Return to the Peel Journal - Day 13

Campsite on the muddy banks of the Peel.

Saturday, July 28. Cool and overcast.

Camped on the least muddy section of a very muddy shoreline. Rain finally stops around 7am. 75 km to go. We paddle hard as possible. More and more bird life along the river, including an Eagle. We’ve definitely passed through the migratory zone and are now into the bird nesting area.

Graham on riverbank near Lost Patrol marker.

In the early evening we cross the NWT border and begin looking for our next planned pit-stop. A personal one for Terry… the marker where Inspector Fitzgerald and Special Constable Sam Carter of the Northwest Mounted Police died. They were members of the famous Lost Patrol who disappeared into one of the coldest winters in living memory.

Terry at the marker for his late grand-father, Special Constable Sam Carter, member of the famous "Lost Patrol."

After scouring the shore for some time, we finally find a clearing that is home to the memorial. Turns out it is harder to reach than we think. The bank we land on is actually an island, and there is another channel between us and the marker. We bring the kayak over and shuttle it back and forth getting me and Terry there. It’s a steep muddy bank to climb, but we’ve made it. This is an emotional moment for Terry. Sam Carter is his grandfather and he is the first member of the Carter family to visit this monument, where Carter finally succumbed to hunger and cold in 1911. It is a solemn place. The marker is a simple stacked log structure, with a plaque telling the story of the patrol. The RCMP detachment in Ft McPherson comes regularly to clear brush and maintain the memorial. They do a good job of it. Ironically, one of the men who was sent out to find the Lost Patrol, was Louis Cardinal, who was the Metis guide on Charles Camsell’s expedition in 1905. The Canadian north is a sprawling landscape, and a small village, all at once.

Foreboding skies.

It was getting late after we left, but with the weather cooperating a bit more, we decided to push on for Fort McPherson. As we paddled we passed by Gwich’in fish camps along the way. Near one of them, the people outside waved us over. “Come up for a coffee,” they shouted as we went by. It was after 10pm, but the camp was bustling with life and we needed a break, so we pulled in. There we met the Snowshoe family. Several generations were gathered for the weekend, eating smoked whitefish by the fire, playing cribbage, country music playing. Eighty year old Mary Snowshoe is the matriarch. She’s been coming here her whole life. “I never went to school. All my knowledge is from this land, taught to my by my parents. And I want to pass that on to my kids,” she tells me.

Mary Snowshoe and her son Norman at their fish-camp south of Fort McPherson.

She shows me in her smokehouse, where they dry the Whitefish they net from the river. Spruce boughs are on the ground, to keep the dust down. And Mary says the key to smoking Whitefish is burning Willow as your wood. This land is important to her because of the memories, but also because of the traditions and the sustenance it brings to her family and the Tetlit Gwich’in people. Keeping these waters clean, these lands pristine is important to her and the generations of family around her. They echo her happiness about the Supreme Court decision protecting the Peel.

We eat some of her delicious smoked fish. Graham even gets some pie. Keeping an eye on the time, we sadly say goodbye. Such a welcoming group. We could have happily stayed and talked for hours.

Terry has been texting via satellite with his cousin James Ross in Fort McPherson. We should be about 45 minutes from there. And expect to arrive around midnight. He’ll be near the Ferry crossing.

David kayaking the homestretch.

As we head out, the bright Arctic sky begins to darken. Storm clouds are bearing down from the north towards us. Soon we are pushing again into headwinds and driving rain. We move past the riverbank at what appears to be a crawl. We’ve been on the water for more than 12 hours today. Every part of me is aching as we inch forward.

Finally we reach the Ferry Crossing at Fort McPherson, the very muddy end to our journey. I hop onto the shore and immediately sink a foot into the mud and wipe out. I get up and land back in the mud again. But James Ross, a former Chief of the Tetlit Gwich’in and married to Terry's cousin, is there to meet us even at this late hour. He brings us into the fish-camp of Ernest and Alice Vittrekwa who insist, way after midnight, that we come in and warm up by the fire and have some tea. We wisely take them up on their offer and are soon feeling human again. Northern hospitality is an amazing thing. Warmed up, James takes us to the hotel in Fort McPherson, the very comfortable Peel River Inn, where we happily check in, have hot showers and sleep on a non-gravel surface for the first time in two weeks.