Smooth Sailing

I was so glad to be on the water again. The shoreline had become alien with no beach and the polar bear's encounter with the seals was a wake-up call for being in bear territory during the summer. I didn't know the extent of the winter ice on Hudson Bay, but I knew that the polar bears would have to adapt to survive. Apparently they had.

      I thought about where I was going and knew that I would not only have to contend with black bears, but grizzlies and polar bears. I guess that was better than lions and tigers in the lower 48. Bears were noisy and predictable. Unless they charged. And then, a loaded pistol came in handy. Thankfully, I had reserved a stash of bullets for my 357 Magnum and planned to reload at the lodge to never run out.

There was a light breeze by noon and we were sailing quite briskly, tacking along the pseudo-shore of submerged brush. I kept a constant eye out for inlets that would suggest a river or creek coming into the Bay. A means of escaping storms or getting freshwater if I had to again. I didn't want to be caught like that night before ever again.

It was a short day, but we made about 20 miles. Along the way, a pod of orcas came along and played with us for a while. Rocky barked like he had never seen fish that size before. I couldn't tell him they weren't fish. I was so glad to see that these top-of-the-line predators were still in the oceans and had survived all the radioactive pollution that was dumped in the seas.

The pseudo-shoreline turned almost east-west and I was sailing into the wind, tacking to and fro while keeping the brush line in sight. In late afternoon, I saw a rather large inlet and sailed into it, finding myself on the Winisk River with another set of delta channels to deal with. This time I sailed and battled the current upstream for about a mile and pulled off on an island where I checked out the bank thoroughly for any evidence of bones and found none. 

There were lots of blueberries on the island that bears had not found. While I gorged on them, I thought of Charlie and how he liked berries so much, I missed that little guy. Shed a tear thinking about it. While setting up camp and airing out the items that had been hastily packed half wet in the morning, I heard something in the brush and grabbed my crossbow.

It was a small buck with horns in velvet, browsing on the green shoots of brush on the island. I hadn't had venison in some time, so I brought him down with one bolt to the heart. In my solitude, I had begun to think like indigenous people and gave my thanks for his bounty. 

Thanks to that buck's giving his life, I could carve off a nice steak for Rocky and me that evening. It was interesting how nature was… Terrifying the night before, and now, very peaceful and generous. That is until the mosquitoes suddenly rose from everywhere and forced us into the tent for the night with their attack.

I slept so well, catching up, that it took Rocky nudging me and growling to get me up. I heard some raucous noise and found that ravens had already found the deer carcass. So I got up and chased them off. Didn't want nearby bears to come to the scene of the noise. Before ever starting breakfast, I cut up the deer and placed it in the fiberglass canoe. And then, I took the deerskin, scraped all the flesh and fat off I could find quickly with my knife as a scraper, and stretched and tied it over the top of the meat in the bottom of the canoe with the skin side out to dry. I would make something of that deer hide at the lodge.

That day we made Fort Severn and the Severn River. The Fort was in much worse condition than it had been before. I wished that I still had that boat and motor that I left upstream. But I knew that even going to get the boat would have been fruitless because time would have ruined that motor over years of freezing and thawing, animals gnawing, plants growing.

For now, sailing the two canoes was what I would do until the end of my journey. For stability, I found that lashing the two canoes together and setting a larger sail with my tarp made for a faster, more stable craft. Also, if I caught a fish, I could quickly cut the head off and gut it, and then just throw it in the fiberglass canoe until I got to where I would have lunch or stop for the night. I found myself catching a few fish just for fun and then throwing them back.

The next day, I made Port Nelson, swamped by the sea, and York Factory. Once again, almost lost in the growing water wilderness around them. And then, the next day, Churchill. No surprise, it was completely underwater.

    Where I had found that boat and motor had disappeared beneath Hudson Bay. Only a few of the tallest buildings of two stories or more could be seen amid treetops of new growth. And those buildings were being gradually dismantled by wave action from the Bay like derelict shipwrecks. I sailed right through town and could see whole buildings under me in the clear water. I imagine there were many cities around the world that had succumbed to a similar fate. Lost to the rising sea.

But one fixture remained. I saw polar bears on the roofs of some of the second-story buildings. They looked healthy and they were eating fish. When I saw one come up out of the water with a large whitefish in its mouth, I realized, that like the bear that I saw surprising those seals, these bears were swimming underwater to catch fish. We camped on the Churchill River and I kept a sharp eye out for bear, but fortunately, we didn't see any that night and my electric fence alarm system was undisturbed.

After two more long sailing days, wishing I still had the sailboat, I made the mouth of the river I was looking for and we set sail upriver with me paddling for extra push for another day. Finally, I recognized, by the proper landmarks, that I had reached the trailhead that would take me to the lodge and home at last. I camped. I cached most of the deer meat, running it up to the top of the largest tree I could find. It wasn't exactly safe from black bears, especially cubs, but I had to leave it for the trek into the resort the next day.

I got up at dawn the next morning.  I secured the two canoes far from the bank in case of any future flooding by the river and made two travois, one for Rocky, and one for me. I took my pack and as many essentials as I could. I would come back in a couple of days to get the meat and anything else I wanted to have at the resort. I secured the rest of the stuff under the aluminum canoe with the tarp in case I would ever want to come to the river again and use the canoes on it. I knew that beavers loved to chew on wooden paddles that had been made salty by sweat.

The trail was still there, but it was overgrown and required quite a bit of cutting for Rocky and me to pull our way through. The deer flies were merciless along that hot trek to the lodge. But before I knew it, it was getting dark and we hadn't made it to the lodge yet. In a clearing under some beautiful hemlocks, I made camp for the night. Once again, my electric perimeter and mosquito netting made the difference between a good night sleep and lying awake all night fighting mosquitoes and wondering what creatures were about.

It rained during the night, but this time we were dry in the morning. It was a short walk that morning when I came upon the familiar, Pine Point Lake, and knew that I was home. But I had to find out what condition my home was in after 23 years away. I approached the lodge with trepidation. What I saw, immediately gave me relief. All the anti-bear spikes around the windows and doors had worked. Except for some dried blood stains, there was no damage or evidence of them breaking in. I took up the spiked board in front of the door, and entered.

I was met with a musty smell and dust in the air. Except for the usual mouse and squirrel activity, the place looked relatively sound. I breathed a sigh of relief and spent the rest of the day cleaning up and airing out the linens and rugs. Rocky spent most of the day demousing many rooms for me. By the end of day there must've been 20 or 30 of them neatly deposited on the fireplace mantle in the great room. By nightfall, I had a small fire going there to cook our evening meal. Much work lay ahead of me to get the place in shape before winter.