Archive for the ‘kayaking’ Category

We arrived in Hebron early afternoon where we knew there are a few cabins including one owned by Noah, a kayaker from Nain. Rounding a headland into the bay, we saw a large white church and a cluster of cabins on a low hillside. As we eagerly headed in their direction a buzzing noise above startled me and I looked up to see a small drone flying low overhead. "There’s a boat", JF pointed, "and another one". As we landed, a woman with a rifle came to greet us. Belinda told us she is here from Nain for a week to rebuild a cabin from scratch. 4 men are laying down large plywood sheets for floorboards behind her. The previous building was her grandfather’s. She told us they’ve been bringing wood here for 3 years by boat, about a 6 hour ride from Nain. Yesterday there was a polar bear right by the house they are staying in. She points in the direction of Noah’s cabin and tells us to help ourselves to a beer from their fridge. We get another beer when we join them for an afternoon break and are given a password for their starlink wifi and a dinner invite for caribou ribs. My jaw dropped at a photo of an 8foot polar bear that Belinda shot 2 years ago. She looks tiny beside it.

Hebron used to be an Inuit village until the government relocated everyone. Now people visit to hunt and fish. A group of people are coming tomorrow to renovate the large church.

The paddle here was an easy going 34km into a light headwind under blue skies. It was hot for the first time and I regretted put 2 pairs of

The days have started to merge into one. I have no idea what day of the week it is and had to check today that’s we’ve paddled 18 days. I can feel I’ve got stronger, I notice that the kayaks don’t feel as heavy when we carry them to and from the water. My back muscles ache with the first few strokes every day and then I get in the groove and it all feels good. My hands are the most beat up part. My pogies rubbed a tiny bit of skin off my thumbs on day one and although I’ve barely worn them since, the sores have got worse. Other rubs that appeared from trying to wear the pogies differently, from wearing gloves, pushing gear into hatches or unidentified causes will also not get better until after the trip. Twice a day, I rub some antibiotic cream on them for some relief and a bit of healing before the salt water gets into them again. I think the cold makes my skin more sensitive as abrasions and rashes appear so easily.

I woke early this morning because I was too hot. That doesn’t usually happen here! A southerly wind brought warmer air and the sun beat down on us. We were treated to the full vista of majestic domes and jagged peaks as we paddled 8km across Saglek inlet to a group of large islands. I gazed back at a near vertical cliff that soared up to the clouds. We paddled at its feet yesterday and didn’t see it. I was grateful for one last long look at the striking Torngat mountains as we left the National park.

We headed towards the bright white domes of a manned US radar station perched on top of the jagged cape just south of the park border. We spot a storage building and fuel tanks a couple hundred meters up from a small beach and can just make out parts of the road that winds up to the high station. We bypass “base camp”, a summertime camp for tourists and parks Canada staff. When it opens next week, there will be a visitors, flown in to the small airport shared with the radar station, staying in prospector tents, protected from polar bears by an electric fence and armed guard. There’s a skeleton crew there now and our contact at parks Canada, Andrew Andersen, who has been a great help, said we may get a hot meal and Shower if we called in. I always enjoy interactions with people in remote places so my vote was to visit but Larry and frank wanted to push on. They
didn’t want to make the 10km round trip detour for the possibility of a few luxuries, preferring the promise of staying at a cabin tomorrow night in Hebron if we did more mileage today and put ourselves in striking distance. Noah Nochasak, a kayaker from Nain, has also been a great help and he has a cabin there. After 8 days of Bear watch, it will be very nice to get a full nights sleep in a cabin.

Cape umiak soars vertically from the ocean to 450 meters tall. It’s easier for any wind to accelerate around it than go over it. Today it accentuated the moderate breeze into a fierce torrent. One minute we were paddling along chatting, gazing up at the stripy cliffs and down at a condosize ice berg stuck on shallow rocks, glinting blue in the sun. The next I was tightening my hat and tilting my head down against waves that splashed up onto my sunglasses as my bow crashed up and down into steep waves. Conversation was over, the tumbling waves and whistling wind would make anything but shouts hard to hear and we were too busy concentrating on paddling. I watched the view of the rocks to my left shift slowly. despite the current being with us, the wind and chop were slowing progress. Still, it was progress and I was enjoying the work out, pushing hard with my feet, clenching my stomach. It’s the first cape that’s really challenged us and it felt fitting.

We gathered together an hour later in the much reduced wind. Whooh! Larry summed it up.
We’d hoped to camp at a valley just south of the cape but steep rocks and a half metre swell made it infeasible, the next promising place was an hour away, with no guarantees so we settled for a tiny cobble beach which opens into a100 metre long cobbly gully. It’s not our prettiest campsite but it’s home for the night.

We saw 2 black bears today. One above each campsite on the rocks! Both curious and starting at us for a while then heading on their way

“Only 33 km?”, Larry questioned.
“Yeah, well 33.2” replied Frank. “I already double checked with Justine and JF”.
We’d just pulled onto a wide, rocky beach after 7 1/2 hours on the water without landing. A 5 m wide river gushed onto one corner through a vast boulder field. A 1000 foot high mountain appeared faintly through the mist above it. A triangle of blue sky teased us from up the valley. Would the Sun finally win the day long battle with the fog? We’d worked hard today, putting our heads down against a mild headwind and choppy sea. A white haze cloaked all but the adjacent lower slopes and a chill breeze felt like it blew right through me. We didn’t stop much to take photos, ploughing on over a furrowed sea, confused by wind, swell and rebounding waves from the cliffs. I lost sight of JF and Larry to my right as a line of swell rolled in. The swell must be at least a meter I noticed. Along a steep coastline there were just a couple of places where we thought we might be able to land. We hoped to get out for lunch, at a small valley where a previous Expedition told us they had camped. The low Rocky shelf looked very uninviting with waves crashing on it. It would be a challenging, wet landing. A few small cobble beaches nearby were battered with surf and overhung by steep gullies, full of loose rocks. Our speed had been dropping over the last hour and we needed to eat. We finally rafted the four kayaks together for a late lunch on the water, helping each other get food from hatches. I felt a lot better after the first few bites of cheese and crackers. I was getting really low on energy. I think we’ve done seven nights in a row of bear watch now and the sleep disruption takes it’s toll. I was yawning a lot on the water. I think it’s the first day I didn’t actively enjoy all of the paddling. Without a view and working hard in the chop, I was going through the motions like a paddling robot, and not a very efficient one by the end.

As we approached a fjord called bear gut, we were on the lookout for anything white as wed been told it’s a hot spot. I was just studying a white object in the water just ahead, trying to figure out if it was a bird when JF said “bear”. This one was swimming towards us. We should probably paddle away, so it knows our intentions, Larry said wisely. Pointing our kayaks offshore we made a detour to arc around the bear. For some reason, I didn’t expect to see so many bears swimming. From the front, you just see a couple ears, two black eyes, and a black nose. This bear was raising his nose high in the air trying to get our scent. After we passed him, I stopped to film him swimming away and he swam around behind us, coming slightly closer. I hurriedly put my camera away and started paddling. Happily the bear also decided to swim away.

Our valley campsite is a beautiful meadow. The Sun did break through the cloud. right now on nightwatch, the last of the mist disappeared and I can see the island in our bay for the first time, lit by a crescent moon. Distant lights from a us radar station are twinkling on the horizon.

The sky had cleared for the first time all day. There was still a layer of white cloud like a bracelet on the lower slopes and the sky was full of clouds various shades of white and grey but it looked promising. We could see more than a few kilometers ahead the first time all day. Smiling at the view of low headlands and steep rugged cliffs, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a huge wall of white moving towards us from the ocean. Shaped like a giant nose on the surface, it swept across the sky before I could get my camera out. A sudden, chill wind ruffled the water and i started shivering. Everything was white again in an instant. We were back to keeping the coast on our right, and following a compass when crossing fjords.

We started with a 4 km hop across Nachvak fjord. this 60 km indent into the mountains is notorious for fierce katabatic winds. We joked that at least we wouldn’t have to worry about being blown offshore in a day with no sun. I checked my watch as we left 8:10 AM. Heading into the haze, My gaze shifted between my small deck mounted compass and the white gloom ahead. Different shades of gray in the clouds played tricks on me. Was that the side of a mountain way off to the left? My mind played tricks on me. Did I make the right adjustment for magnetic variation? Would the flood current sweep us off course into the fjord? Was the compass wrong? Yes, maybe and no. I checked the time. 8:40 AM. Still no clues that we were anywhere near land. I kept steadily paddling on, knowing I would feel uneasy, until we saw land. 8:47 AM. and I heard it. The distinctive swoosh of waves against land. It sounded like it was a head still see the details and slightly off to the right. I resisted the temptation to turn in Paddle towards the noise. Five minutes later that really was a mountain side looming out of the mist. It was dead ahead, and I felt my body relax. First crossing done.

It was a shame not to see these stunning mountains in their full splendor, but paddling below these giants shrouded in mist was also magical. Cloud hung in cracks and accentuated the sharp geometry. Spires of black rock reached up into the heavens before disappearing into the murk. Up close we could still see the onionskin weathering and sharp lines of black intrusions striping up the mountain sides.

We landed for lunch before rounding Gulch cape. We’ve learned that we can land and usually camp, in most wide valleys. But this stretch of coastline was different. Instead of a sand or gravel beaches, the valleys are fringed with low rock walls. We settled for a small “beach” of large smooth boulders beneath a deep gully of sharp rocks. Lunch was quick. Despite our lunch spot being sheltered from the wind, I was feeling very cold. I’m usually I kept on my storm kayak, the extra layer I put xxx on at lunch to trap my body heat. So did Larry and JF. The damp cold seems to cut to my core more than dry cold. The light wind and gentle swell was accentuated around Gulch Cape. Just enough to be a little exciting. Cruising along beside the cliffs, the sleek black back of a minke whale emerged just in front of Frank and I. The graceful arc of the fin was gone as quickly as it appeared.

We rejected a valley wed identified as a possible campsite. A steep slope of uneven boulders would have worked as a get out but didn’t appeal. We pushed on to Ramma, the former site of a mission and rock quarry. Rounding the last Headland, we wondered what we would find. A beautiful Crescent of gravel beach, backed by a low flat grassy bank was a welcome sight. A 10 m high waterfall gushed from a cleft in a low rocky cliff. I was already cold before we landed and didn’t have another layer to add. I unpacked my boat as fast as I could, and started fumbling with the stove to make hot water. Frank noticed me shivering and quietly took over stove duties so I could get changed. Half of our evening meals are quick to prepare freeze dried ration packs from happyyak. After mushroom and cheese risotto, JF and Frank went for a walk and discovered some old bricks and a rusty stove. I took a quick look at the photos and went to bed. I was very glad it’s my turn to be last watch so I got almost 8 hours in bed uninterrupted. Now it’s 6:30 AM I’m two hours into my watch. I have two hot water bottles inside my clothes. One is wrapped around the damp thermal trousers that I will have to put back on before paddling. I love being out here in the wilderness. It’s beautiful and exciting and makes me feel alive. We haven’t seen anybody else for 2 weeks, but there are times when I’d be very grateful for a hot bath and a clean dry set of paddling clothes!

It’s time to start making breakfast for everyone I think I’ll treat us with bacon and eggs or pancakes.