Wilderness Canoeing in Canada

Hearne Channel

Distance: 31km [cumulative total 125 km]

InReach: Day 4 Paddled in sunshine and light winds Did about 31km Stopped a bit early when a pebble beach suitable for camping appeared All well J&K

Camp: 62.069°N 112.591°W

Got away late but in brilliant sunshine with the calmest of water and a very slight tailwind. Made excellent progress along some of the most featureless coast you could imagine. The sun sparkled on the water like diamonds and you felt glad to be alive and paddling. By lunch time we had seen our first remnant snow /ice banks onshore and on the islands. We lunched on an island by one of these snow banks. Though we saw little wildlife it was great day for water fowl. We saw several types of duck, terns, loons, lake gulls and Canada geese. Being only several days travel from Yellowknife we saw a few boats and several bush planes.

We had been seeing both pebble and cobble beaches throughout the days paddle but most unsuitable to put a tent on. Despite the great conditions I was feeling sore and unstimulated by the unchanging nature of the shoreline and started to tire. Finally John succumbed to my poor efforts so we stopped at a beautiful pebble beach. It had a flat area for the tent and to my joy some rocky shelves more than suitable to set up a kitchen [it will possibly be the best kitchen site for the trip, it was that good]. The ground was covered with beautiful washed smooth pebbles of every colour and pattern, if only I could take a bunch home. We had a relaxing set up and meal, burnt our accumulating rubbish and went to bed in bright sunshine.