The character of a river was something we’d often discuss, whether it was a reflection of the scenery or the effort required to get there. While there were many personalities, there were two rivers we'd come to think of as the main characters. If the Pine River in the Duck Mountains was the mother river, then the Steeprock River in the Porcupine Hills was the divorcee father who lived in a separate highrise.
On a weekend in mid-June with thunderstorms in the forecast, we were looking for a place that was familiar, but lacking in formal supervision. So it was decided:
Dad gets to have his kids for the weekend!
The skies were clear and sunny when we dropped ourselves off at the river and appeared welcome with open arms. There were no problems hiking on slippery rocks, through twigs that snapped like whips, and over storied cutbanks that collapsed underfoot. Because getting hurt was how you learned, and we always learned a lot from Father Steeprock.
“You should have a full suit of armor to hike this river,” Sean said. “—or a helmet, at the very least.” This was not an absurd thought.
It was late by the time we set up our tents and rolled out our sleeping bags. Evening turned to night around the campfire as we discussed the finer points of cooking Spam and the dubious merits of Robert De Niro's career post-Meet the Fockers. The envy of the group was Sean, with his new ‘Bland County Survivorman’ t-shirt—a YouTuber we admired for his video demonstrating how, when faced with a questionable water source, you can self-administer an enema with rubber tubing and a camel pack. This was an undeniably high-value t-shirt and a bit of a rarity as the Bland County Survivorman had allegedly been served a nasty cease-and-desist letter for the use of his moniker from the lawyers of the official and trademarked Survivorman, Les Stroud, who I had never seen give himself an enema, ever.
The next morning was hot and humid, but clear and a beautiful day to spend hiking up a wild river with no clear end point. We downed a quick breakfast of kippers and oatmeal, then strapped on our daypacks and skipped down the rocks the place was so famous for.
Amber-clear waters boiled through the rocks as we casted our lines into the eddies with no reply. The next pool would be better, I thought. We leapfrogged to the next potential fishing hole, racing for the undisturbed pool that holds the mega brook trout, which everyone knows is only catchable if you are at the very front of the group.
By noon, when grey clouds grumbled and darkened the sky, I remembered my hammock left sagging between two trees without the rainfly. I considered going back to make my bed proper, but the heavy clouds broke and sunlight filled the valley again.
"Just kidding!" said Steeprock.
We kept fishing. I put on a clear bobber and wooly green bugger — the same rig that landed my best stream-run brook trout ever the last time we were at Steeprock. After smashing my only two bobbers one after the other, I was feeling miffed by the river’s sudden stinginess.
We came across a triangle-shaped cutbank we called the ‘House of Sod.’ The sun was shining and there was a calm, shallow pool to enjoy at the foot of it. Just as I opened a fresh can of smoked oysters for lunch, dark clouds moved in again. I looked down at my can of oily gloom.
"Thanks a lot, Steeprock."
Lightning flashed, followed by a deep rumble. Dad was not impressed with my back-talk. The trees swayed as a cold breeze funnelled through the valley. The group deliberated for a minute whether to turn back to camp, but the clouds dissipated and we were free to roam again.
With fishing becoming a moot point, seeing what was beyond the next bend became the main goal. The group had dispersed, each of us crossing the river freely and investigating whatever drew our attention. Clouds of varying shape and density passed over us, vague empty threats, but good atmosphere for frolicking.
Hopping from boulder to boulder, Nate spotted a Luna Moth resting on the leafy shrubs where it was practically invisible. The rest of us caught up, while Nate seemed especially transfixed, as drops of rain began to splash on the dusty rocks.
The moth fluttered away and a gust of wind blew through the valley, followed by heavy pouring rain. Feeling we had pushed our luck one too many times, we started hiking back to camp immediately. A strobe-like flash of lightning followed by a violent, crackling thunder widened my eyes. My heart began to pound.
Our warnings were over. Steeprock had enough of our shit. The group shifted into war mode, taking to the bush where we expected to be less exposed to lightning and rain, and less likely to slip on the rocks, but fallen trees and steep ridges drove us further uphill until we became walking lightning rods. I was wildly paranoid about my metal belt buckle, and how I might look as a charred corpse in cargo shorts.
We marched through the bush with boot-camp focus and soon made it back to the House of Sod. We were moving double the speed it took us to get where we were. Around the last few bends before our campsite, the thunder slowly faded, and the air remained thick as dark clouds churned and detangled from each other. Aside from some light drizzle, it appeared the worst of the storm was passing over.
I dreaded the state of my hammock tent and all the gear I left unsheltered as we approached our camp. Surprisingly, everything was just as we left it, basking in sunlight and completely undisturbed.
Exhausted from the hike back and feeling like we had perhaps taken advantage of Steeprock’s good graces, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the camp, which was in fact a beautiful spot fairly typical for Steeprock, with a craggy riverbed surrounded by various post-glacial refuse, walled-in by storied cutbanks, dense jungly shrubs and thick-canopied aspen. We ruminated for a while about what we might have found if we hadn’t turned back. But being grounded was not-so-bad, and we sat in the stream, cracking open the weekend’s liquor cabinet. The sun came out and there were no more storms that afternoon. It seemed we had the place to ourselves, as if Steeprock had stepped out for a pack of smokes.
One unfortunate side of packing booze into remote locations is the compromises on quality and variety. This night was particularly good though, with piss-warm scotch, spiced rum and Mio, and some weird camping-grade White Russian mix. The latter was responsible for imprinting one of the weirdest images in my memory: that of a disembodied mouth in the dark, lit by the fire light, protruding from the narrow opening of a hammock tent, intermittently spewing White Russian into a pair of hiking boots. At some point the mouth requested its water bottle, so I went on what I thought was a very impressive act of man-hunting. I determined the most likely scenario it would have been lost, trekked through the pitch dark bush with my headlamp, and successfully located it standing upright next to a pile of turds.
Back at the fire, the atmosphere was as comfortable as any living room, aside from the occasional sounds from the disembodied mouth. The conversations got sparse toward midnight, and the fire mostly ash with a few crackling red coals.
It seemed the right time to get water and douse it out, which was when Nate got up, stumbled backward, and hit the back of his head on the ground inches away from an exposed boulder face.
He lifted himself back, shaken and bewildered, like the victim of a hit-and-run. “Jeeeeesus Christ,’ he groaned. “That could have killed me.’ I was more certain than ever it was time for bed.
“I told you we should bring helmets,” Sean joked, in a tone that suggested he was now mostly serious.
Maybe there was a parallel reality where Nate wasn’t so lucky, and Steeprock wasn’t some mercurial entity that ultimately had our best interests at heart. It was the kind of non-fun thought I would have rather not had. But Steeprock’s all-day warnings had left an impression. And who could blame him? He was under a lot of stress lately, being low on trout and all.