quickly aborted as Lynette warned Iva as she was approaching a rise that there was a bear coming at her from the other side of it. Iva beat a hasty retreat. The young bear with a heart-shaped white chest patch stopped dead when it topped the rise and saw us, scampered off, then turned around to approach again, lifting his nose to the air, trying to scent us. It would curiously come towards us, sniff and paw the air, come a little closer… until Lee used a banger to chase him off. It zig-zagged downwind, still trying to catch our scent, then broke into a more earnest retreat as it finally got downwind of us. Now we did not want to leave our canoes unattended, especially with fish in them, so we paddled a short distance farther downstream and went on a gorgeous hike there - 850 m almost straight up from the river. Great panoramas! It was fun to see far up and down the river. And Laco just had to build a large monument overlooking the river.

A long paddle followed into a light or no breeze, with sunshine alternating with clouds. Again we had trouble finding a campsite along the steep gorge we were in. The hilltops are barren scoured rock. No caribou today, but three bears and tons of berries. A few cabins are now starting to appear by the river, most of them derelict. We finally see a small cluster of cabins just before a big rapid at km 70 (one of them belongs to Jusipi, as we were to learn later). All were actually locked except for one that had quite a lot of bear damage. One had a satellite dish. There wasn’t much good camping here, it was flat but quite wet, but we stopped anyway as we didn’t want to tackle the rapid that late in the day.

As we got in the canoes to take them to the tent sites, Jenny discovered the “hand of justice” by her seat in the canoe… Laco had found a purple latex glove stuffed with dirt and had planted it in her cockpit. Creepy. We still don’t know why it was there.

From Jenny: “During the Hand of Justice day, I recorded that I returned from scouting for tent spots to find a rubber glove filled with tiny rocks tied off to my paddle. I accused Chris of putting it there. He looked guilty! Laco hollers out from his boat, "You have been dealt the Hand of Justice!" Laco then burst into laughter and laughed enough to warm up again.”

After setting up camp, Iva had some sort of meltdown and acted strange, retreating to her tent and skipping dinner. Lynette went and talked with her and then took her dinner to her tent for her, saying she just needed some time on her own. The rest of us huddled in the cook shelter and talked about plans for the following day and about the tides. The Payne becomes tidal about 60 km upstream from the bay, and Ungava tides are some of the highest and strongest on the planet - rivaling the Bay of Fundy for world records. We were guessing what the tides would be based on tide tables from the bay itself, not from where we were. We simply didn’t know how much the tides were delayed so far up the river. From past experience, we knew we needed to approach cautiously so we could see and experience the tide level.

The decision was to be on the water at around 10 am to tackle the big tidal rapids as close to high tide as we could calculate from the tables that we had. From there, we would try to reach “The Beautiful Campsite” that L&L had discovered on their Vachon/Payne trip several years before. The tables predicted we would be okay for the tidal rapids, but prognosis did not look good for accessing the campsite – they said high tide would be there well past 9 pm, which would mean bad access if we got there in daylight. Anything but high tide would mean an ugly, slippery, muddy portage through the tidal flats to get to the campsite.

The river has been wide and lake-like with little or no current for the last hundred kilometers or so now. Headwinds would have really slowed us down if we had run into them. Rapids here have been few but relatively long and easy, mostly scoutable from the canoes.

Locked Cabins Camp at km 70 after 32.5 km

August 5 – “Fun” With The Tide = More “Lemons”

We had (another) slow morning, on the water at 11 am. We had lots of fun running the big rapids at the campsite mainly on river left. Chris is amazed that Jenny always finds a dry line, meaning he will have no good videos of splashy waves from the camera attached to the canoe. Rats, no drama.

We stopped briefly at the Vachon River confluence, which is ugly as there are lots of cabins here, all deserted. We filled our containers with fresh water, just to be safe, as we are not sure when the water will become salty, and one never knows where we could get stranded. We were at the big tidal rapids now. We were trying to time it so that it was high tide, which would mean that the rapids would turn into a mere swift with no significant drop. With our tide tables, Laco had predicted that 11:30 am would be high tide, so off we went down the middle of the rapids. It turned out that the tide was actually almost two thirds out….so there were a few surprises, especially for L&L leading the way. It ended up being a class 3 / 4 rapid and the lead canoe ended up paddling over some pretty big ledges, aiming at the last minute for the biggest waves below them as a signal that that was where the water was flowing through. Chris, in the last canoe, started to worry when he saw L&L’s canoe disappear temporarily, but, of course, Jenny found the dry line with a little help from L&L’s pioneering work and frantic signals to take a safer route where their paddles were pointing. The other canoeists owe L&L some beer…

These upriver tide calculations are always off for us. We again threw our “estimates” of tidal offset this high up the river out the window. We stopped soon after at km 58, in a nice little sheltered bay on the left side of the river, beside a small rapid which got bonier as we watched (L&L had stopped here for lunch in 2010 on their Vachon River expedition as well). The weather was gorgeous, warm and sunny with a nice breeze to keep the bugs off. We ate lunch, washed ourselves and our laundry – things dried fast in the sun and wind - and napped, waiting for the tide to start rising again. We would just have to wait and go when the tide looked close to being high.

We tied the canoes to rocks, so they would not float away if we were off doing something else when the tide started to come in. Jenny and Chris, later followed by Laco, hiked up the five hundred foot cliffs behind the river to be treated to tremendous views of the now kilometer-wide Payne River as it bent east towards the coast. Very impressive.

Turning 180 degrees, the view was more desolate - a windswept bare gray plateau strewn with endless boulders and small ponds as it faded into the horizon. Back at the canoes, the tide had started to rise but the wind stiffened from the east. When the rapid disappeared, drowned by the rising tide, it was time to go. We launched at 3:30 pm but now we were paddling into a strong headwind, and with the tide still rising it felt as if we were going upstream again. It was almost too much to take after our trials on Payne Lake – we were so close to the end, things had been going so well, and now here we were battling the wind and big waves again. We struggled to make 1 km/h, the shoreline looking static. Two kilometers later, after crossing a bay, we made it to the north shore of the river again and landed exhausted at a nice beach that would have made a gorgeous campsite. There were some pretty good arguments as to whether we should stay there and camp, or continue. Laco was not happy with this stop, because it cost us one precious hour. As we were arguing, we noticed that the tide had turned, and actually started to go out, so the “the let’s go for it” side won and we jumped into the canoes. We were still paddling against the wind, but without the tide hindering us, and somewhat sheltered close to the shore, we made good time.

We paddled right by a beautiful big bear who was lazing on the rocks just above the tide line. It looked tired, staring at us with his head resting on his paws, then stuck out its long pink tongue and yawned, observing us but really ignoring us. We also paddled by some really amazing rock formations jutting right out of the river – pink rocks with linear colourful bands through them.

We reached the campsite that Laco had told us to aim for…”The Beautiful Campsite” - at 7:45 pm. Looking from the canoe, Chris and Jenny wondered where the actual campsite was – all we could see was steep bluffs. There was a “one-canoe-nook” on the steep shore where one canoe at a time could unload. We had to be quick, as you could see the water receding off the rocks as the tide went out. The first twenty feet or so was very slick rock, requiring a lot of care to unload. We team-carried the canoes up about a hundred feet from the river to a protected spot and tied them off. Then it took us a while to portage all our camp gear up the cliffs to the actual campsite. We measured by GPS that the campsite is actually 37 vertical meters above the river, but the site is beautiful and protected, with a small waterfall as a fresh water source. Not that we had time to enjoy the beauty, as it got dark soon after setting up the tents. Lynette cooked up chili as it got dark, then used L&L's little solar “Luci light” in the cook shelter so we could all see what we were eating.

“Luci” was actually quite bright and worked very well, making a little glowing oasis in the cliffs for us all to gather in so we could celebrate L&L’s 9th Anniversary with Tatra tea and a candle. Went to sleep exhausted.

By our observation, the tide seems to be delayed where we were (52km from Kangirsuk) by 1.5 hours from the bay (Agvik Island, which is 12 km downstream from Kangirsuk).

The Beautiful Campsite aka “Camp Cliffs” at km 47.5 after 22.5 km

August 6 – The Hammer of Thor

Now that we had the tides figured out, we knew we had to get up early in order to launch on the next high tide. So we were up at 5:30 in a calm cloudy morning and on the water at 6:30 am with a granola and protein bar breakfast.

We really didn’t have any time to enjoy our “beautiful” campsite. It was a challenge to load the canoes on the steep, slippery rocks. We had a windless paddle down flat water and swifts - easy and gentle at high tide. We passed the deserted Payne River Outfitters on the right bank. We haven’t seen another human being since our airplane dropped us on the tundra near the Polemond River on the Hudson Bay side, but, since yesterday, we have been seeing a small plane flying back and forth over the river - probably flying supplies into mining camps. We saw two seals, one small, one quite big, splashing and jumping around the canoes. The big one was curious, it’s large head popping up to look at us, then it completely disappeared. The sea bed flew by under our canoes, with sea weed and long strands of kelp floating by.

After four hours we reached our next campsite, the “Hammer of Thor”, landing at about 10:30 am. The tide was half out by now, meaning a mucky portage up to the campsite taking about an hour. We had lunch and set up camp. Everyone is in awe of the Hammer of Thor itself. It is a massive ten foot high rectangular stone standing on flat bouldery ground. It has a two foot stone balanced transversely on top, with several other small stones standing on the ends of this transverse stone. This monument is not a traditional inukshuk, and is thought to not be of Inuit origin. Thomas E. Lee had postulated that it was a Viking “hammer” or cross, left as a marker for others that may have followed up to Payne Lake. We had a hard time imagining anyone going upstream to Payne Lake from here – this river would be tough to ascend, with long rapids and lots of strong current. Certainly the Vikings would have trouble sailing one of their longships up it, but we like the idea.

Jenny, Chris and Laco went hiking up the hills behind the campsite, meandering to the Qurlutukallak Waterfall to the east, climbing down the falls and returning to the camp by the coast.

Jenny: “Laco was a great guide on our hike at the Hammer of Thor Camp. He was mysterious about our destination and wouldn’t tell us where we were going or what we would see. He led Chris and I to hidden lakes and to a stream that had clear little pools which then traveled down the hillside into a series of magnificent waterfalls. This was a hidden treasure!”

The hikers brought back a nice big pile of mushrooms. Meanwhile Lee was immersed in his kite photography, Lynette and Iva picked blueberries and Lynette inspected tidal pools. It was a nice relaxed afternoon in the sunshine with a cool breeze off the river. Another day in paradise. We cooked up a feast – Jenny’s curry & rice, Iva’s berry apple crisp and Lynette’s blueberry bannock. Then we cleaned up the monument, restoring it to its 1970 appearance using Thomas Lee’s photographs as a guide. Unfortunately someone had defaced the Hammer by adding rocks to it, and the whole area was scattered with garbage.

We have to get up early the next morning to catch the high tide to avoid the mucky portage. If the weather holds we will try to make Kangirsuk on the outgoing tide. There is a big Kuuraq Bay to cross to get to our destination so we prayed that the wind would stay benign.

Hammer of Thor Camp at km 23.5 after 24 km

August 7 –The End – Landing in Kangirsuk

We were on the water early, around 6:30 am. We stopped at the Qurlutukallak Waterfall and squeezed our 3 canoes one by one into the crevasse under the falls. The early morning paddle was beautiful, with an orange sky reflecting off the water as smooth as glass.

Several hats, mugs, etc. were bought as souvenirs. We searched and inquired for any local art, but none was found.

We walked around the town. There are two sections – the newer eastern section with a co-op store, the school and the arena. The older section is across the bay, on the west side. There are three very old Hudson’s Bay white buildings with red roofs, in varying states of dilapidation. It is fun to see them in Rousseau’s 1948 film, when they were in all their glory. It is also interesting to see the reception his group received back then – they had quite the party! Things are VERY different now.

The old buildings are next to the relatively new Northern Store, the last remnant of the old Hudson’s Bay trading network in the north. We had a nice long chat with the couple managing the store. He was originally from Newfoundland, and she from New Brunswick. They had managed other stores before, including in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, then on one of the reserves in northern Saskatchewan.

They said they liked it best in Kangirsuk with the Inuit (even though they had trouble hiring any local help – they said the villagers were just not interested in any long term work) because the level of crime and violence just doesn’t compare to what they witnessed in the “Indian” communities. They told us some horror stories from their previous postings.

We then visited Jusipi at his house. He was in the back fish drying shed. It was windless, hot and sunny, he was sweating as he expertly filleted his char, sliced the fleshdown to the skin, and hung them to dry with an electric fan blowing on them. He had to use the fan to dry the fish quickly as there was no wind to dry them, and the heat would otherwise quickly spoil them. He said he hated this weather – too hot. We tried some of the dried fish (even Jenny did) – it was chewy and delicious. He then showed us his freighter canoe, and all the Inuit delicacies he had stored in his freezer. We also met Jusipi’s wife, Kitty, and their granddaughter.

Laco, Jenny and Chris climbed the hill behind the town, had a snooze in the sun, then Jenny and Chris picked a bucket full of blueberries. Later that evening Jusipi brought us one of his fresh-caught char as a gift. Yum. We have now given up on reaching Pamiok. Very sad.

August 9 - Kangirsuk

Woke up to rain pattering the windows and slept some more. Lee finally acknowledged that the coffee on this trip could have been better. Jusipi drove him to the airport, accompanied by Jenny and Laco. Afterwards, they inspected the graves across the road from the airport in the little cemetery. It turned out to be an ugly day, so Laco bought playing cards (for $9!) and we played Lorum, Laco's Slovakian card game…but Jenny won, not Laco.

Jenny: “Laco and I went on a mission to buy playing cards. We went to the Co-op store but it was closed so we went back to the house to wait. Later we made another run for it, but it was still closed so we decide to go across town to the Northern Store.

Ungava Crossing 2014 Teaser from Crush59 on Vimeo.

We saw no polar bears, but many black bears.

See here "B is for Bears" some close-up footage of a few of them, by Chris Rush:

Another short video made by Chris, called Horrors of Lake Barvilier

UNGAVA CROSSING teaser 2 from Crush59 on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas video

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! from Crush59 on Vimeo.

& our Last Days in the Ungava Bay tidal zone:

Watch the tide coming in behind the Hammer of Thor:

Time-lapse (6 hours compressed into 20 seconds)

Photography by Chris Rush:

Hammer of Thor Timelapse from Crush59 on Vimeo.

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