Hudson Bay Surprises
The next day, the Albany River had enough water in it that we didn't have to drag the canoe anymore. It was moving swiftly and growing as creeks and rivers came in from the both sides and added to the flow. I had to watch carefully when we came to rapids because I could still scrape on sharp rocks and damage or even destroy the canoe. I didn't want to do that. Even if I could make a raft, it would be difficult going downstream.
While still in the rapids, I spotted up ahead a black bear at the edge of the water, probably turning over rocks to find morsels underneath. The bear was on the right, so I steered to the left. As we closed on him, he looked up and stared at this strange thing coming downstream. But he made no move. Rocky perked up on the bow and growled as we slid quickly by the surprised bear and then were moving on downstream of him. Me muttering, "Thank you," for our safety.
I think we made 20 to 30 miles each day after that. We ran into rapids very often, very challenging but the canoe was easy to steer and I knew how to avoid big rocks by watching the waves on the surface indicating where they were. It was too late when you saw them underneath the canoe after you hit one or ran up on top of one.
And there were waterfalls… Several. At each one, I would have to pull off to the side and take a look at how I was going to get around it. Most were a short portage that I could do in less than an hour. Others had vicious rapids below and I had to portage further along the shoreline, sometimes in heavy brush, before I got to calmer, safer waters.
Rocky enjoyed riding and resting in the front of the canoe healing well and announcing with a bark all the wildlife that populated both the river and the shoreline everywhere. I guess it was like being transported back before this area was populated and human hunting began. We feasted every evening on local fish and game. I found it relaxing just to use the paddle to steer and let the current take us along. To speed things up, I fashioned a mast, lashed it to the front seat and created a sail with a tarp. That doubled my speed as the river grew mightily, quite wide and deep. The wind was mostly westerly and I took advantage of that easily because we were headed in a mostly east, northerly direction.
But that speed also almost ruined what was becoming a very pleasant cruise. I was sailing quite close to the shore on the south side of the river when it was about 100 yards wide when I heard a loud, scraping sound and realized that I'd run upon an unseen, underwater rock.
Soon after, I saw water forming in the bottom of the canoe and quickly steered it towards the shore, but not before the canoe filled halfway with water and I barely made it to shore before we sunk. We had no choice but to camp where we were. It was midafternoon. We had come some distance already that day.
I unloaded everything that was wet to dry, and took a look at the canoe after it was empty. There was a three foot long scrape on the bottom with a six inch gash. I was glad that I had the time and the sunlight left that day to do a patch job while swatting deer flies and using about half of the kit that I had. The resin and epoxy set up quickly and the canoe was ready for me to go hunting the shoreline that evening. I shot a pair of young ducks with my crossbow and caught a 37 inch northern that pulled me all around before I finally got him in the canoe. Rocky got his foot on the fish so that I could dispatch it before it flipped back into the water.
The next day, we came to the river splitting up into a delta of many channels. I chose to go by Kashechewan by sticking to the north shoreline and taking the channels that went to the left. I could've gone to Fort Albany in the southmost channel but that would have taken me five miles further south than I wanted to be when I entered Hudson Bay. I thought that the Fort and town would be devastated like everything else I had seen without much left to salvage anyway.
Kashechewan, on the other hand, was a large Indian village that might have some survivors, so I thought I would take a look. Before I got to the village, I saw something shining on the bank and pulled over to take a look. It was an 18 foot, flat bottomed aluminum canoe. In spite of the years with brush growing up around it, and a couple of dents, the canoe was in very good shape. It was just what I needed for the rough waters of Hudson Bay just ahead.
I set up camp there and used the drone to survey Kashechewan. Unfortunately, the town looked like everything else had. Mostly a ruin of burned out buildings and new growth that had taken over everything making it difficult to salvage what might be left there. I unloaded everything from the fiberglass canoe and reloaded it into the aluminum one. Suddenly discovering that I had lots of room to spare that I didn't have before, in the smaller canoe. With the rope, I towed the fiberglass canoe behind the aluminum one after that for insurance. Better to have two canoes than one.
As the drone flew over the town that was elevated from the river, probably to keep it from flooding, I saw that Hudson Bay was lapping at the eastern edge of town, flooding some of the buildings. I remembered that Hudson Bay was part of the Arctic Ocean that had risen that much in the last 20 years. It was astonishing and a bit scary.
The rise of the oceans was the reason I had not been able to go to the Gulf of Mexico or even revisit the Pacific after that one last time in Oregon and with Charlie in my initial time on the beach at Camp Pendleton. It became just too difficult.
From the drone survey, I also found a couple of buildings that still had roofs and were of concrete block construction, so I pulled up on the bank there and went to look. I did salvage a bucket that I could use for holding fish live and bailing the canoe if I needed to in choppy waters. I also found some fishing gear and lures to add to what I had that was depleted by snags and broken lines over the years. A canoe paddle and some tools that I had room for… A handsaw, hacksaw, chisel, and plane. All useful for doing wood work. Even some dog food that Rocky liked after all these years. I never knew what I would find when I was salvaging.
As the drone had shown me, Hudson Bay was right on the edge of town where it had been a half-mile away before according to my charts. The Bay appeared to have risen nearly forty feet from all of the glaciers that had melted, the ice on Greenland, and the ice on Antarctica. I had no doubt that Kashechewan would be underwater in a few years if the process continued.
The next morning, we got up very early at dawn, gathered fresh water to drink and sailed out into Hudson Bay into the sun. Once there, I followed the almost indiscernible western shoreline closely northward with the sail set just right at a tacking angle that gave me great speed of nearly 10 knots all day. It was a hot day with a brisk wind. Rocky and I used up all our water and we couldn't drink from the Bay like we had from all the lakes before. Off to the west, I could see a front coming. So I headed for the safety of shore.
But the shoreline was not like it had been before, a sandy beach. Instead, the rising waters of Hudson Bay had gradually overtaken each new shoreline that consisted primarily of brush and small trees. Those brush and trees died slowly and created a snag filled mess for nearly a half mile inland before dry, firm ground could be found. With the storm coming up rapidly, I searched for a creek or river entering into the Bay that I could follow up until I reached the old riverbank that was normal and dry. There was no way of coming close to the new shoreline at all, anywhere. I gradually began to panic, trying not to.
It was a long fifteen minutes before I spotted an opening in the watery brush and headed for it. It was another fifteen minutes with the sail down and paddling furiously against the wind that I was able to enter what had been a small creek coming into Hudson Bay.
But I didn't make it. The storm front hit me first with wind that nearly drove me back out into the Bay. I then paddled even more furiously to overcome it. Lightning was striking all around and I was in a position to be struck. There was no choice but to battle on when waves of rain soaked us while Rocky whimpered and I kept paddling for all I was worth. It was getting dark to compound matters. I was making little progress.
It was another half hour before I managed to reach a barely discernible shoreline of the small creek and I could just make out a real creek bank that I could pull up on. By that time both canoes had two inches of water in the bottom and were harder to paddle. I pulled up on the bank, exhausted, and tried to set up camp in the rain and mud.
Finally using dry cloth from my pack, I managed to get a fire started to drive off some of the chill and I went to bed in my wet sleeping bag for the night.
After the miserable night, I had fallen into a deep, damp sleep when I heard something familiar but unfamiliar. A kind of barking sound. Rocky, my only warmth for that cold wet night, was growling at the sound, too.
I peeked out through the mosquito netting to see that three seals had pulled up on the far bank to sun in the morning sunshine. I told Rocky to be quiet, and we crept out of the tent to observe them. Unfamiliar with humans or dogs, they ignored us, even though Rocky could not suppress his low growling.
I restarted the fire from the night before and got a pot of coffee going and boiled some eggs that I had gathered the day before in the village. I then started placing things on bushes to get them dry so that we could continue on our journey. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something white coming out of the water…
It was a polar bear! The bear lunged up on the bank and grabbed one of the seals, immediately dispatching it with a single blow and then, dragging it off into the brush with a lot of commotion. Rocky began to bark, but I grabbed him and made him quiet down. Before long, the air was filled with the ravens and buzzards, sensing a kill. For some time as I continued hanging out things to dry, I could hear the bear gorging himself back in the brush. After an hour or two it went silent; the bear was gone.
Still, the birds made quite a racket on the other side of the creek. In the morning light, I could see bones around our campsite from previous kills on our side of the creek. That bear could have just as well grabbed Rocky or me. A shudder ran through me at the thought. I was glad to see that polar bears had survived the transition by developing new hunting techniques for catching seal. But swimming underwater to surprise them was totally new to me.
It took the whole morning to dry out everything so that we could leave. I stayed away from the water just in case another bear was stalking us. I couldn't wait to get packed and in the water again. Was grateful that we weren't drifting out in Hudson Bay because of the storm. We sailed away that afternoon in the bright sun with a new appreciation of the world we were now in. Dangerously beautiful.
