Day 18. Sat. July 30, 8:30 AM (57°54’40” N, 72°58’40” W)

A sociable morning.

Breakfast was hot and wonderful. Chef Angie smilingly fed me two plates while Louis talked at length about what I could expect in terms of rapids farther down the river. He didn’t seem worried. If I’d made it this far, he said, I could get through the rest. His staffers, who asked me plenty of friendly questions, are all relatively new to this camp, but they all love him. I had a great time socializing.

After we’d finished, Louis told Angie to give me some food. I felt self-conscious, as it was ultimately my fault that my package didn’t reach Louis at home, but he waved away my protests. He said the pantry had some day-old (i.e., years-old) foods that he couldn’t serve to his affluent guests anyway. So now I had enough calories to make the next few days less of a survival exercise.

This morning has been a real recharge. I woke up at 5:30 and did yoga on the floor of the cabin before Jerome and the other guys moved. Not feeling 100% but definitely better. I even got to make a brief call to my mother by satellite phone — the camp has WiFi — and she and I were both the happier for it.

I got my food organized and thanked everyone before I went. This has been as close to a genuine life-saving experience as I can remember.

9PM  58°10’27” N, 72°12’27” W

Soon after I left the lodge, the river got narrow, the valley got steep, and the water got turbulent. This was it, the gnarliest section of the river so far, near as I could tell. I felt my heart pounding.

First up came the “twenty kilometers rapid” and its suggestion that there would be no end to the whitewater. It was essentially the longest swift I’d ever seen. There were sections that were RI or RII, but they were brief. For the most part, though, it was read and run. I was thankful. The day was chilly and the water doused my face repeatedly, leaking into the cockpit through my jury-rigged sprayskirt.

Around the bend at the 220 km mark came Alain’s rapid, and this one was more severe. The hills nearby pushed the river into a tight canyon. I didn’t get much of a look as I went by. While these rapids were variations on the ones I’d seen upriver, the waves were higher and the flow faster. My impression is that the river was dropping more quickly than it did anywhere else in its course.

Do not hesitate — find your line and commit to it hard. The river surged but I kept my balance.

I also kept my bilge pump handy. My damaged sprayskirt was letting in a lot of water, as was my stern compartment. By this point I had eaten enough food that there was a decent amount of extra room back there, and as a precaution I stuffed anything that could survive getting wet — my trash bag, empty fuel canisters — under the drybags that contained my clothing and food. Nothing crucial appeared to be leaking, but I was bailing a lot and the cold was sapping me, even with warm clothing under my drysuit.

The whitewater calmed down after Alain’s rapid, but the current continued sweeping me along. At the 208 km point I passed the mouth of the Vizien River, which Beth Jackson and her team had taken four years before to reach the Payne watershed. I tipped my helmet to them silently as I swept past their exit from the Leaf highway.

I made it to the 180 km point, a nondescript section of river. It was chilly as I made camp. It occurred to me as I changed into camp clothes and made dinner that I wanted nothing more than to reach Tasiujaq in one piece.

I am doing better now that my food stores have been replenished, but I am still very tired. Exhaustion has been a constant nag for the past several days and my left arm is still losing feeling with frightening regularity. Nerve issues. Hope it’s just an overuse injury and that I haven’t permanently damaged my arm.

Despite it all, running all these rapids has given me confidence. I’ve read whitewater for years, but this is a solo expedition and I am doing my best to take no obstacles lightly. Getting through the highest-class rapids the map indicates suggests that previous trip reports were accurate. A gnarly but doable river.