nunavut – the life of a nature photographer

Wilberforce: Describing the Impossible

Thursday, July 11th, 2019

Eric enjoying the view of the lower falls at Wilberforce.

Wilberforce Falls, near the end of the Hood River in Nunavut, is an experience – impossible to capture with pixels or describe with words. But I’ll still try. The river splits into two, flowing around a massive promontory of rock, plunging over 60m (200 feet) in two stages on both sides. The roar is so loud you have to yell to talk. Gusts of mist rise from the canyons below. Nesting peregrine falcons dive bombed us as we peered over the edges of cliffs to the water below. As with every spectacular experience, the time I had there was way too short.

The spot of blue is Annika peering over the cliff at one of the upper falls.

Posting pictures of this place (and many places) seems almost disrespectful. They are such a pale reflection of an actual experience. You see a pretty picture of water and rock and tundra. You don’t feel the bone-weary exhaustion of two weeks of canoe tripping. You don’t feel the anxiety of knowing the next day you will start to move all your canoes and gear across 12km of unknown tundra. You don’t feel the bittersweet feeling of leaving a river and the excitement of heading towards the arctic ocean. You don’t feel the frustration of never having enough time to appreciate the incredible places you’re breezing past.

The smaller side of the upper falls.

What am I trying to accomplish by taking photos of these places? Spreading the knowledge that there are incredible places shaped by incredible forces? Trying to get people to value and preserve wilderness? Encouraging others to have similar experiences? Bragging about my experiences? Trying to add something beautiful and wholesome to the fight for the soul of the internet?

I think understanding the value of wilderness is essential to the well-being and survival of humans. The value is in the beauty, in the feeding of the soul, in the ecosystem services it provides us, in the reminder that we are small, the knowledge that it was here long before us and will be here long after us, even in its own right to exist. Knowledge and understanding are so much deeper when they’re gained through experience instead of seeing photos or reading text online. This is why I also lead trips in the wilderness, despite the difficulty, risk, and expense. The difficulty, risk, and wilderness create a learning environment that teaches while it amazes. These experiences change lives.

Part of the canyon below the falls.

Bill Mason, the skilled canoeist, artist, and environmentalist, tried to paddle the canyon below the falls in the 1990s. He writes the incredible story in the book “First Descents: In Search of Wild Rivers”. Hopefully this google book link works for people – the story starts on page 81.

Muskox

Tundra, Wildlife

Sunday, July 7th, 2019

A large muskox on the banks of the Hood River, Nunavut

My first glimpse of a muskox was from a canoe on the Hood River. There was a herd of dark specks far away on the gentle slope of the riverbank near the Wright River confluence. We pulled over, went up on shore, and watched them for a while. They were very far away and I don’t know if they ever noticed us.

Some of the rest of the herd peering at the strange out-of-place creatures floating on the water.

The second time we saw them, we had pulled to the side of the river to check out a promising sandy bank with signs of wolves. At first it looked like the wolves hadn’t been there for a while – the signs were all old. And then, as we were taking one last look around, large white wolf exploded out of the ground just a few feet in front of us. It bounded away until it reached a ridge where it could look back at us and then it started howling. As it was running up the hill, we noticed a herd of muskox grazing on the same ridge. The muskox were keeping an eye on the wolf, but didn’t look too worried.

These first few photos are from the third time we saw them. We were canoeing through a technical part of the river with lots of rocks, waves, and fast water. They were watching us from high above on a gravel bank, but quite close. We found an eddy (a calmer section of water below something blocking the current) by the shore and watched them for a while from the canoes. The wind was blowing through their long hair and occasionally blowing away parts of their lighter-colored winter coats. Later on in the summer I’d find a lot of this this qiviut (muskox wool) snagged on birch and willow around MacKay Lake. It is one of the warmest, softest, and most expensive fibers you can get.

Throughout the summer I saw quite a few muskox, both lone bulls and herds. When a bull gets too uppity and challenges the leadership, they can get kicked out of a herd. We saw a few of these lone bulls roaming around. Once, near MacKay Lake, we were at a research site sampling birch shrubs when we saw something moving on the horizon. Worrying it was a grizzly, we got everyone’s attention and got into a group. We then watched as a bull muskox lumbered towards us. It disappeared into a gully so we got up on a large rock to get a better view. When it reappeared, it briefly stopped, looked at us, and then kept coming closer. It seemed curious, trying to figure out what we were. It came close enough that we could watch it’s nose dripping and hear it breathing. At this point it was close enough that we were getting a bit nervous, and one of us moved. That was enough for it to turn and run, long hair billowing majestically behind it. That was a ideal reaction – if they start rubbing their front leg against their face, then you know you’re in trouble.

The largest herd we saw was more than 20 muskoxen on the shores of MacKay Lake. That was also when I got to hear the most impressive animal noise I’ve ever heard. As we were floating closer in our canoes, the dominant bull let out what can only be described as a rumble that I could feel as much as hear.

In the 1800s, muskox were almost extinct. They had been hunted by whalers, fur traders, explorers, and Inuit until there were almost none left. They were a good source of meat and fur, and were easy to hunt. Their defensive reaction is to line up in front of their young and charge if anything attacks. While that’s a great defense against wolves, it is a very poor defense against rifles. In 1917, the government of Canada banned hunting muskox, and in 1927, created the Thelon Game Sanctuary to help muskox populations recover. Now muskox populations are rising fast while the caribou populations are plummeting.

In 1897, Charles “Buffalo” Jones, a rich American, took it upon himself to go up north and lasso some young muskox to take back down south and breed in captivity. He saw it as his God-given duty to “have dominion over every living thing”. He went up north, built a cabin by Great Slave Lake to spend the winter in, and the next year found a herd out on the tundra. Against the wishes of the local people, he lassoed four calves and started to lead them south. One morning he woke up to find the four calves with their throats slit, with the knife left next to them. His mistake was a classic one – barging in without any understanding or respect. He sort of got the message and left the muskox alone, only to head out to an island in the Bering Sea to try to establish a breeding farm for Silver Foxes. His full story is maddening, fascinating, impressive, and ridiculous. This is a quick version.

Grizzlies on the Hood

Camping, Canoeing, Tundra, Wildlife

Thursday, May 2nd, 2019

Grizzlies grazing on the banks of the Hood River.

Below the Wright River confluence the character of the Hood River changed. It started feeling like a legitimate river with a significant current. It started to get a bit splashy, so we put the spraydecks on the canoes. This let us keep paddling instead of constantly bailing water out of the boats. It turned out that our packboats were all leaking a bit, so we occasionally had to stop and bail anyway. At one point we spotted a couple grizzlies grazing on the bank. We watched them for about 15 minutes before they spotted us. The younger, lighter colored bear took off along the shore, swam across the ice-cold river, and disappeared over the north bank. The mother (we think) followed shortly after, keeping a close eye on us.

We started paddling with spraydecks, as there were frequent small rapids.

Wright River

Canoeing, Tundra

Saturday, April 27th, 2019

Looking east towards the Hood River with the Wright River coming in from the south.

The short day from Kingaunmiut Falls to the Wright River confluence was possibly the smoothest day on this trip. The river was easy and glassy calm. We stopped to watch a few muskox grazing on the tundra far up the bank. We got to the Wright River early and had lots of time for a walk. We found old Inuit tent rings, fascinating rock formations and frost heaving, beautiful falls on the Wright River, and a school of Arctic Grayling swimming in the pool at the bottom of the falls with their tall dorsal fins constantly cutting through the still surface.

Falls on the Wright River as it tumbles towards the Hood.

Kingaunmiut Falls

Canoeing, Landscape, Photo of the Day, Tundra, Water

Thursday, April 4th, 2019

After Skull Rapids, we had a couple uneventful days of paddling and portaging. Then we got to a slightly longer portage, which would be just a small warm-up for our real portage (more on that later). But at the end of this long sweaty ordeal, we got a beautiful, flat campsite at the bottom of Kingaunmiut Falls, with a Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) scolding us for a bit before it accepted our presence as inevitable. Or maybe it realized we couldn’t scale the cliffs to get to its nest. This is also where we saw a distant herd of muskox for the first time.

Notes:
1. All of these photos were taken near midnight.
2. I was saying it “King – gun – mute”. If any speakers of an Inuit language are reading, I’d love to be corrected!

Skull Rapid

Camping, Canoeing, Landscape, Tundra, Water

Friday, March 1st, 2019

Having lunch above Skull Rapids on the Hood River

Skull Rapid – it’s an ominous name for a long and violent rapid, crashing over and through large boulders. This was our first portage of many, right at the outlet of Esker Lake. We figured out how to organize our gear, how to tie loose gear on to packframes, and how much we could all carry. It was a short portage at only a few hundred meters, and we completed it fairly quickly and had lunch on the bluff overlooking the rapid. The rapid is named for an old muskox skull, slowly decaying in the mats of flowering labrador tea (Ledum sp.).

Last Caribou in the Hood?

Camping, Canoeing, Tundra, Wildlife

Sunday, February 3rd, 2019

If we’d done this trip twenty years ago there’s a good chance we’d have canoed through herds of thousands of caribou. The north is peppered with stories of watching thousands of caribou stream past for hours, but not recently (at least in this part of the arctic). The Hood River is in the Bathurst Caribou range – it actually flows right through the traditional calving grounds, although those may be changing a bit too. We were hoping to see caribou on this trip, but we knew the chances of seeing a large herd was small. In 1986 the Bathurst herd was around 500,000 caribou, in 2015 it was 20,000 and today it is 8,200 (source).

In late June we pulled our canoes over the last bit of ice on Esker Lake. We got to the end of Esker Lake and camped on a large point of sand covered with Mountain Aven (white flowers with a yellow center). Although it was a lot of work hauling our gear up the sandy bank, the camping spot was spectacular. After camp was set up, supper cooked and everyone fed, most people headed to bed. I was tired, but I couldn’t pass up a short hike. As I walked up the sandy ridge (I don’t actually think it was an esker – it was too large of a sandy area) I admired the large ice-covered delta where a small river flowed out into a bay on the lake. I got to a high point and sat down to appreciate the view. Then I spotted something moving.

There was a lone caribou picking its way over the ice of the delta. I watched for a while – it was slowly getting closer to our camp. I’d heard about someone holding up their arms too look like caribou horns so caribou wouldn’t be scared of them and I thought I’d try it even though the caribou was still at least 500m away. I stood up and put my arms up. I saw it turn its head towards me and pause. And then it started running – towards me!

I was surprised, but I kept my hands up as much as I could while still snapping a couple pictures. The caribou ran across the delta, right in between the tents in our camp and up the ridge towards me. It got really close and I couldn’t resist – I dropped my arms to take some photos. And the caribou stopped. I’d lost my antlers and now it didn’t know what to make of me. It studied me for a minute, tilted its head this way and that, and eventually decided that I wasn’t a caribou. I may be anthropomorphizing, but that was the saddest caribou I could imagine trotting away from me. It went over a rise and disappeared.

I felt so sorry for that lonely guy. He looked so hopeful for a friend and I’d let him down.

Paddling Through Ice

Canoeing, Tundra, Water

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

Candled ice on the corner of Esker Lake.

Not all the ice on the Hood River was solid. As we got to Esker Lake, the last major lake on the river, we started getting a lot of candled ice. Candled ice is an experience. As the ice melts, it forms long vertical splinters (often 8-25cm long and less than an a few cm thick) that eventually break apart. When you are sitting still, it sounds like the most beautiful windchimes you can imagine spread out over the surface of a lake. There is a delicate glasslike tinkling like a million tiny toasts to you being there. But when you try to canoe through it, it creates a harsh racket and tries to block everything you do. Much of the time we had to chop it up with our paddles so our canoes could actually move. Normal canoes (we had two royalex prospectors and a canyon) slide through with a bit of effort, but pakboats stick to every little piece. We eventually learned to paddle in pairs of boats with a hard-sided canoe breaking the trail and a pakboat following right behind through the broken ice before it could close back in. Even so it is much slower than walking and you’re fighting for every paddle stroke. Luckily we only had a few hours of paddling through candled ice on this trip.

Taking a break after some hard paddling.

Surveying the expanse of candled ice we have to paddle through.

From the shore of Esker Lake.

Canoeing on Ice

Camping, Canoeing, Photo of the Day, Tundra, Water

Friday, January 11th, 2019

Ice on Cave Lake beside our first campsite.

To canoe in the arctic you either have to wait until late in the summer or encounter ice at some point. There was still plenty of ice on the lakes when we started on the Hood River in late June.

On Cave Lake, we started by trying to skirt the shore where the ice was mostly melted. We quickly ran into solid ice right up to the shore. The ice was still thick enough to support us in most spots. With the normal canoes, you could take a run at the ice and if you had enough speed, the front of the canoe would pop out of the water and you’d launch yourself onto the ice. Then the bow paddler could quickly jump out and pull the canoe all the way up.

With pakboats it was a little more tricky. You would have to sidle up to the ice and try to step out onto a relatively slippery surface without pushing your boat away from the ice. And since the bottoms of the pakboats are a sticky rubber material, we had “crazy carpets” that we would tie to the bottom of the boats so they would slide easily on the ice, similar to the regular canoes.

Then we would pull the loaded canoes across the ice, sometimes for quite a few kilometers at a time. Occasionally there would be breaks in the ice where we would have to get in the canoes, paddle for a meter or two, and get back out and pull further.

The trick for not falling through the ice is to stick to the whiter areas. The darker spots are where the ice is starting to melt and get soft. Usually it was still pretty thick there, but the lighter colored ice was definitely more solid.

No one fell through the entire trip!

Pulling canoes over Esker Lake a few days later.

Ice piled up on the shore of Cave Lake. You can see a little band of water we had to canoe over in the distance.

The trickiest parts were where water and ice mixed.

Backlog from 2018

Business, Camping, Canoeing, Landscape

Wednesday, December 12th, 2018

A red fox kit near Cave Lake in Nunavut

Hey! It’s been a long time – I really need a social media manager or something. I’ve been all over the place since I last updated: the Milk River in Alberta, the Hood River in Nunavut, Jolly, Courageous, and MacKay Lakes in NWT, the North Saskatchewan River from Rocky Mountain House to Drayton Valley, rural Montana, and Golden BC – those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. I hope to get a bunch of new photos in the store within the next month or so. I’m so far behind on going through photos it will take me a while to catch up, and the official jobs always get priority. I’ll leave you with just a teaser of what’s to come.

Oh, and the Royal Alberta Museum is now open and it’s great! You can see my photos in the Human History room on the main floor (the large ones in the middle) and surrounding the Manitou Stone upstairs (the stairs right by the main entrance before you get to admissions).

The photo is from the headwaters of the Hood River in Nunavut. We left in June and there was still a lot of ice on the lakes that far north. One smaller plane (a Cessna Caravan) went ahead to scout for open water which we needed because the planes were both on floats. A little later the rest of us (there were 12 on this trip) piled into a Twin Otter and flew north. There was a bay on the south side of Cave Lake that was free of ice, so we landed there. As we were taxiing up to shore, I caught a glimpse of a fox watching us. Unloading the plane was a flurry of activity as there was three weeks of food to unload along with all our personal gear and some pack canoes. As we were building the pack canoes, we could see the foxes peering over the edge of a bank watching us. I’m sure we were a curiosity – there are not a lot of people up there. This is the lighter colored kit, there was another that was a bit darker and more shy, and we watched the parents trot off to hunt siksiks (which I’m sure I’ll post pictures of at some point here).