Ashley & Harriet's Canoe Trip: DAY 1

Ashley arrived at the train "stop" at Red Lake Road in the middle of the night Sunday/Monday, July 18th. The reason I call it a "stop" and not a station is because it only stops beside a dirt road off the highway, 120 miles short of Red Lake, and lets off any passengers bound for Red Lake. There are no buildings out there... just a street light and a few CN vehicles. So if your ride doesn't show up for your 2:00 AM arrival...you're a bit SOL. Her train was late, so when we finally left Red Lake Road, our two hour drive back to town brought us into Red Lake at about 6:30 in the morning. I spotted eight moose, a few deer, and at least a dozen foxes on the way to the train, and almost as many on the way back.

So Ashley and I combined our canoe trip gear... Food pack, personal packs, cooking equipment, beer cooler, canoe and paddles. Then we waited for our flight out to Mexican Hat Lake.


This was right at the peak of the FIRE BAN, so the sky was thick with smoke, the visibility was poor, and the air smelled like fire. Quite an exciting time for Red Lake really. The town is buzzing with helicopters and forest fire crews from across the country (every province including Nova Scotia, BC, and the Yukon). Many of the northern communities were being evacuated due to nearby fires. Some of the fires were "rank 5"...meaning maximum intensity. The Red Lake area was hitting 100 forest fires and counting. Our town was featured on the national news broadcast. It had been years and years since things heated up like this.


So on this particular day, the airplanes weren't flying. Hugh was stuck on Viking Island. Low visibility stopped him from flying back to town to pick us up. We stayed on hand, ready to go, for most of the day, but by 4pm, Hugh put an official "no fly day" into effect (to the west, anyway). We were disappointed, but it's one of those things you can't control! We ended up cooking our "first dinner of the canoe trip" at home on the BBQ... Hot dogs.


Our Beaver pilot, Russ, ended up making a trip north to McInnes Lake. Our friend Morgan (who flies the Turbo Otter, down the bay from Viking Outposts) called to get Russ's SPOT information to see if he made it successfully to McInnes without having to land because of smoke. We checked the SPOT website, on Russ's profile, and we saw that he had made it there, so, that gave the go ahead to some other pilots to make trips on a similar route.
posted by Harriet Carlson