Bad weather, rising water, and canyon walls nearly 10 stories high made up just one part of Tyler Kydd and Daniel Wong’s expedition in the Northwest Territories. The other parts of their trip? Trekking up rocky slopes through grizzly and caribou territory, and transforming their canoe into a catamaran. Here’s a taste of their 500-km paddling and hiking adventure along the Natla and Keele rivers. Expedition report by Tyler.
The weather had taken a turn for the worse. The rain was getting heavier with each passing minute and we could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. As we paddled our canoe into the next canyon, the water levels continued to rise and 30m-high rock walls were on both sides of the river.
We were trapped. The only way out was through the raging rapids in front of us, and I couldn’t help thinking about how horrible it would be to capsize into the ice cold turquoise water.
“Hard power!” Daniel yelled. We paddled into the next set of rapids, and my heart pounded when I saw the monstrous haystack of waves and white foaming water just ahead. We made it through and approached the next bend in the river, not knowing what would be next. Around us, rain echoed off the canyon walls.
All that rainfall made the river flow faster and we were tearing along at more than 20km/h. The bend in the river banked hard to the right, but the power of the water raged head on into a rocky cliff. We paddled with all of our strength to try and avoid being smashed up against the rock face directly ahead – but it was too late. We were sucked into the churning water against the cliff face and were smashed around like puppets.
We couldn’t hold it any longer – the canoe flipped violently to the right, and we plunged into the ice-cold waters of the Natla River. I couldn’t breathe. The water was so cold on my skin that everything went numb, and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of me. As Daniel and I swam to shore with a paddle and a rescue rope for the canoe, the current kept pushing us downstream into the next set of rapids.
The force of the water was too strong and we weren’t able to rescue our canoe before it was pulled into the next set of rapids. The two of us made it to shore, and signaled to our friends still on the river that danger awaited them. Thankfully, they made it through safely and took off in pursuit of our canoe. We followed on land, racing along the top of the canyon wall for 3km downstream to where the other party had successfully rescued our boat. Everything was still intact and there was no damage. Teamwork at its best!
Along with the powerful river systems, there were also spectacular mountains on our expedition. The Mackenzie Mountains had non-stop hiking potential, and our trip included a hiking portion in this area.
The dense dwarf birch made it slow going and difficult to see what was ahead on our way to the mountain – a bit nerve-wracking when you’re in grizzly territory. At the start of our ascent, the slopes were extremely steep so it was impossible to simply walk straight up the mountain. Instead, we followed Dall sheep trails back and forth, zigzagging up the slope. As we gained elevation, the dwarf birch disappeared and was replaced with sharp rocks and boulders. One wrong step could result in severe injury. Loose rocks were a constant issue and we had to be extremely careful to stagger ourselves so that we were never directly behind another person in case a rock became displaced.
On our climb up the final portion to the summit, the muscles in my legs were burning and the sweat was pouring off me. We were lucky enough to see a group of eight woodland caribou on our way up, as well as a few sik siks (ground squirrels). Finally, after seven hours of hiking, we reached the summit and it felt great!
From the top, the views were out of this world. There were mountains in every direction, layered in colours of reds, greens, oranges, and grays. We overlooked evidence of a glacier, and some snow still remained even though it was already mid-July. There was a nice light breeze on top of the mountain, which we enjoyed thoroughly along with some nice snacks and drinks.
With our hiking portion complete, we eventually got back in our canoes for the final part of the journey on the Mackenzie River. We used two 3m-long logs to lash our two canoes together with about a metre of space in between, similar to the design of a catamaran. The wind on the Mackenzie River was in our favour for the last two days, and we capitalized on this by creating a sail for the canoe and sailing most the remaining distance to our destination, Norman Wells, by wind power.
MEC supported Tyler and Daniel on this adventure through the MEC Expedition Support Program.