Sponsors for Bill Layman & Lynda Holland's 2002 canoe trip from
La Ronge to Arviat on Hudson Bay - 55 Days and 1000 miles.
The trip has begun! Sponsor List
   
 

The trip has begun / Day 1 Monday June 10, 2002 / Day 2 Tuesday June 11, 2002 / Day 3 Wednesday June 12, 2002 / Day 4 Thursday June 13, 2002 / Day 5 Friday June 14, 2002 / Day 6 Saturday June 15, 2002 / Day 7 Sunday June 16, 2002 / Day 8 Monday June 17, 2002 / Day 9 Monday June 18, 2002 / Day 10 Wednesday June 19, 2002 / Day 11 Thursday June 20, 2002 / Day 12 Friday June 21, 2002 / Day 13 Saturday June 22, 2002 / Day 14 Sunday June 23, 2002 / Day 15 Monday June 24, 2002 / Day 16 June 25, 2002 / Day 17 June 26, 2002 / Day 18 Thursday June 27, 2002 / Day 19 Friday June 28, 2002 / Day 20 Saturday June 29, 2002 / Day 21 Sunday June 30, 2002 / Day 22 Monday July 1, 2002 / Day 23 Tuesday July 2, 2002 / Day 24 Wednesday July 3, 2002 / Day 25 Thursday July 4, 2002 Day 26 Friday July 5, 2002 / Day 27 Saturday July 6, 2002 / Day 28 Sunday July 7, 2002 / Day 29 Monday July 8, 2002 / Day 30 Tuesday July 9, 2002 / Day 31 Wednesday July 10, 2002 / Day 32 Thursday July 11, 2002 / Day 33 Friday July 12, 2002 / Day 34 Saturday July 13, 2002 / Day 35 Sunday July 14, 2002 / Day 36 Monday July 15, 2002 / Day 37 Tuesday July 16, 2002 / Day 38 Wednesday July 17, 2002 / Day 39 Thursday July 18, 2002 / Day 40 Friday July 19, 2002 / Day 41 Saturday July 20, 2002 / Day 42 Sunday July 21, 2002 / Day 43 Monday July 22, 2002 / Day 44 Tuesday July 23, 2002 / Day 45 Wednesday July 24, 2002 / Day 46 Thursday July 25, 2002 / Day 47 Friday July 26, 2002 / Day 48 Saturday July 27 / Day 49 Sunday July 28, 2002 / Day 50 Monday July 29, 2002 / Day 51 Tuesday July 30, 2002 Day 52 Wednesday July 31, 2002 / Day 53 Thursday August 1, 2002 / Day 54 Friday August 2, 2002 / Day 55 Saturday August 3, 2002 / Day 56 Sunday August 4, 2002 / Day 57 Monday August 5, 2002 / Day 58 Tuesday August 6, 2002 / Day 59 Wednesday August 7, 2002 / Day 60 Thursday August 8, 2002 / Day 61 Friday August 9, 2002 / Day 62 Saturday August 10, 2002 / Day 63 Sunday August 11, 2002

For a summary to date click on the Trip Synopsis To Date.

Looking for more information on Canoeing in Canada then check out our Canoe Section & Links
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Lynda and I weren’t even back from our last years Dubawnt trip 72 hours before I was ready to leave again. The idyllic splendor of our canoe trip was dashed to bits by a mountain of bills, phone calls, emails, and faxes. I deal poorly with this re-introduction to what is perceived to be the REAL world by most people, while Lynda does marvelously and copes so well. And then all winter I sit listening to the imminent World War III scenario unfolding across the U.S. with the planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the war in Afghanistan, and the new Israeli conflict. Sheer insanity as I see it … so what to do? Well, I start to fantasize about the coming summer’s canoe trip … just to get my head to a place where I can cope.  
 
  I would like to go back up to the tundra but Lynda REALLY wants to return to an area that we have visited twice before. Starting at Wollaston Lake, Saskatchewan in 1996, we paddled a circuitous route to Nueltin Lake, on the Manitoba / Nunavut border, ending at Hudson Bay, 50 miles south of Arviat.    
 
Aside from a deep interest and love for this traditional Dene area, she also wants a somewhat shorter  
 
trip - in the 500 mile / 25 day range. As the saying goes, "What Lola wants, Lola gets." So it seems we will go back to New-el-thin-tin Tu-eh (Nueltin Lake spelled phonetically as best I can.) as the Dene call it. This roughly translates as "Lake of the Sleeping Island".
 
  This spectacular country has a wealth of history about the 1930’s fur trade when Dene, Cree, White, and Inuit trappers and traders scoured the land. The area was unique in that all these groups were there simultaneously, and although we have been there three other times, we both agree that it is one of the best places we have ever paddled.
 
As it is largely in the Dene’s "Land of Little Sticks" we won’t have quite the same intensity as found on the barrens, where the wind and weather can make life VERY miserable. There are almost always trees to find shelter in so it is much easier to cope with the bad weather The landscape is sand and open jackpine where you can walk for miles … in my mining days we called it "parkland". Just making a fire is going to be a real different treat for us after our last few trips!
 
  I am going to paddle right from La Ronge with Tom O’Rourke, a paddler I met on the Thelon. Lynda will fly up to the community of Wollaston and I will change partners and hopefully socks and underwear.  
 
Each spring and fall I do some environmental monitoring work with the people in Wollaston and other northern communities so I will spend about a week working when I get there.

It's gonna’ be a riot to show up for work by canoe after three weeks on the trail. My Dene pals will LOVE this and it will cement their opinion of me – and most all white guys – of being a few bricks short of a load (or as they would say; a few whitefish short of a net-full). And get this.
 
I can actually portage my canoe to the trip’s start on Lac La Ronge from our back yard. Can’t you just see it? I finish breakfast, give Lynda a kiss, hoist up the canoe and head off to work.

From Wollaston Lake Lynda and I will paddle north, reaching Nueltin through Putahow Lake and the Putahow River. From a spectacular esker on Nueltin called Simons Point, we will head north to Windy River on the old P G Downes route. Then we follow part of the 1912 route Ernest Oberholtzer and Billie Magee paddled ( you GOTTA’ read about their trip!) to the north end of Nueltin and out to Hudson Bay on the Thlewiaza River (said ‘Thlew azzey’ and meaning little fish for the grayling that are abundant there).

   
The Original Bug Shirt Company
   
  This will allow me to avoid the clouds of confusion that hang over me in town and send me back to my own form of reality for at least 50 to 60 days.

And if you want some GREAT reading about the area we plan to go to, find the following two books at your library.

Sleeping Island, P.G. Downes, Western Producer Prairie Books, ISBN 0-88833-256-4.

When the Foxes Ran, Gerry Dunning, self-published.

Toward Magnetic North, The Oberholtzer Foundation, ISBN, 0-970318-0-2

The "Oberholtzer" book is a must have, you can get a copy by contacting Jean Replinger at 507-532-5097 (jrep@starpoint.net)

Live text edited by Joan Eyolfson Cadham, freelance writer/editor, Foam Lake Saskatchewan.

Bill also has regular radio interviews via his Globalstar satellite phone through CBC Saskatchewan and MBC (Missinipi Broadcasting Corporation). Archives of some of these interviews along with trip coverage is available at the KCDC site.

 
   
 
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Bill will be communicating
with us from the north, via a
GLOBALSTAR satellite
phone, linked by a
SOCKETCOM cable, to a
HEWLETT PACKARD
handheld "Pocket PC"

COMMUNICATION

   GEAR
   
  Coppermine River, Northwest Territories - by Bill Layman
Dubawnt River - Map & Trip Outline. Bill Layman and Lynda Holland's 2001 trip on the Dubawnt River Northwest Territories & Nunavut.
Dubawnt River - Paddling the Dubawnt - A General Guide to the River - by Bill Layman
Fond du Lac River, Saskatchewan - by Bill Layman
Kazan River, Nunavut - by Bill Layman
Thelon River, Northwest Territories/Nunavut - by Bill Layman
Thlewiaza River, Manitoba/Nunavut - by Bill Layman

Canoe Gear For The Subarctic - by Bill Layman
Check out Bill Layman's bio - with other Trips & Stories by Bill

Looking for more information on Canoeing in Canada then check out our Canoe Section & Links
Out-There's Canoeing in Canada
Out-There's Canoe Links
 

 

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