Life Is Like That

"Beggars can't be choosers"or so the old expression goes. I trust this blog goes through but the internet connection is sporadic at best where I am located in Calgary.

Life is full of firsts and last Sunday was the first time I filpped a kayak or canoe -except practising wet exits and re-entry. The effort it took to "steer wrestle" (because I am in Calgary just down the road from the Stampede Grounds) my swamped kayak to shore is sobering and reinforces the need to constantly check assumptions and emphasize safety. Unfortunately I don't have a buddy at this point and checking my own assumptions "apparently" lacks objectivity.

What to do now? While I admit I was a silly bugger trying to carry cart wheels, tent, sitting pad, thermorest, and two 10 L dry bags full of electronic gear and personal affects on the cowling in a river rated as intermediate, after a few days of post trauma reflections I believe I have to remount the "bicycle" after the crash and try it again. As we know, that is what it takes to learn to ride a bike and it is also inevitable one will crash a bike over time.

I was trying to carry all the gear and provisions needed to complete the variety of topography in the 5100 km across Canada in a kayak chosen to withstand the pounding of portages and the like and not for cargo space. The reality is that the need for wheels to carry around 9 dams and many portages before getting to Thunder Bay is at odds with stability on the big lakes like Winnipeg. Also, the need to carry 3 weeks of food to take on the remoteness and likelihood of "being shore bound" while waiting out storms on Lake Winnipeg (my brother in law Jim Munro was marooned for 12 days in 1970 while waiting out such a storm and had to resort to eating gull eggs), is impractical in my kayak while also carrying other gear like a spare stove and fuel.

With this context, I have decided to amend my plans as follows. I will jettison any gear which is superfluous to getting me to The Pas, Manitoba and forego Lake Winnipeg -likely for sections of Lakes Winnipegosis and Manitoba. From there I will make my way to the Winnipeg River by car. Regardless of how much of the Winnipeg River I can do (getting around 6 dams will prove to be more time consuming without wheels), I will be in Kenora July 8 to meet up with Bob Salmond to take on the Lake of the Woods, Rainy River, Fort Frances stretch as planned. Similarly,as planned Bobs Rieder and Rebagliati will be my "buddies" through to the NE end of Quetico. Consequently I can safely get to Thunder Bay.

In Thunder Bay I plan to rent a "heavy volume" kayak, sufficient storage capacity within the hatches, to allow for the provisions needed to take on the long stretches required to complete Lakes Superior and Huron. Bill Climie, an experienced Kayaker on Lake Superior, will join me for a few days of paddling and I hope to pick up "local knowledge" from him; having a buddy will be wonderful. Once at the French River on Georgian Bay, I will meet up with son Wyatt and get to North Bay. In time I will have to rent a car to get back to Thunder Bay to both return rental kayak and retrieve my own, which will be sufficient for the Ottawa and St Lawrence Rivers. In North Bay I will be joined by Don Bayne, John Gordon, and John Fee (Team Whistler) and we will canoe the Mattawa River.

This journey clearly has a mind of its own, won't be constrained by agenda, and is proving to be dynamic and fluid. I have decided to hold "my ticket to ride"because after all the definition of Odyssey is a set of wanderings and they can't all be packaged in pretty little bows. I ask you to stay tuned and pray that I learn from my mistake and am willing to objectively check my assumptions, particularly in regard to those uncertainties which will be presented to me moment by moment.

A Little Shaken But Not Beaten

Why is it "we get too soon old, and, too late smart"? On Sunday I made a very silly error in judgement which could have been very grave -I was very fortunate. While the water was fast and turbulent in the North Saskatchewan River beyond Rocky Mountain House, it was most likely doable (class 2 at the most) in a properly weighted kayak. Quite simply I had too much gear and provisions to be stowed in the kayak. So, I put the excess on the top of the cowling and secured it with ropes and cords. As any seasoned kayaker knows, this is fraught with peril because you now have more weight above the naturally designed centre of gravity of the kayak. As I needed all this gear for my trip, including cart wheels to get me around dams and the like, I "assumed" I could "brace" myself down -I have done it on more tranquil rivers. Not very bright!


I tipped and lost some gear and after 45 minutes in the water I grabbed a "snag" like it was a long lost cousin and was able to secure the kayak and scramble to shore to deal with my potential convulsions. After working to pump out my cockpit and get at my gear in the hatches, my body temperature went up. I still had SPOT call for help which arrived in the form of the Rocky Mountain House Fire Department.

I am currently reflecting on my lapse in judgement at Blythe's place in Calgary. While I want to continue, I need to rethink and likely amend my itinerary to reflect logistics, judgement, safety, and most of all the stress my "accident" had on those who are my support group through the SPOT system and other communication devices. I also need to replace key things like GPS and charts, which were lost in the river.

I will post my decisions in the next couple of days.

Full Disclosure

I was a fuck up as a kid; acting out unconsciously everywhere; intuitively understood things weren’t working; had no idea what to do about it; and sports and recreation proved my salvation.

There I said it!

Despite having all the opportunities, I did not know how to use them and drifted in my demoralized and uncomprehending bubble. My spirit ached for it knew I was better: But what to do about it?

Sport was my lifeline. Through sport I met people I respected and watched closely so I could try to emulate what worked for them. Also, I learned that if I focused on my objectives and worked hard (which was a lesson onto itself), I too could start to have some success. And it is amazing what a taste of modest success did for my ravaged spirit. I learned that there is no quick fix but once belief in my worthiness and possibilities were identified and established, the grit to engage in the battle of life was encased deep in my soul.

I don’t have it all today, but man it, boils and all, is far better than what I once thought was possible.

True Confession: I have two conceits. One is that I believe my children were imbued with this ethic, in small part because they saw me working at it all day every day. The second is that I drive 20 year old beaters; because I can.

This trip across Canada is not about my ego. Rather, it is a celebration:  rejoicing with my spirit and the indefatigable will to just keep going it gave me. By no means is this will unique to me or even remarkable in the general context, but on my journey through life it is the ingredient that for whatever reasons was hidden and I needed to find my spirit and with it the will.

I believe there are an untold number of spirits in underprivileged children which just need a timely boost to find their voice and lay the foundation for a “can do” determination and the heart to take on life’s vicissitudes. I suggest that without such an epiphany to trigger a change in their paradigm, they…. Well, I ask you to consider the meaning of demoralized: Subjugation of the emotions, spirit and soul which can lead to nothingness and the loss of will or even desire to live. If sport and recreation helped me, surely there are many children who will lose without a similar lifeline!

I believe the Strachan Hartley Legacy Foundation helps give many children that chance. For example, as Trevor Stokes who runs Streetfront an SHLF partner said, the main thing to learn for a troubled teenager in running a marathon is that “it is just 42,000 strides made one after the other.” The graduation rate for children attending this “alternative school” who progress from no sporting involvement to running a marathon is a staggering 98%. And marathon running is only one of their options in this program. Man, I feel their pain; followed by the joy and enlightenment of breaking through their personal myopia.

These potentially dysfunctional teens (in their words) need that angel to believe in and trust so that with a kernel of an inner voice having been activated there can now be an ember to gain shape and grow and give reason to recognize and pay attention to: “Say no to drugs” campaigns, seek help for and work through learning disabilities, be open to counseling for psychological, physical and sexual abuse, get through bullying, teen age dystopia, and start to keep their own counsel; just to name a few.

As long as I am being personal, it behooves me to make note of the following which will happen during the five month’s I am going to be engaged in this journey:

1/ Daughter Aimee-Noel and husband Mpho Mbiyozo, who live in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, are expecting their first child on or around June 20. That blessed child will be Mary Ann and my first grandchild and Mary Ann will be there.

2/ Son Wyatt, who lives and works in Toronto, will be married to Vanessa Burdett in North Vancouver in mid September. I will take a quick trip home to be part of this happy event. Wyatt has also just confirmed he will join me for the Labour Day weekend in September and canoe from Killarney, Ontario on Georgian Bay to a pull out on the French River: marvelous.

3/ Daughter Blythe, who lives and works In Calgary, will be the commentator for the CTV coverage of diving events at the 2012 Olympic Summer Games in London in August. Hot off the press: Blythe will join me for four days on the North Saskatchewan River from Edmonton to Elk Point. It warms my heart.

4/ Spouse, life partner and soul mate Mary Ann, apart from her time spent in South Africa, will keep the home fires burning in her inimitable style: Aimee-Noel is drawn by her mother’s heart and aura to visit in early September with her baby. I regret I will miss the 5^th anniversary of our son Strachan’s death and our 37^th wedding anniversary (both of which are on the same date and will occur while Mary Ann is in South Africa), and her birthday while I am away. I publicly want to thank her for all she has brought to our relationship, and in particular my view that she empowered me as a man and gave my life meaning when she chose me to be the father of her four babies, really. Do I need to say I love and respect her?

That’s it from me for a while: wish me good fortune. Happy trails to all until I can update through my SPOT system, my facebook page at Michael Hartley or Strachan Hartley Legacy Foundation or my twitter account at 2012CdnOdyssey. I will also post random blogs when access to a computer and internet can be had.

French River, Lake Nipissing, La Vase Portage, Mattawa River, Ottawa River, St Lawrence River

This is the fur traders’ shortcut. If they had been forced to go around the horn, that is down Lake Huron, through the Saint Clair River, around the corner at Point Peele before turning east on Lake Erie, portage around Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario, down its length and through the Thousand Islands to the headwaters of the St Lawrence and onto Montreal, if would have put an inordinate time requirement on the trip and probably made it impossible to stretch the supply lines to the end of Lake Superior –there and back in one season would be too subject to seasonal weather.

Although the run up the 110 km French River is against the current and some clearly marked portages need to be made, once over the 10 km La Vase Portage at North Bay, the 76 km Mattawa and 500 km Ottawa Rivers run downhill to Montreal. There are several interesting rapids and dams in this stretch, but the portages are historic, well known, and heavily traveled. Like the coureur de bois of old, I would prefer the Rivers over the slugging it would take to run the length of the three massive Lakes and then the 250 km down the St Lawrence to Montreal.

For me, I look forward to passing over these waters which are so ingrained in the lore of the growth of first La Nouvelle-France, building on the voyage of discovery of Samuel de Champlain in 1610, and subsequently of Upper and Lower Canada. I have had brief forays into this country in my lifetime and I look forward to paddling and camping in this stunning countryside. The vistas, complete with some early fall colours among the Maples and the noisy quacking and honking of flocks of migratory birds as they rise from the water and search for nearby feeding grounds to sustain their relentless trip south, will gladden my spirits as I catch my wind and head for the finish line.

I am sure on some frosty September morning, with the breaking sun slowly dissipating the morning mist; I will play the immortal words of the hymn “Morning Has Broken” through my mind –particularly the 1971 recording by Cat Stevens:

“Morning has broken
Like the first morning,
Black bird has spoken
Like the first bird.
Praise the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them springing
Fresh from the Word!

Sweet the rain's new fall
Sunlit from heaven,
Like the first dewfall
On the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness
Where His feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight!
Mine is the morning.
Born of the one light
Eden saw play!
Praise with elation,
Praise ev'ry morning,
God's recreation
Of the newday!”

My 250 km leg down the St Lawrence River from Montreal to Quebec City will be substantially different because the St Lawrence at this point is for many stretches an industrial river with heavy industry and petroleum plants on the banks taking advantage of the river for movement of their goods. I look forward to passing through “le détroit” of Quebec City, my mother’s (Simone Tessier) home for 28 years, as the “falaises” rising from the River will portend Wolfe’s Cove – Anse au Foulon and the Plains of Abraham, and I will pass under the Citadelle and Chateau Champlain high on the bluffs. Once past the city of Levis on the south shore I will make a sharp right and pass down the southern channel with the Ile-d’Orléans on the left. Approximately 100 km from Quebec City I will come upon a group of islands extending beyond the east end of  Ile-d’Orléans in the St Lawrence and amongst them to L’ Isle-aux-Grues; and at Saint-Antioine-de-L’ Isle-aux-Grues the terminus of my trip. I chose this spot because I am clearly on salt water and it is where my grandmother’s family, Painchaud, came ashore on immigrating to Canada in 1753.

I will then return by ferry to the mainland and by auto to Quebec City where I will attend a large Tessier / Painchaud / Benoit/ Donohue/ des Rivières et al family reunion. There will be something special in the air when I partake with cousins, some of whom I have barely known or never met, in the celebration of the family spirits which exist throughout this vast territory I have just crossed.

As this will be my penultimate blog before starting my voyage, I would like to extend to all a traditional Gaelic blessing:

“May the road rise to meet you

May the wind be always at your back

May the sun shine warm upon your face

and,

Until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand”

Lakes Superior and Huron

Lakes Superior and Huron

The lyrics of Gordon Lightfoot’s classic “The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald” will pulsate in my ears throughout this section of my trip:

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

   of the big lake they called “Gitche Gumee”.

  The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

   when the skies of November turn gloomy.

   With a load of iron ore twenty-six tons more

   than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.

   That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

   when the “Gales of November” came early.”

I take all of this very seriously. That said, the popularity of kayaking on Lake Superior has grown steadily which speaks both to a certain safety base level and the beauty I can expect: Majestic headlands, craggy inlets and bays, and camping on the beaches and enjoying the setting and rising sun. Bill Climie, cousin of Bob Climie, who lives in Silver Islet just a day east of Thunder Bay will join me for two days paddling. I look forward to his input on the “tricks” of kayaking the Lake. He has already made me aware of the propensity for winds on the Lake in August. Fair warning –listen to the marine weather forecasts (Environment Canada) on the VHF and check other features in the sky which can portend wind or fronts. Some have suggested there is a hole in which to paddle in the mornings as the wind comes up in the afternoons –hopefully this is true.

My course of travel will take me along (very close) to the north shore and for the first few days I will have the opportunity to paddle in the lee of Islands, after which it is all open water. I will have to stop in Marathon in order to re-provision. Leaving Marathon I will travel along the shore of Puskaskwa National Park and from all I have read it is divine.  After a safe crossing of Michipicoten Bay and River I will follow the equally wondrous shoreline of Lake Superior Provincial Park which includes Agawa Bay as far as Montreal River. The coast and highway 17 then essentially mirror each other as far as Batchawana Bay, at which point they separate and the crossing through the bay at Goulais River, then to Gros Gap, followed by the entry into Sault Ste Marie can be problematic because of wind and steep cliffs.

Winding through the locks and river at Sault Ste Marie between the USA and Canada will afford time and opportunity to get off the water and replenish both provisions and my personal “battery”. Leaving the channels and islands east of “the Sault”, I will essentially be in the lee of Manitoulin Island which should give some cover from winds and frontal pressures from the body of Lake Huron. However, the gap between the Island and the northern shore of Lake Huron is significant enough to allow quite a fetch to build up and winds to gain velocity. It is not a problem excepting I might have to lay up and wait out any “tempest”.

Once I pass the isthmus and causeway / bridge to Manitoulin Island from the mainland, I will be subject to the winds of Georgian Bay which might require defensive action up to and past Killarney. The objective is to maneuver so that I can enter the estuary of the French River and deal with current as opposed to wind and waves. Actually, the entry into this other iconic waterway will announce the start of the final phase in my trip.

Canada’s geography determined all travel –and mine

I must confess my fascination with hydrological divides: a  height of land on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea. In Canada we are affected by four divides:drainage divide

1/Great (Continental –basically Rocky Mountains) Divide

2/ Arctic: running from snow Dome on the Columbia Glacier in an east north east direction.

3/ Laurentian: running eastward from Triple Divide Peak in Montana, basically along the 49^th parallel, until just before Lake Superior where it curves sharply north until it runs east again between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay and on to the Atlantic in Labrador

4/ St Lawrence: Starting at a point wherein the Laurentian curves north short of Lake Superior and essentially following the southern coast of the Great Lakes and up the St Lawrence finishing near Gaspe in NB.

These divides totally prescribed the course and means of all inter territorial travel In Canada until the development of railways; and even then the railways were greatly influenced by the Great Divide and to a slightly lesser extent the Laurentian Divide.

 Fundamentally my trip this summer can be viewed in two lots:

a/ That part contained within the drainage basin of the Great Divide on the west, the Arctic Divide on the north, and the Laurentian on the south: Everything is funneled into Lake Winnipeg and out to Hudson Bay via the Nelson and Hayes Rivers.

b/ That part contained within the drainage basin of the Laurentian to the north and St Lawrence to the south: everything is funneled into the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River.

That said, I have to climb up to and then over the Laurentian Divide in the course of my journey. In order to realize this, my journey up the Winnipeg River, Lake of the Woods, Rainy River, Rainy Lake, Lac la Croix, Quetico Park, and Lacs des Milles Lacs will take me to that width of land over which I need to pass  to get into the Great Lakes – St Lawrence Basin.

I get excited at this point because the next 30 km will require all my resourcefulness, as it did to those travelers in the period roughly 1803 – 1850 as the key link in the trans Canada system. It was first used by Jacques de Noyon in 1688, but fell out of use because the Grand Portage, now in Wisconsin, proved more effective.

To set the scene, there are streams and rivers that have not seen traffic of any consequence in forever which will be my guide but whether I will get literally bogged down is open to conjecture. Put it this way, there is no chamber of commerce or tourist office that can tell me whether (from west to east) the Savanne River, the Savanne Portage (lost for all intents and purposes but I do need to cross the Trans Canada Highway (17) and the CPR and CNR mainlines) to Lac de Milieu (Height of Land Lake), then Prairie Portage to Cold Lake which has a creek running east into the Dog River, is open to anything except slogging through creek and bog towing my kayak? But don’t get me wrong; this is exciting because it isn’t being made easy –it should be a reasonable facsimile to Jacques de Noyon’s trip in 1688 or Roderick Mackenzie’s rediscovery in 1802.

If interested, google the town of Raith on Highway 17 north of Thunder Bay and you will see the transportation corridor afforded by the level height of land. Just north of Raith, you will also see where the Little Savanne River is crossed by Highway 17. I pointed out this bridge and river and my imminent plans (ok four years in the fruition) to my teammates as we cycled across Canada in the Make a Difference Marathon in 2008.

My descent of the Kaministiquia River and its tributary the Dog River, should be exciting as well. Some context is needed: the climb from Lake Winnipeg to the height of Land is 770 ft in altitude over 800 km. The descent to Lake Superior is 850 ft in altitude over 120 km. Surely, some 130 ft is consumed in the cataract called Kakabeka Falls, but the balance suggests serious portaging and I don’t mean on well developed portages adjacent to the Rivers. Some highway travel will be required with me towing my kayak on wheels.

As my reward, I look forward to seeing my friends Bob and Leslie Climie in Silver Islet on the shores of Lake Superior a day’s journey east of Thunder Bay

Winnipeg River

“The hardest thing I have done in my life!”

The speaker was my father, Herbert Hartley, who made this statement so many times in my presence that it became almost a mantra of the terms exigent on a river trip.

The source of his comments was the Winnipeg River. In 1934, as nineteen year olds, my father and my Godfather to be Rowan Coleman paddled up the Winnipeg River in a canoe. My father talked about fording / lining the canoe up the River when rapids were encountered and at times they were submerged up to their shoulders. I have a black and white framed photograph on my bedroom dresser, of them up to their armpits, which acts as a constant reminder of this stretch of water.

The River he talked about was once wild and spectacular as it dropped 270 feet in a series of rapids and falls in the 435 km journey westward from Kenora, Ontario on Lake of the Woods to Lake Winnipeg. The voyageurs loved snaking down its gorges and passable rapids as they made good time, despite portaging the falls. The return journey, what with paddling, poling, lining and portaging, took a lot longer and substantially more exertion. This stretch and that of the French River, between Georgian Bay and Lake Nippissing, more than any forged the voyageurs image into the lore of Canadian History as “romantic” icons daringly shooting the boiling rapids in an aperture of water between granite cliffs.

Since that bygone era, seven hydroelectric projects have been built to feed the energy needs of Winnipeg and southern Manitoba. I won’t use this as a pulpit for the pros or cons of such modernization but some have referred to it now as “The River of Sorrows”.

I will say that on my trip the dams, except for the effort taken to portage around them which is a direct tradeoff over the falls and rapids of old, will make life easier in that the stretches of water above the dams will have lost their current and paddling upstream should be less taxing (note that this is being written in April or income tax time by an accountant), at least for a while. The exception can occur in periods of high rains when the dams are forced to discharge so much water to prevent flooding and make the current impassable.

I look forward to paddling through the always gorgeous Precambrian (aka Canadian) Shield. Although I have not been on the Winnipeg River specifically, I spent time in the period 1962 -1964 at other locations in Manitoba’s Whiteshell Provincial Park such as Falcon Lake. Although across the provincial border, I also spent some idyllic days in the same period at adjacent Clear Water Bay on Lake of the Woods, Ontario. In 1973 I also had the pleasure of sailing from Clear Water Bay to just before Kenora and back with Jock McDonald and his father; beautiful, stunning, pristine are words which can’t adequately describe this utopia.

I look forward to camping on the shore of the River or one of the lakes included in the water system after a hard day’s paddling. As it will be early July, I should enjoy long days and hopefully good weather. I have this vision of relaxing and enjoying the gloaming as the earth gives way to night. As I used to sing at Boy Scout and YMCA Camp:

“Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest
God is nigh.
Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.
Thanks and praise for our days
Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky
As we go, this we know
God is nigh.”

Perhaps a little hokey in today’s cynical world, but it works for me.

I expect to be in Kenora by Sunday July 8 to meet with Bob Salmond of Victoria. We will rent a canoe and paddle the length of Lake of the Woods and up the Rainy River to its source at Rainy Lake. I will leave my kayak behind for Bobs Rieder and Rebagliati to pick up the next Sunday as they motor from Winnipeg to join us in Fort Frances.