Introduction
Juggling the interests of a group with varied levels of fitness, skill and confidence has always been a challenge. That’s why we picked the North Saskatchewan River. It was simple, accessible, and it offered a good mix of wild and developed areas to contrast. Those of us who wanted to beach, beer and barbeque would have ample time, and the promise of faster water in the final stretch would allow the Type As to put their junior adventurer hats on. But inevitably the trip plan promised more than it could deliver, and we found ourselves challenged in the same old ways.
Day One: Leaving Fort Carlton
All our past adventures have occurred near the east and northeast edges of the Saskatchewan border, with exception to the very-south Grasslands National Park and Cypress Hills; all are a grueling drive for at least some members of our group. So I was excited when there was a serious push to make a trip on the North Saskatchewan River, only a little over an hour from Saskatoon. This was great for the five of us who lived in the city, less for the others who had to sleep on the floor of Adam’s dank basement suite.
The trip started with me, Nate and Gill, and a few others waiting for stragglers to arrive at the Flying J parking lot. David was berating Adam for the canoe he brought, a Pelican 15.5, noticeably shorter than everyone else’s, but probably great for learning how to paddle in a pool or something. Adam, David, Matt were sure to have fun with that.
The rest of the group arrived: Mitch and Kendall; Andrew, Anne and Kyle; and Sean, and we departed together for our put-in location at Fort Carlton Provincial Historic Park. We drove up the Louis Riel Trail, past the town of Duck Lake on a thin membrane surface, through Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation, past freshly tilled fields, freshly fertilized. The temperature struggled to reach over an unexciting 5° C but the skies were clear and sunny.
Our plan was to canoe from Fort Carlton to the forks where the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan rivers meet, about 140 kilometres downriver. Judging by how quickly the Saskatchewan Rivers flowed (by eyeballing them from the freeway), we expected to make decent headway over three days with enough time for general laziness.
There were rapids past the city of Prince Albert according to a blog by Eb’s. Most of us wanted to get there ASAP, but we did not want the trip to end too quickly either. Starting at Fort Carlton would give us time to lounge about in the Nisbet Forest, paddle through PA, then shoot some rapids for the finale.
We reached Fort Carlton nestled in a forest grove on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. The place was deserted, aside from some park maintenance staff who were kind enough to let us access their boat launch. There, we unloaded our canoes and gear, and half the group waited while I and the others left for the Saskatchewan River Forks.
The waiting game at Fort Carlton (Hootz)
Gill and Oats, ready to go (Hootz)
It took almost four hours to drive to the forks and back. We left the canoe trailer and vehicle at the parking area, and on a prudential whim, we left an extra backup vehicle at the Cecil Ferry, some 30 kilometres upriver.
By the time we returned to Fort Carlton, the waiting crew looked desiccated.
‘We already went through the usual conversations,’ Matt said.
‘Now what are we supposed to talk about all weekend?’
At load-in, Adam, Matt and David faced the reality of fitting three men, their gear and three days’ worth of food in a tiny boat. Repacking was necessary but did not happen. We proceeded to launch anyway.
Finally leaving Fort Carlton (Hootz)
Embarking on the North Saskatchewan River (Goodson)
Clippers be all the rage (Goodson)
The Problem Pelican (Goodson)
Fifteen minutes on the water, I heard men in distress. Adam, Matt and David – who I will refer collectively as The Pelican from now on – were far behind, shouting. We slowed down to see what the racket was about.
The closer we approached, the clearer the clamor. First, it was David cursing, then Matt protesting the entire situation, then Adam, paddling at the stern, apologizing profusely.
‘We’re like two inches from going under,’ Matt said, in full-bore panic mode. ‘We’re gonna tip any second.’ By the looks of it, their canoe was indeed mighty low.
‘I messed up. Sorry guys. It’s not going to work. I messed up’ Adam continued. ‘We have to unload some of our stuff. There’s no choice.’
Mitch and Kendall, and Sean and I guided The Pelican to shore and began repacking, dispersing gear evenly between canoes. The other two canoes in our group had already paddled ahead, leaving us behind. They were now the most annoying people on the planet.
Sharing the load - dispersing gear from the over-packed Pelican (Hootz)
Yeah, it’s a little beastly. But it’s camping.
The headwinds kicked up, tensions were high, and the river current was not as fast as we’d hoped. Even with the group sticking together, arguments flew about. People who did not fully understand the trip plan were making commands. At one point, Matt keeled over like he was having a heart attack. Things were not going smoothly.
We waited until the last possible minute before finding camp, something that turned out to be a challenge as the banks on the North Saskatchewan River were all but hospitable. A long flat where we could all dock was rare, and we would need to carry our gear some distance.
Frustrations dissolved after camp was setup and the food came out. Exhausted, I set out to make the lavish dinner I had prepared when I assumed the trip was going to be easy. I had two fresh ground beef patties, bacon, brioche buns and all the fixins for the ultimate backcountry burger. It was good, but I resented the work.
After a rough start, we were all looking forward to a more straight-forward day of paddling. The evening closed out with a brilliant sunset over the high west riverbank, and one of the worst food hangs we’ve ever done. I’m pretty sure someone was hammocking right next to it.
Sunset from our first camp on the North Saskatchewan River (Goodson)
Total distance paddled: 24 km
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Day Two: Enter Nisbet Forest
Spa treatment (Goodson)
It was a cold morning, so most of us were wearing that odd combination of heavy coat/sweater and toque, with pants rolled up like capris.
I overheard Matt and Adam discussing their canoe.
‘What are we going to do? We’re still too heavy for the canoe even after all the food and beer last night,’ Matt said.
‘People are gonna need to take our stuff again…’
‘C’mon Matt! Are we not men? We can handle it,’ Adam said.
‘Right! We’ll make them take it.’
The group shuffled their things down to the canoes and we were all ready to go before the sun had lit our side of the valley.
Thanks to paddling further than anyone really wanted to the first day, we were able to stay on-schedule and entered the Nisbet Forest before mid-morning.
Farmland no longer bordered the edge of the valley, and large tracts of spruce and pine became the norm. We were sure to find a better campsite for night #2.
Now, for the reader’s benefit, an abridged version of the day’s events:
Headwinds were persistent; gusts threw us off course/blasted sand in our faces
Arguing/bickering was less frequent, but paddling remained tedious and repetitive for all
Further complaints were issued from The Pelican
Sean and I whined and cast doubt on pushing for the rapids, because paddling was tedious and repetitive
We did not find a better campsite for night #2
Paddling was tedious and repetitive
For the distance we needed to cover, the river current wasn’t enough to make for a lazy day. Paddles were in the river at all times. The only exception was when beaching on a sandbar or enjoying fermented beverages.
The rare half-decent side profile (Goodson)
Early morning paddle on the North Saskatchewan River (Goodson)
Seeing triple (Goodson)
Beach beers (Hootz)
Eagle, eagle-ing it up (Goodson)
Five canoes searching for a place to dock (Goodson)
Seasick sailors (Goodson)
The east side of the river was marked by tall evergreens and high slopes; the opposite side was wiry, deciduous and relatively bare, excusable for the time of year but slightly more grim where charred skeletons of aspen and pine were left from wildfires years before.
Although Nisbet Forest had a wilder feel than the previous day, the most secluded parts were behind us by noon. Reminders of civilization undercut the scenery, but this was to be expected on a famously travelled Canadian heritage river that flows through at least three cities.
By 6:30 pm, we were sore, exhausted and stressed by the fact we had not found a suitable camping spot. While we might have fared better with a smaller, more agile group, ours had to accommodate tents, hammocks, five canoes and 12 people.
The river took a hard turn south and undeveloped land was becoming less common and less dense. Our options for the night were becoming limited.
Where there were beaches, there were only short, scrubby trees for wind blocks. Most banks were still too steep to dock. But we had paddled almost constantly the entire day and were in dire need of a comfortable resting place. We acquiesced until we were desperate enough to take almost anything.
With our last ounce of energy and working brain cells, we found a spot in a thicket of maples and thorn bushes, caked in mud and dust from high water. The alternative was to camp on Badger Island, but it was the last stop before PA city limits, and no one felt like risking a night stealth-camping on private property if the island turned out to be inaccessible.
We were able to make the spot cozier than initially imagined and good humour returned again. The evening closed with a lavish spread of food and drink, and one of the worst food hangs we’ve ever done, which wasn’t really a hang at all so much as a throw-in-a-heaping-pile-by-the-river. I don’t remember why it happened, it just did.
Breaking midway through the Nisbet Forest section of the North Saskatchewan River, west of Prince Albert (Hootz)
Total distance paddled: 38 km
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Day Three: Gateway to the North
I woke in the middle of the night after someone in the tent next to mine was making noise. They sounded far in the bushes and I wondered how they were managing without a lamp on.
A branch snapped. The footsteps sounded indeliberate, not like someone who wanted to relieve themselves and get back inside their tent as soon as possible. ‘Hey, who is that?’ I called out, not wanting to cause too much of a stir in case it was someone doing their thing. But there was no response. I listened to the steps getting closer, then remembered our stupid food heap by the river before putting two and two together.
The temperature was freezing cold. I grabbed my headlamp, unzipped my sleeping bag, got out of the tent and scanned the woods in my boxer briefs and flip-flops, brandishing a can of bear mace at the darkness. Something close rushed off into the woods, so I scanned the forest again, but never saw what it was.
By morning it turned out few people had even heard the commotion. ‘I heard the noises, but then I heard you dealing with it so I just went back to sleep,’ Sean laughed. Nate took it more seriously. ‘I guess we’re just not hanging our food on this trip or what?’
I swallowed a naproxen tablet. We had another long day of paddling ahead of us – this time through Prince Albert. I was excited for the novelty of paddling through a bustling city after two days of being grizzled by the woods.
Approaching the Canadian Northern Railway Bridge in Prince Albert (Goodson)
Around noon, we saw the Canadian Northern Railway Bridge in the distance and took a break on one of the last islands before the city. There were plastics, debris and what appeared to be fried chicken wings strewn about the sand. ‘If this is all on the surface,’ Gill said, ‘I can’t wrap my head around the stuff that’s underneath.’ Fascinating future-fossils, no doubt.
The Pelican was having more issues. It was taking them considerably more effort to paddle the same distance as the rest of us. Matt was complaining about nausea and pains in his chest, and because complaining was always his M.O., David and Adam chided him for comic relief. But he was not in a clowning mood, unfortunately, and took the break to decide whether he would abandon the trip at PA and spend the rest of it alone in a hotel room — not something a healthy person would do if they could help it.
Nobody was all that interested in Matt’s downer predicament. Most had their sights on getting to the rapids and were not in any mood to listen to naysayers. But while I wanted to paddle something exciting, I knew the group wasn’t the safest place to be when you’re odd man out.
After taking some water and whatever long-expired Gravol was in my First Aid kit, Matt decided he would continue the trip. From there, we shoved off the crusty beach and passed through the “Gateway to the North".
“Gateway to the North” is Prince Albert’s motto, along with a half-dozen other Canadian cities. (Goodson)
Remember when we used to go backcountry camping? (Goodson)
Grizzled wilderness men, paddling an alien landscape (Goodson)
On the eastern edge of the city, we encountered the stone weir. Thanks to Eb’s story, we knew to hang left where there was a passageway with fewer rocks.
We hoped the river would increase in speed after the weir, and that appeared to be the case. One could make out the downward curvature of the water surface on occasion, a welcome reminder that we were making progress.
Paddling through the city and suburbs took the better half of the afternoon. But we were back in the country, the day was warm and beautiful, and we were feeling more confident our work was going to pay off.
I overheard Kyle, the third wheel in his canoe, singing a sunburnt chanty version of ‘99 Bottles.’
‘If I hear the word piss one more time, I swear to God, Kyle,’ Andrew said, before singing along himself.
Morale was lifting, and the group agreed we owed ourselves a campsite that was “at least a four-out-of-five.” We began the search around 4 pm, far earlier than any of the previous nights.
The first candidate was Willow Island. It had an easy beach for docking and an abundance of sunlight for drying off wet gear. But upon surveying, we found a lack of firewood and a misleadingly thin forest with few anchors for hammocks. Overall an aesthetic ‘meh.’ We decided to move on.
Searching for a suitable campsite in a rather developed area (Goodson)
The Golden Gate of Boreal Refuge (Goodson)
The second candidate was far more promising. It presented itself to us as a gateway into boreal splendor — a doorway into the forest’s most glorious bounty and hospitable shelter.
‘It’s complete shit,’ Nate said, returning from his investigation.
‘There’s thorns everywhere. It’s completely overgrown. We’d be spending hours trying to make this work.’
I didn’t want to believe him, so I got out to check and it was indeed shit. We moved on.
Next was a grassy bank at the end of the river’s aisle that, from a distance, looked like a manicured golf green on the edge of the water. It was shaded, therefore colder, but we were willing to forego sunlight as soon there would be none at all.
Mitch and Kendall picked a spot to check out, while the rest of us headed further downriver to another spot so we could compare. Meltwater from something on the other side of the ridge was spilling over, leeching through the ground and turning it into something like muskeg. I trudged through the mud to reach Mitch and Kendall, filling my boots.
‘Any better here?’ I asked. Mitch and Kendall looked at each other. ‘It’s about a two-out-of-five. Maybe one and a half,’ Mitch said, unconvincingly. We stood in silence for a moment then heard Matt’s trademark frustrated scream echo from downriver. ‘Guessing things are no better over there?’
Duped by yet another false beach, the group seriously considered finding some god-awful way to camp in the mud before thankfully dismissing the idea.
A few more metres downriver we found a dry, clear plateau that was a solid three-out-of-five. Exhausted yet again, the evening closed out the same as the others. But this time, the food heap was slightly further from camp.
It took three hours to find a campsite that was remotely tolerable (Goodson)
The last light of the day shining down the river aisle (Goodson)
Placid North Saskatchewan River (Goodson)
Total Distance Paddled: who cares?
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Day Four: Payday
Three days on the river and we had little to show for it except a good workout. This was our day to head home, and we had another 30 kilometres to get to the river forks where there remained the final task of hauling canoes and gear out of a canyon. I spent the previous evening gauging the group’s feelings on whether to simply call the trip a wash at Cecil Ferry and get on with the long ride home.
Despite constant bickering, most of the group wanted to finish as planned. The fact Mitch and Kendall were devising plans to carry on with or without the group made me realize perhaps I’d been a sourpuss all weekend. If I hadn’t focused on whether there would be a payoff for all the work we’d done, I might have had a better time.
The only valid complaint was from The Pelican, which had objections to shooting rapids when they’ve been on the verge of sinking all trip.
While the rest of the group was willing to put on another 30 kilometres, Matt pleaded for a way out. Thankfully we had camped less than a kilometre away from Cecil Ferry where Adam’s car was parked. He would take Adam’s car, along with some gear to lighten the load, and meet us at the forks in a few hours.
Kyle offered to keep Matt company, but Andrew bargained with him to stay. The rapids were ahead and we did not know what to expect. Alone or not, Matt seemed happy to be off the hook.
Down one paddler, we continued down the final stretch of our North Saskatchewan River trip. Almost immediately after Cecil Ferry, the river narrowed and increased speed.
Tall evergreens lined the river and spired up high sandy ridges. It almost felt like montane wilderness, though I never spent much time in mountains, so you know. It was arguably the prettiest scenery we had seen so far.
Changing river after Cecil Ferry (Goodson)
Active water (Goodson)
Finally, Class I rapids n’ stuff (Goodson)
The Pelican, down one member (Goodson)
There were hoops and hollers among the group at the first sight of slightly turbulent water. It felt like we had paddled a lake for three days with very little to show for it but sore arms and squabbles. Finally, we were being carried.
It began with a few quick sections around tighter bends, then some interesting runs presented themselves.
All I remember is clenching my teeth and grinning madly.
For a little while, it reminded me of our first time canoeing rapids on the Red Deer River east of Hudson Bay. I was surprised how natural it felt to be in fast-moving water again, and almost perplexed when Sean suggested skirting around the edges of a more turbulent section as the rapids were the most excitement we’d had all trip.
At one of the more troublesome bends, I saw the bow of Mitch and Kendall’s canoe dip underneath a wave and scoop a barrel full of water. I assumed they were sunk. Sean and I were already following suit on the same course, but succeeded with only a couple lap-fulls. Mitch and Kendall had to beach again to pump out the few inches of water in their canoe.
We took a short break between runs and hung out beneath the shade of tall spruce.
‘This made it all worthwhile,’ Nate said. ‘I think it would’ve put me off camping for a while if we left at Cecil.’
‘Matt should be here for this,’ Gill said.
There was kind of an unspoken understanding, that if Matt had come, The Pelican might not have managed the rapids. Given it was his first time as well, he may not have enjoyed them as much as we did either. But there was no denying that finishing the trip without him was not quite finishing the trip.
After some smoked oysters and pepperonis, we got back on the water for a few more runs before reaching the abandoned Lacolle Falls Hydroelectric Dam, where Sean, Mitch and I had shot our first Super 8 film together a few years before.
The rapids were toning down by the time we cornered the dam. This was most likely to be the last attraction before home, and slightly bittersweet considering we were just now having fun.
Last stop: the abandoned La Colle Falls Hydroelectric Dam (Hootz)
Skids on a dam (Hootz)
Rude tourists (Hootz)
Getting closer to the forks, the river sunk deeper and deeper into the valley. The ridges were now the highest we had seen, and I wondered how we would spot our exit point from the river bottom where things never quite look the same.
Our plan was to exit before reaching the forks, as the trail from the river to the parking lot was a miserably steep 174 feet, or 16 stories. Before the trip, we had spotted a much lower access point and Andrew got the landowner’s permission to take our canoes out there. By doing so, we would reduce our climb to 42 ft, or four stories, however the ridge was more likely to be a cliff.
‘Are we there yet?’ I asked Andrew again for the third time. He was the only one who knew what it looked like, and I sensed he was getting annoyed with my badgering. More likely, our patience was waning again with the rapids behind us and much work ahead.
Eventually Andrew signaled us to beach, and we unloaded our canoes for the last time.
Getting out of the canyon was a tedious and arduous process, for me at least. Nate and Mitch hauled their canoes by themselves before most had finished unloading their gear. It was easier for the rest of us to haul each canoe uphill using rope and a team of three or four people, pushing and pulling. I had to make about five trips up and down with gear, and realized early on it was best to just focus on the steps rather than how far I’ve made it up the slope.
Andrew returned with the canoe trailer, and Matt, who we were unsure whether to tell he’d missed out on a good time, seemed miraculously healthier. I was very interested to hear how he had spent the last five hours alone.
‘I slept in the car most of the time,’ he said. ‘It was super busy at that parking lot, man. And kind of weird, too. People kept having like, really personal conversations within earshot.’
The rest of the group seemed to deem the trip an overall success, if only because of the final day. Before leaving, Nate said he would’ve rather spent the weekend going from Cecil Ferry to the forks over again. I doubted I would do the same. If I learned anything from the trip, it was the limitations and conflicts of travelling with a group this large were something I needed to accept. Or maybe four days of laborious paddling was simply too long for people who knew each other all too well.
Distance Travelled (Grand Total): 140 km