canada west
En Route: The Trans-Territorial Canoe Expedition (Stage II)
08.14.2012
Dispatch No. 2 from a 2,600 mile canoe journey across Canada’s Territories.
In Their Own Words: Birch-Bark Odyssey
07.16.2012
Dan Blessing and Marc VanGrinsven’s 4,000 mile journey from Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean in a homemade birch-bark canoe.
Into the Raincoast
02.07.2012
The silence is eerie. We’ve stopped paddling completely. Watching and waiting. And watching, and waiting. Paddles down, binoculars up. An overhanging branch shakes high on a towering yellow cedar flanking us on shore. A raptor launches over our sea kayaks and heads up the estuary, the flapping of its wings piercing the silence.
Oil and Water
02.02.2012
Like the wicked sou’easters that pummel the Inside Passage all winter long, a storm is brewing on the northern coast of British Columbia that could threaten a paddler’s paradise and a pristine node of biological diversity.
The Century Club
07.21.2011
Call it Canada’s best idea. One hundred years ago, in 1911, Canada established the Dominion Parks Branch—the world’s first national parks service. Back then, the Canadian government managed six parks—including iconic mountain retreats like Banff and Jasper…
Ghosts of the Dubawnt River
12.20.2006
“It can’t be more than a quarter mile,” I prayed as the canoe yoke and pack dug deeper into my shoulders. With blackflies feasting on my flesh and sweat stinging my eyes, I counted the paces, striving to get to 50, then another 50.
Kooten-eh?
07.20.2006
A strong current zips us past a lush British Columbian forest and the chalky walls of a low canyon. Our Canadian Rockies Whitewater guidebook says that easy paddling will be interrupted by rapids up to Class III.
Across Canada by Canoe
03.21.2006
When my brother Andrew and I told people we were paddling from Minnesota to the Arctic Ocean, the most common response was, “What on earth made you decide to do a trip like this?”
Mammoth Find on the Blackstone River
01.13.2006
If you ask longtime Yukon bush pilot Ernie Onofferchuck which guide knows the territory’s remote rivers better than anyone else, without pause he’ll name Blaine Walden.
A Mighty Wind
07.22.2004
Five canoes. Ten people. Twenty-two hours of sunlight. Hundreds of unnamed mountains, rivers, streams, ridges, creeks, meadows, and vistas. Two grizzlies running the other way. Billions of diabolical mosquitoes that, fortunately, stay in the dense shrubbery until evening. An infinite number of surprises. One vast and empty wilderness, devoid of humans. This is a crash [...]
Bowron Lake Provincial Park, BC
04.13.2004
As darkness invaded the forest, the haunting cry of a loon shot across Indianpoint Lake and then ricocheted off the mountains. Hairs prickled on the back of my neck. It was my first night in British Columbia’s Bowron Lake Provincial Park. Over the next week, I’d hear the call of the loon frequently. Each time, [...]
Milk River, AB
04.13.2004
As if battling a stiff prairie wind and pushy current weren’t difficult enough, we had to outmaneuver a territorial cow smack-dab in the middle of Alberta’s Milk River. “We’re going left … no, right … no, left!” I yelled at my friend Anette. If she hadn’t already focused on the large bovine we were about [...]
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