Day 3 - The Spoons get Knived

It was a rough first sleep. The constant daylight, snoring from huts beside, time change and cold make for a restless sleep.

Its a rude awakening when we have to crawl out of the comfort of the bed in order to pull some clothes on for breakfast. Breakfast is amazing. We have warm porridge, homemade granola with yogurt, quiche, bacon, fresh fruit, and freshly made croissants. Tessum is at the espresso machine making delicious coffees.

There is a sign up board in the dining hall for todays activities. Half of us will go ATV-ing to Polar Bear Point and then onto Cape Marie, and the other half of us will go Unimoging to Gull Canyon to look for Muskox. Our group is up first for the ATV's. We have the Bonner family, the Neys family and the Fougners in our group. Our guides are Sven and Lee. We all pair up onto the ATV's, and we also have a Gator which seats 4. Wendy, Bruce, Kelly and Lee are in the Gator...and off we go. Dave takes the reigns on the way out. We decide that he will drive out, and I will drive back. After a quick lesson...we are off.

Its about 10 minutes going mostly North to the mouth of the Northwest Passage. The weather is cold, but not bad at all.

Sidebar: Up to this point, I have been wearing my Helly Hanson long underwear, wood socks, and icebreaker light long sleeved shirt as my base layer, with a sports bra. My next layer has been my very fetching green fleece pants and then my Helly Hanson half zip long sleeved shirt, followed by my matching...and equally fetching green zip up micro-fleece. Next is my down puffy vest, followed by my Vancouver 2010 outer shell and my MEC rain pants for wind. On my head is a MEC toque with ear flaps, and an MEC bandana for my neck and face. On my feet, my trusty Muckboots - Edgewater, and on my hands my ski gloves.

Once we hit the Northwest passage, we start to head west along the coast. Its definitely colder out here, but we see seals and of course lots of ice. Its quite spectacular, and of course flying along in an ATV is great. The path is well marked with custom Inukshuk formations and a well travelled path. We stop at numerous sites along the way, historical Thule sites, found whale bones and so on.

For lunch we stop in a small gully where we can find some shelter from the wind. There is little comfort there, but the lunch is spectacular. There is something truly wonderful about a nice hot home-cooked meal on a cold day after you've been experiencing the great outdoors.

Lunch is delicious tomato bisque soup, fresh made bread (by Josee), carrot sticks, amazing cured sausage from the Hutterites in Alberta, and yummy cheese from a Dutch importer that they deal with. They serve us this in these great foldable plastic bowls, which we then rinse out for coffee and tea...with milk if you want it. No comforts lost on this trip!

After lunch we go for a climb up the nearby mountain. The terrain here is shale, so its hard climbing and mostly straight up. Once to the top however, the view is magnificent. Recently, with the snow that has just fallen, the guide staff had been able to slide down the snow from the top of this mountain. Dave, Kelly and I decide that we don't want to climb way out to the edge of the peak, and head down to the snow slide to see if its something worth undertaking. The sliding area looks very steep, and very icy...so we carry on down the shale (sliding and losing our footing along the way) to a lower part of the snow slide. I determine that I do not want to be the first person to give this a shot. Poor Dave, bless his heart, agrees to be the first person to give it a shot. Maybe not our brightest moment. Perhaps just deciding not to slide at all might have been the best way to go. In any event, Dave takes off down the snow bank. At first it doesn't seem too bad. The snow is thick and so he doesn't go that fast. The snow however very quickly turns to ice, and Dave is all of a sudden shooting down this hill at top speed. He is trying to use the side of his foot to slow himself down, and unfortunately ends up sliding sideways, and then all of a sudden takes a tumble at the bottom into the shale. It looks painful and terrifying from where Kelly and I are. I yell down to him and ask him if he's okay. He says he is...but that it was intense, and not recommended. That's enough for me. I try to then traverse from where I am near the snow, over to the shale to go down. Unfortunately, I have one bit of snow that I need to cross in order to get down. I try my footing out on the snow and unfortunately, its ice just beneath the surface. As I try to gain some footing in order to get across, my foot slips, and I have nowhere to grap onto. I give a terrified look towards Kelly before I start sliding down the hill.

I had no intention of sliding down this hill. I had contemplated earlier on, but after watching Dave hurtle down, I was solidly happy to just carry on down on the nice shale. I am now sliding down on the snow and have to very quickly get my head around this fact, and get my nerves in check and ensure that I don't kill myself. On the snow, I am able to dig my heels in and I'm using the heels of my hands to try and slow myself down. I'm doing okay, but I know its a losing battle, as there is ice near the bottom, and I know I'm in trouble once I reach it. My only goal is to keep my feet downward, and to keep myself as slow as possible. Once I hit the ice however, its game over...my speed picks up and I'm now shooting downwards towards the rocks. The only way to slow down will be once I hit the shale at the bottom of the ice. The snow is shooting into my face from my boots trying to dig into the snow. My adrenaline is going and I am just praying that it will be okay. I see Dave off to my right and his face reads shock and fear. I finally come crashing into the shale at the bottom...thankfully feet first. I pop up...I'm alive...I have no broken bones...I'm okay!

My hands are killing me, and I have snow in my eyes and up my back. I had thankfully moved my iphone out of my side pocket and into my chest pocket...so it is intact. My heart is pounding in my throat and I've got the shakes. The back of my pants are torn, and my rump is feeling a little tender. Dave comes over to see how I've faired. He had thought that I had misheard him and that I'd heard him tell me to come on down. I assure him that it was due to a slip of my heel!

Kelly makes her way down to us on the shale. The three of us are standing there sharing tales when Kelly's son Alex nears the top of the snow. We are unsure that this is a good idea, however he takes off down the hill. He manages to get to the bottom quite gracefully...certainly with much more poise that what Dave and I managed. He admits that he had used two sharp pieces of shale in each hand to help him down the hill. A very wise move!

As we start to walk back, Rob N. nears the top of the snow slide. We shake our head and encourage him not to go. We have determined that the fact that three of us made it down in once piece is only by sheer luck and that our luck could run out at any moment.

When we get back to the other half of the group, we find that they had been intently watching our descents, and have actually caught on videos our slides (those to come). I'm glad that our moment of perfect stupidity will be caught on camera for others to see!

We await the rest of our group to come down from the top of the mountain. Apparently Sven had radioed up to the other guide Lee with a strong recommendation for no others to slide down. We load up, get re-dressed into our warm clothes (as we had shed some on the hike up) and off we go.

Dave has hurt himself from the slide. He is cut up on his knees, and his throttle thumb is very sore. We hope its not sprained. I queue up to drive, even though I'm still feeling a little shaky from my exploit. We head down the coast further until we reach Cape Marie. Apparently this is where in the past many polar bears can be found. With the ice out on the water, they are nowhere to be seen. They are out on the ice looking for seals.

We turn around and start to head back for the lodge. Man oh man do I love ATV-ing. I haven't driven one in awhile and I quickly fall into a comfortable rhythm within a few moments. Unfortunately our ATV is backfiring a little, and it stalls out on me a couple of times, but overall its great, and I throughly enjoy the 25 or so kms back. The boys and I have some fun trying to outrun each other, and a brief snowball fight (one-sided) breaks out at one point. As we near the lodge Sven leads us down into the flats of the river flats (now with no water) where we can finally give it a bit of a boot and get out of 3rd gear. The trail up to this point has had some flat straight aways, but was mostly very twisty and uneven and filled with little creeks and sharp and sudden divets and hills.

Once back at the lodge, we head for the showers. That hot water feels fantastic. Once cleaned up, its time for some beer and wine, games in the great hall, and quiet time before dinner.

Some of the young boys went for a skinny dip in the Arctic Ocean, they did it...and claimed that it wasn't that bad. Apparently the camera wasn't working properly the first time, and so the Fougner boys had to take a second dip in order to capture the moment on camera. We stayed in the warmth of the lodge and had the odd look through the binoculars to ensure that they were telling the truth.

For dinner tonight, again its a magnificent feast. We have ham, cornbread, cabbage salad, sweet potatoes with almonds (soooo good!), cranberry sauce and green salad. We devour our food, and then get served up delicious creme brulee with fruit and of course an after dinner coffee.

The night before, Richard had given us an unbelievable presentation on his North Pole exploits. He is only one of 2 men who have made it to the North Pole with no outside help (dogs sleds, flying in etc.). His stories are magnificent and overwhelming. The sheer idea of being out for 122 days in -60 weather is a concept that is difficult to grapple. His videos of the ice and the cold and the journey are mesmerizing. He has also down expeditions to the South Pole...something I would consider one day, as you are actually on land! Tonight is a presentation from his son Nansen, he is a photographer and the images that he has captured up here are breathtaking. Shots of the Arctic Fox, Belugas, Polar Bears, Owls, Hawks and Muskox during their time here over the years. He does a wonderful job of capturing their beauty.

After our presentation, Bruce has made everyone team up for a game of charades. We haven't had one in awhile. Bruce appoints team leaders, and they each are given a utensil as their team name (Bruce takes 4 utensils and drops them on the ground to determine who will go first). Team Spoon is comprised of many of the young men in our group plus Dave and Jude. Unfortunately the whole game goes under when team spoon acts out the movie "Elysium". They don't get it, of course, and a huge argument ensues about whether Elysium should be allowed or not as it is viewed by many as a proper name. In the end, there is a ruling that it stands, and so team spoon loses. They might be considered poor losers...I'm not sure. Either way, they are ruthless dogs with bones and Elysium has become a constant joke.

After our game of charades, there was a little more quiet time, and then to bed. Tonight feels much warmer and instead of wearing two layers of clothes to bed, I only wore one and no socks. I also managed to score a set of ear plugs from Amanda...the little saint! It was my best sleep in the high north with a water bottle tucked beside me.

 

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Day 2 - Yellowknife to Arctic Watch

It was an early start this morning. Dave and I got up and headed to Tim Horton's to pick up breakfast for everyone. Timmy's came through for the most part! Only a few forgotten items. Apparently this Tim Horton's is the largest grossing per capita in the entire chain.

En route we desperately were trying to connect with AC to find out about the luggage. In the middle of the night they had called to let us know that it had NOT made it onto the 1am flight, so our hopes were a bit dashed. We had to find some clothing for mom! It is currently -8 in Arctic watch with the 53/km winds and snowing!

Once back, everyone was loaded into the shuttle to head to Summit Air Hangar.

I took the Summit Air vehicle with Dave, Robert, Brian, Kirk & Heather along with our lunches for the day and our luggage! It was a bit cramped...but we made it.

Upon arrival at Summit Air, we dropped off our luggage, dropped off our bags to leave behind in Yellowknife and then tried AC one more time about the bags.

I still couldn't get anything more out of AC, but I pleaded with the woman to please follow up on the bag and try to locate it for us and ensure that it makes it to Norman Wells by Tuesday. Mom then headed off to the local convenience store for a few necessities, and fortunately, Robert was able to borrow some clothing from his pilot friend last night, and we were able to borrow some clothes from the wife of one of the fellows at Summit Air. We owe these people a lot of gratitude. Mom would not have been able to participate in anything up north without these clothes. Huge credit to mom...she's taking everything in stride and being a good sport...fingers crossed the bag makes it to Norman Wells before the canoe portion of the trip.

With toothbrush and clothing in hand for Wendy, we load onto our plane....after a great group shot (the first of many) and take off.

Our first stop is Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island for refueling. We officially land into Nunavut at around 10:30am. My first gravel airstrip landing! Nunavut is above the tree line, so the land is barren of almost all vegetation. Just prior to landing we get our first glimpse of the Arctic Ocean...its really magical. The water is magnificent here, brilliant blue along the shore, and a deep blue beyond.

Cambridge Bay is a small community of about 3000 residents. The town is too far from the airport and we are on the ground for two short of a time to be able to see it. We get word that Arctic Watch has relatively good visibility, some areas with fog and some areas with clear visibility. The pilot gives us thumbs up that he's happy to give the landing a shot. If we can't make a landing, then we will head to Resolute Bay just above to land and wait out the weather. Another fingers crossed moment...I think we will have a lot of these on the trip!

Back up in the air we enjoy our bagged lunches prepared by The Explorer Hotel. Very yummy. They did a good job!

We start our decent into Arctic Watch...we can see the lodge and sleeping hats below as we pass by on our way to the air strip. There is a little fog, but the visibility looks pretty good. Apparently no one has gotten in for 5 days...and we learn later that on almost every flight in over the summer, they have had to fly to Resolute Bay until the following day due to weather.

Our pilot determine its now or never and takes us in for landing. The landing strip, albeit worked on very dutifully by the staff every spring, is a bumpy gravel strip. He makes the landing, and with the wind and the bumps, its a little tense and it throws my stomach into my throat. We nervously clap upon the first touch down...but decide to wait until we have safely slowed down. Personally I did not remove my hands from their deathgrip on the seat in front of me until we were truly safe and sound by my estimation.

Once we are at a stop, we see the Arctic Watch crew. They have two large unimogs in waiting for us. We grab our stuff...and thankfully have our warm clothing at close hand, as it is blistering cold outside. It is snowing a little and the wind is really tearing through us. We load into the back of the two unimogs and set off for the lodge! What a thrill, we get our first taste of our adventure.

Once at the lodge, we have some tea, coffee and lovely snack, and await for our introductions and debrief. The staff here are wonderful. Josee and Richard are great hosts and the rest of their staff and sons are equally so. We learn some quick rules and then get geared up for our afternoon hike.

We head off to three falls. I'm instantly thrilled about my muckboot purchase. They are fantastic! They paid for themselves in their first outing. As they have just had some snow, the ground which is normally hardpacked and clay like is now mushy. It feels great under your feet. There is iteresting plants and flowers growing, mushy black moss, and of course our first glimpse of an Arctic Tree. The land although barren looking from afar, is in actual fact speckled with all sorts of life. Its amazing to me that anything is able to prosper in this climate.

The falls we go to look at are beautiful, we are able to climb down right next to them, and there are lots of photo opportunities. We are so happy to be on our feet and smelling the fresh air and getting some exercise. The land is beautiful and and it is extremely quiet.

The lodge is quaint, with lots of beautiful rugs and fireplaces and cozy seating. There are books and photos and bones of whales and other animals. Off the main lodge is the dining hall, and the bathrooms which are fantastic. Running water...glorious showers and the bathrooms are especially toasty warm.

We get assigned into our little huts which are all identified by animals. Dave and I get the owl! They are great little huts with nice cosy beds with flannel sheets, and they have sinks and mirrors, a nice chair, places to hang your stuff and a little toilet area with private fabric walls.

For dinner, we were treated to a fabulous Prime Rib dinner. One of the guides here lives on a working ranch near Camrose, AB. His family sends up hormone free beef to Arctic Watch for their guests. We also have quinoa salad, green salad, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts w/ cranberries, mushrooms with onions and gravy. It was spectacular. These folks know how to cook! For dessert we have a chocolate brownie type cake with raspberry coulis and fresh raspberries and blueberries. Devine! They have an espresso machine for an after dinner coffee. Truly, you couldn't eat better in the middle of Vancouver.

After dinner we head down to the Arctic Ocean which takes about 30 minutes to walk to. The lodge dog Deamon joins us which is fine by us...they also send us out with bear spray and a walkie talkie. Not sure what bear spray would do with a large Polar Bear, we all try to determine who will be the slowest and tastiest and first to go down in the event that we do run into one of these magnificent beasts.

Its now after 10pm, but the daylight is still in full force. Its impossible to tell what time of day it is...I don't really feel tired even though I know we need to get some sleep after our late night the night before.

We head to bed...its COLD! My nose is frozen! With a waterbottle stuffed at my abdomen and Dave dutifully spooning me from behind, I try to find comfort and sleep. NO chance! With the bright light, the snoring from Dave and the snoring from a nearby hut, I'm near going crazy. I try music, I try blankets over my head...finally I have to wake Dave to find me some toilet paper to stuff in my ears. With my toque pulled down over my head, and wads of tissue in my ears, sleep finally finds me sometime after midnight...and so ends Day 2.

 

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Day 1 - Vancouver to Yellowknife

Well...its Day 1 of our big Arctic Adventure. I have felt more apprehensive leading up to this trip than ever before. I'm not sure why, maybe being the mom of three has now made me a little more sensitive. Dave and I have never been away from the girls for this long, and this trip is a little more remote than most we have done. We are excited though, and eager to have some quality time with just the two of us (and the other 27 of us).

Last night was busy, making sure that our bags were all well packed, and ensuring that our pages and pages of instructions on minding our children were up to speed. We also had to run to the neighbours to get them to witness our wills for us. I know, I know...I'm being a nervous nelly...but I think its prudent to have all that kind of thing in order, especially with young children.

I had a serious problem with Air Canada Groups, and they totally buggered up my flight out of Vancouver, so I ended up flying up with Westjet this morning. Booking at the last minute allowed me to get into the premium seating at the front! Yippee. Westjet staff are just so friendly too. I will have some words for Air Canada Groups upon our return. They left us scrambling on a number of the tickets for our group.

The flight to Yellowknnife with Westjet was uneventful. I met some of our group at the connection in Edmonton, and arrived on time into Yellowknife at just after 1pm. The airport is about 10-15 minutes from downtown Yellowknife.

Bill was there to meet me and we headed to the Explorer Hotel to check in. The Explorer Hotel is very nice and the staff were extrememly helpful and friendly. We had a quick bite in their lounge and then headed off for our errands.

First stop was the Joint Task Force to meet our contacts for our big dinner next Saturday. Its going to be a great location. We have a band coming and wonderful catering. Its within walking distance of the hotel and close to downtown. After a week with wilderness, this will be a welcome reception!

One of our contacts fro Summit Air was kind enough to drive us around for our other stops, and gave us a brief tour of Yellowknife. Its a lovely community. It has a bit of an east coast feel to it. The people are friendly and there seems to be a real sense of community. We saw a lot of the heritage buildings in town, one being the old Hudson's Bay Company building.

After stocking up on alchohol for Arctic Watch, ordering breakfast from Timmy's for the morning, and picking up a few things from Shoppers...we headed to Summit Air to drop off the alcohol and check in on some logistics. It was great to meet everyone at Summit Air, its a great team. We also checked-in with Canoe North for our next segment of the journey and worked out a few logistics with them.

After that it was back to the hotel for some emails and planning before heading out for dinner.

Dinner was at Bullocks. A really off-beat place run by a buoyant bunch of women. This is not your usual dining experience. Don't expect top notch service. The food however, was fantastic. There were 6 of us for dinner and we had Arctic Char and Reindeer, served with a yummy salad and great fries. With some cold beers to go with it, it was a great culinary experience. We dined beside a couple from Cambridge Bay and at the end of the table was the head of Avery Cooper Financial and his wife. Its amazing the people that you meet while travelling. The Bullocks is located within a heritage building, and on the outside of the building is a sign that says "please do not write on the outside of the building". Ironically, the entire inside of the restaurant is filled with writing....doors, walls, ceilings, furniture. On our way out, we were handed a Sharpie and asked to sign our names somewhere. All of us did, prominently declaring our place of origin and the date. It was so neat.

After dinner, we headed to the Wildcat down the road, (another fantastic option for dinner - although not as colourful of an experience) for ice cream. This was followed up by a nice walk around and back to our hotel.

I should note that the sun has been high in the sky all afternoon and evening, and it is the most brillient colour of red/orange in the sky. Even as we finished dinner and walked back to the hotel, the night sky is bright. As we head up north tomorrow, this will be interesting phenomenon for us to adjust to.

Back at the hotel, we all had a nightcap and waited for the flight to come in with the rest of the group. We headed out to the airport to meet the 22 people coming in.

Earlier today I had thought to myself...the worst thing that could happen would be if someone luggage did not come in. I was trying to think positively about the fact that this would not happen, but as we are heading out first thing the next morning on a private charter to a very remote area, getting a lost bag up to us would be totally out the question.

So everyone lands and starts grabbing their luggage and heading out to the shuttle. As the conveyor belt finally grinds to a halt, my poor mother is standing their with a grim look. No bag. So we load everyone else onto the shuttle and mom and I hang back with Bruce and Dave to go deal with the AC people. Bless her heart, the woman working the counter did her very best to try and locate our bag. We were able to determine that it had checked in at Vancouver, but not in Edmonton. We had a small chance that it would make it out on the flight arriving at 1:00am, however the next option wouldn't get it in until after our departure time the next morning. We would be able to delay the flight slightly...but not a lot as we have activities planned in Arctic Watch for the Saturday afternoon. With a locator number and a phone number, we headed to the hotel for some last minute packing up and some sleep.

Day 1 is complete...tomorrow the big adventure begins!

 

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Current Weather...its looking a bit chilly to start!

Please find below some links to locations we will be visiting:

Resolute Bay (closest to where we will be for Arctic Watch):
RESOLUTE WEATHER

For the canoe portion, we will start in Deline:
DELINE WEATHER

And end in Tulita:
TULITA WEATHER

Forecast for Yellowknife:
YELLOWKNIFE WEATHER

Wrap-up Dinner Confirmed

We are now having the wrap-up dinner/birthday celebration at the Joint Task Force Building.  There will be a cash bar.  We ask that you please not wear jeans.

The Joint Task Force is within 5 minutes walk of our hotel.

Packing - 2 bags suggested

We are 10 days away from the trip.  Most of us are probably gathering together all our essentials and thinking about the packing process.

I just wanted to give everyone a bit more information about the packing.

We would recommend that you bring two bags.  One larger one which you will carry the bulk of your stuff to Arctic Watch and Canoe North, and one smaller one to leave in Yellowknife.

Some of you may be struggling with the 30-32 lbs limit, so to simplify this a little, we will be able to store items in the Summit Air Hangar while we our outside of Yellowknife.  As we don't need high heels or dress shirts/pants during our canoe trip, we would recommend that you pack the Yellowknife/Wrap-up clothing in a separate bag, and we will leave these at Summit Air.  When we return on Saturday, we can grab our small bags and take them back to the hotel with us.

Any questions about this...let me know!

Chores & Bugs & Bears...oh My!

For those who have not had a chance to read through the Canoe North Adventure website, I thought I would post up some of the Frequently asked questions.

1. How hard are the trips? What level of physical fitness do I require?
   
   This is one of the first and most common questions people have about travelling in the far north. Our approach to paddling in the north is to match appropriate rivers with the skill levels of our paddlers. We offer novice, intermediate and advanced paddling experiences. There is a different physical requirements for each of those three types of trips. Also, our trips are designed to spend time on the river so that the camping, photography, hiking or just plain reading in camp can be part of everyone’s experience. We have either one or two layover days on a trip depending on the length and we do not plan to just blast down a river. After a leisurely breakfast in camp, we get on the river at about 10pm to 10:30pm. We take many breaks during our paddling day and finish at about 4pm. Earlier in a trip, we would have shorter days and build up to longer days towards the end of the trip. We have a mid morning and midafternoon gorp break and a fairly long lunch break. We feel we have built a balance between feeling the challenge of paddling a long distance on a remote river and making sure that people do not move too far out of their comfort zone. We take care of people on the trips!
    
2. What about bears? They say that you are honoured to see a bear in the north and we have been honoured many times. The bears in the far north are extremely wild and have not been trained to associate people with food. In most cases, they associate people with hunting and they have a natural fear. This means that unfortunately, often the view of a bear is fleeting and we see only their back-end as they run away. We most often see bears on the shore when we are in our canoes or swimming the river ahead of our boats. In a lifetime of paddling, we have never had a bear intentionally come into our camp. We have had four bears over that time, on their morning constitutional, come upon our camp and these bears had a serious wake-up call when they realized the scope of what is in front of them as they hightailed it out of there. We carry both bear spray and bear bangers, and have a comprehensive plan with our paddlers about how to manage ourselves in the wilderness so we do not have any serious bear encounter and clear instructions in case their was an unexpected bear.
    
3. How bad are the bugs? Bugs are not an issue for any of our paddlers. In the mountainous regions where we travel there no black flies and few mosquitoes. The tundra regions where we run only a few trips have their fair share of bugs, in fact, in the barrenlands the bugs are truly brutal. If you look at our pictures of our trips, you will notice that no one is wearing a bug jacket even though we list them as an essential on our personal gear list. This is not because we took out all the pictures of people with their bug jackets on but because they are not being bothered by the bugs. Believe me, as soon as there are bugs, the jackets do come out. Rarely on a trip would there be any need for a jacket although as with anything, we never say never about bugs. For example, if we camped on an overcast day and had not found the most ideal campsite with perhaps excessive vegetation or low land, we just might have some bugs. If bugs are an issue for you, please help us to plan a trip where they will not be an issue.
    
4. How many people in a canoe? In a tent? Two people to a canoe and two people in a three man tent with a substantial vestibule.
    
5. How cold is the water for bathing? Do we have to worry about water quality? The water temperatures are cold depending on the river between 5̊C and 10̊C. Most people do get in for a swim although these are fairly quick junkets. Daily washing is fairly common although we recommend biodegradable soap and even then using only significantly small amounts of soap.
   
   We carry a expedition water filter since all regions of the world now have some level of parasite giardia that can causes intestinal problems. This filter removes everything down to 2 microns and pumps and incredible four litres a minute. Even though the water is often clear unless there is rain pushing silt into the river, we recommend that you drink the filtered water.
    
6. Do we share camp chores? It has always been our before at Canoe North Adventures that part of a any canoe trip involves building a fire, cooking meals, cleaning up camp or building a latrine. Our plan has always been to form a few teams that can take over these responsibilities on a rotating basis. This means that people are not all trying to help at once and that everyone gets time off to relax.
   
7. Who would I paddle or tent with if I came on my own? Many people do come on our trips without a paddling partner. Many trips will have a combination of couples and singles. This has never been a issue on the river or in camp. When looking at an overall group of paddlers, we establish what we think is the best mix of skill in the canoes. We look at our group as a team that needs to get down a river and therefore, we want each boat to have a combination that will ensure safety and a consistent speed on the river. We do switch paddlers around unless there is a special request from a client to stay together with their paddling partner. We do mainly use double occupancy tents but have single tents if people feel more comfortable with their own tent.