A Wilderness Adventure in Canada's Strange Paradise (Gateway to the Arctic / EP 6)

come on two three in last week's episode we started the much anticipated Ascent of the continuito river tracking was tough but we were thrilled to see the Riverhead water and we were slowly making our way to its Headwaters where we would be extracted in nine days welcome to the finale of the gateway to the Arctic [Music] [Applause] [Music] coffee and breakfast are ready come get it while it's hot it is the morning of day 21. I can't believe I'm saying that right now seems like just yesterday we were starting this trip the same time some of those days also seem like a very long time ago we are currently on thistle Lake and we would like to at least get to migration Lake and potentially maybe to the start of the Portage going into Gurkha today should be a little bit more paddling for us which will be nice yesterday all we did was track and Portage the canoe change is nice out here you grow to appreciate that one thing that has changed is there is definitely a lot more black flies out here that might be one of the changes that I don't know if I'm quite as happy about but aside from that excited for a day of paddling and just to do something different for the day nice would you like to see that's right they might dive mama we're out in the middle of the lake there's a small island with all these pushed up rocks that almost looks like it's man-made but all these rocks got pushed here through big storm surges and ice we're just gonna explore this a bit there's two local Arctic turns that are a little pissed that we're here but we'll uh we'll keep our distance [Applause] [Applause] spot never know it's here unless it came up it's crazy yeah a little thought it's like soft too [Applause] best bunch out here simple yet effective we are currently hanging out on one of the coolest islands that I've ever camped on in my entire life today's plans got a little sidetracked we were planning on making it to migration Lake instead we came across a beautiful island site we were just paddling along saw this really Rocky island decided to pull over we hiked up to the top and realized that there was The Ultimate Tent pad on top absolutely beautiful sight and our bodies can definitely use the brake so we're gonna take a rest day today and then start up hard again tomorrow the guys are just reading some books I'm gonna do some journaling for a little while and just hang out and enjoy the Sun I'm just getting ready to set up camp here for the night and I thought I'd take a quick minute to run you guys through our main gear bag this is a waterproof dry bag very first thing that comes out is our tent we've got our main tent and our fly separated by two separate dry bags if you have a rainy day and you have to pack up your wet fly you can keep it separate in a Dr in its own dry bag inside the main dry bag and not have water leak out and get everything else wet inside the bag our tent poles our dry jackets and then finally clothes bags for each Noah and I in their own dry bags inside these dry bags also has each of our sleeping bags and our sleeping pads just fit into these 30 liter bags the very last piece that we keep in here is our Maps which are double sealed inside of a Ziploc here maps that we're not currently using on the go are are staying dry in the bottom of this bag yes this is a dry bag and could keep all of our stuff dry if we just put it all inside of here water can still get inside of this bag so by putting dry bags inside of that dry bag it helps ensure that none of this stuff is gonna actually get wet that way you know when you are cold and wet that you are for sure gonna have a warm and dry place with some dry clothes for yourself and a dry sleeping bag when it comes time to set up camp at night that's our system here and it's worked really well for us and again really efficient because it fits two guys gear into one big bag that can be easily portaged probably with a few other things [Music] all right [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] oh okay [Music] I will raise one Berry two berries thank you [Music] [Applause] this is probably one of my favorite campsites of the trip there's just so unexpecting like to pull up middle of the day we weren't really planning on stopping yet and then to climb up some rocks just by fluke and then find like the ultimate campsite it changed all of our plans and we ended up staying the night it was it's perfect feel well rested and uh ready for the grind today all right [Applause] we made it to migration Lake no way is that ice yeah yeah that's so much ice oh my God exactly where we're going welcome to migration Lake oh damn what is that over there yeah what do you think goddamn Mason almost August we're going we think that there's a good chance that that's where we're going yes yeah if that's the case it'll be the bobsled team we just made it to migration Lake after a small one kilometer section of tracking the very first thing that we see when we get to the top of this set of Rapids is more ice it's been a recurring theme on this trip it's just constantly running into ice this does look like it could potentially be in the direction that we're heading so fingers crossed it doesn't interfere with us at all and it's maybe just at a shoreline nearby where we need to go holy smokes so you guys can see what's behind me here we ran into some more ice and this is a lot different this looks like multi-year ice and it is late July guys and it's gonna start getting cold in about six weeks here so this snow is not going anywhere I might sleep here tonight gold oh seriously love friction we're just gearing up for a first for us we're gonna be portaging like sled dogs using this Glacier as our route we're gonna drag the canoes see how this goes we know this section of river is about five kilometers we don't know how far this ice extends but we're gonna start going and see where it takes us [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] the ice didn't go that far so now we had to change tactics pulled all our stuff out of the canoes and we're going to Portage about 4.5 kilometers that number doesn't even sound real right now but we're just gonna chip away at it and see what happens some really strong winds when the canoe's over your head I feel like a big kite I'm also sporting the canoe with the Broken Yolk that has been feeling pretty solid but fingers crossed the stage like that the boys are stopped up ahead I'm going to be looking at something take the high and I'll walk with one bag [Music] let's do it again [Music] oh you got her we're in the middle of this 4.5 kilometer Portage and we stumbled upon a really cool geological feature that we've been talking about over the last few episodes permafrost this is a great example here of what permafrost looks like permafrost is defined as Frost that has been in the ground for more than two years that is like concrete that is like freaking concrete so how this works you have your permafrost here and you have your active layer here this active layer here has things that we call ICE lenses which cause the frost heave and in the winter this upper layer may freeze as well but then in the summer it melts hence the active but this is permanent hence the permafrost I've never actually seen permafrost to this extent too so this is really cool I've only seen it in textbooks like this [Applause] we chipped off a 4.5 kilometer Portage after lunch today we did it pretty fast too we're down to two loads it's about dinner time it's about six o'clock and we don't want to move anymore so we're just going to Camp right here at the end of the Portage get some food in the go get the camp set up and uh crash I'm gonna put on my sandals because my feet been really moist all day it's not a pleasant feeling I feel accurate it's been about 10 days or so since the uh the pole was Faithfully broken after The Perfect Storm besides the shape of the tent being a little distorted I'd say it's holding him pretty good still sleeping we've had a couple other windy days a couple other rainstorms and uh still kicking we can't fold the pole down completely so it goes in the shotgun case and without fail every time I set up the tent I have to go and get the shotgun case because I forget that we don't have the full but yeah it's still working [Music] [Music] foreign good morning it is the morning of day 23 we woke up to some rain this morning just a little pitter patter on the tent luckily Graham had a nice little shelter set up with a tarp for breakfast this morning the rain is holding off for now so hopefully that's that's the case going forward bugs are out definitely the bugs are out this morning if you catch one First cast I'll give you a dollar if you don't catch one First cast you give me a dollar Graham do you accept the deal you're on here we go first pass good for Kyle I'd say [Laughter] whoa oh you didn't land it you didn't land it I still get the dollar I think I don't know [Music] Grammy think this is a big one this might be my biggest one yet so the biggest one was 30 inches here he comes there he is we're barbless though Emmy headshake can loosen it this way [Music] [Music] holy [ __ ] if you want to hold his head I can maybe click measure here grab your right hand you're going over 30. oh 35 30 foreign just over though unreal hold that bad boy up oh it's heavy [Applause] oh that's awesome it is heavy man unreal look at the size of its eyes maybe walking forward a little bit towards a little bit deeper in a certain move that's awesome there he goes man that was awesome what a fish sweet nice what up fish one of the biggest fishes I've ever caught I think definitely the biggest tread I've ever caught wow exhilarating the goal of today is to paddle Gurkha Lake and to get to the next river section that goes into pellet lake at that point we're gonna be very close to the kintuita lake which is kind of our new goal now given all the delays that we had based on this last river section it's going to be interesting to see what we have up ahead not much water flowing through this River here we're hoping that somehow that there's a little bit better flows on the other River so we're just going to see what the day has in store for us point [Music] [Music] that has a small one fishing has just been insane on Gurkha lake so far chicken [Music] [Applause] [Music] not quite ready just yet we got up to about a 10 kilometer stretch of river here is looking extremely dry all this land that we're standing on at one point was underwater and we've been dealing with this over the last week as low water conditions and we're gonna have to figure out a way how we're gonna pick apart the next 10 kilometers of very shallow bony White Water don't see anything we'll be getting rich today what are you doing here well I'm uh very much an amateur uh gold Penner throw some sand in there immediately we can take out the big ones let's wash out all that silk it's a metal it's much heavier compared to most of the Rocks we'll be finding in here so the idea being that the gold will sink to the bottom of the pan from what I understand when you're looking for gold you're looking for little shiny gold colored things but that aren't really Jagged you want them to be more rounded so you can see here that's muscovite which definitely has a lot of shine it's really thin too so if I were to put it on its side it can almost be like paper thin but uh definitely confusing when you're looking for shiny things as of yet not much luck but you got a couple pieces got a couple pieces tiny tiny tiny little ones so feels good I know it's there but I'm really I'm really Holding Out for that big that nugget that I can pick up between my two fingers um but uh at a minimum I'm learning a lot more about just all the rocks that are going on [Music] [Music] [Music] that Storm's fast approaching but we found this route that got us up maybe about a kilometer so far but we think it's not going to last long because the river gets deeper up ahead [Music] we got up about a kilometer a kilometer and a half but the river gets a little more steep so we got start portaging we think we think uh and then from there we can paddle about 2k and then it would be a 750 meter Port Dodge the next that body of water that we scoped earlier now the real question though is do we do this Fort Dodge right now or do we hunker down this storm is looking ugly and it's definitely headed our way whoa I think we hunker down yeah do this in the morning yeah [Applause] so it appears the wind has shifted directions on us it's pretty calm here not too long ago no wind whatsoever and now there's like a decent gust going on we have a pretty good setup going on right now at Camp we've got kind of a an area set up with a tarp under the canoes with less metal use over there and then we've got our tent set up behind me here that has quite a few metal poles we may avoid going into that but just have a Zone that's dry and and we can throw some stuff into so nothing makes you feel more vulnerable than being out here in The Barrens when a lightning storm's coming through the other thing about being out here in The Barrens is that there's nothing to protect you from high winds so when the winds are ripping they just rip over these completely bald Hills and you just you take the full force so we've secured the tent down with some big boulders some guidelines we're hoping that that's enough to keep the tent in place we pegged it the best we can but I mean you can only Peg so well in in this kind of Gravelly stuff so we'll see how it goes we're doing Thanksgiving dinner instant mashed potatoes instant stuffing cranberries vegetable mix from Bulk Barn some bacon bits with real bacon and then on top of that we'll add a bunch of gravy oh thank you Noah thank you I originally started with one pack of potato and one pack of stuffing but we doubled it up with two and two it's the way to go for sure we're pretty hungry really good oh maybe the [Applause] thank you there's something wrong with my stove you're just not being pressurized after popping it like 30 to 60 times I do have a repair kit but I think this morning I'm just going to use Kyle's stove a terrible sleep I have a inflatable mattress that um doesn't inflate I mean it inflate's great but I think the nozzle slightly broken so uh I probably get maybe a couple hours of air out of it it was a long sleep of rolling around on sharp pointy rocks our deep tissue massage you just need to get strategic with tent placement now last night we got off the river a little earlier than normal probably about four o'clock because we saw that storm coming in so we battened down the hatches but turned out we didn't even get hit with it but a week ago we got hit really badly so that still is we still feel that one so we didn't want to take any chances so we got off early but the site we have here is beautiful the river doesn't have much water though and that sort of leads us up to today's activities we got to a section where it's too steep to continue tracking so we need to Portage at least two kilometers to get around this section we know today there's going to be a lot of portaging and a lot of getting in and out of the boats so because of that we're gonna be doing a two chocolate bar day that's right the first of the trip hopefully that gives us enough fuel and energy to get through today's activities and I'm sure it will we're all in good spirit the terrain's very easily to Portage and we're getting very close to continuito Lake [Music] we got a brief little section of paddling this morning after our first Portage now the river's choked up again we're back on our feet got another Portage but we're getting close we're doing well we're pushing distance we're doing kind of a shortcut route to a side Lake hoping that this Lake might have more water than the river does and then connecting back with the river so we're doing a quick Hop Off The River hop back on the river hoping that we can actually paddle some of that distance rather than the the Bony rivers that we've been seeing as we get closer to kintuita Lake yeah welcome back to another episode of the Portage Chronicles here with your host Alex trainer and we're out here and we're just board dodging It's Tricky walking again Classic on the Rocks but these rocks actually are holding their place a little bit better the one thing that I've learned Northwest Territories in Nineveh is home to some of the most loose rocks around do I trust a rock no I don't trust a rock I never trust a rock now this has been some of the best Portage country we've been going through stuff right here she's dry so there's no no bogs trying to eat your shoes do things like that so this ain't so bad this ain't so bad we've made it to the lake and it actually looks paddleable are you trolling and get some cats out it's a little set by Josephine there we go it's a small one oh my God it's a largemouth bass really tiny trout it is huge oh my God it's NASA oh did you see it I saw it it was enormously I guess it's around 30. I don't know you thought the 35 incher was 25 inches from like it was deep and enormous yeah you never want to say you have a big fish until you've got until you got it in your hands here let's try my first surface here [Music] quick update the play now is the paddle slowly to shore to try to land this thing in the middle [Music] he's going in for it ah yeah you got him you got them oh God it's measuring up quick nobody's girthy as heck he's a 30. 30 and a half well bought man the best spot I've had this whole trip oh [Music] [Music] guys Patrick three for three on the cast [Music] everyone is on right now oh [Music] on yeah [Music] foreign nice fish so we just caught two nice eating sized Grayling we haven't had Grayling yet on the trip but we're gonna eat these tonight it's a really nice white flaky flesh if you live on the east coast like a haddock and so there's two ways to eat them we can fillet them like we normally would or we've got them and then stuff the cavity with like butter and maybe some herbs and then just do them whole in the pan so and then yeah descale them so chef I don't know what our Chef wants to do the other thing you need to know about Grayling is that the meat doesn't keep well like trout you could catch it middle of the day and eat it late in the evening but the Grayling meat tends to spoil pretty quick so it's 3 30 now we'll be fine to find for dinner like I caught it Grayling a couple weeks ago around noon and had it for dinner but we gotta keep it cold you don't want to let it linger all day thank you paddled out around the esker thinking there might be a beach we got a beach always pleasant surprise when you get a beach holy smokes man it's such a narrow Ridge Kevin was explaining these things to us was he and he said this is where they dried skins man this is so old yeah what a spot for it too eh yeah we just got to camp for the night and there is this really really long escrow behind us we just climbed it and there are spectacular views here but what's even cooler is there's an old tent ring here and you could see that from this ring of rocks and this would have been used by the Inuit way back in the day to set up their tent which they would have dried hides in this is archaeologically really really cool and quite significant too this is very special that we're here right now foreign [Music] a rock ring that is God knows how old and the bugs aren't even that bad [Music] these are the knights that make it all worth it Another Day in Paradise [Music] thank you [Music] it is the morning of day 25 the second half of this trip has just been absolutely flying by there's not much you can do just slow them down other than just constantly remind yourself to just be present be in the moment and enjoy yourself out here we're at a beautiful campsite here probably one of our favorites of the trip good campsites not only about the features that are there or how cool the site is but it's it's actually also about the experience you get having Sun last night and Sun this morning you know no Breeze no bugs all of those things definitely add up and are making this one hell of an experience right now so I'm just getting breakfast ready for the guys right now and then we'll get them up shortly here breakfast is ready coffee is hot my tin whistle playing needs some work [Music] the goal today is going to be to paddle pellet Lake and it's gonna be nice just to have a paddling day no portages the wind's been picking up all day this morning we piled about 10 kilometers and it took all morning to do it doesn't seem like it's going to let up anytime soon so we just pulled over in this Leeward Bay had some lunch and trying to figure out the next moves it's all white Cappy like the lake looks nasty and then maybe get in behind this little nub by the river and see if there's a good place to a good place to post up in behind there and just chill the winds are supposed to subside through the afternoon I like the Now or Never though like I think we've got to move did you get your last wrap sure did yeah you just ate it it's raw dog bit hey yeah we're just having lunch and in the distance we saw this weird vertical mass there's no trees around we got the binoculars out and we saw this structure let me go check it out March 2004. I'm gonna say 2004 based on the calendar family event Maybe we seem to have run into an old abandoned camp that probably we think might not have been used since 2003 or at least that's the calendar datings that we've got in here we don't see anything else that shows signs of anything more recent than that the front has been torn in pretty bad but like this this room's actually preserved pretty well like to just think that this place would have potentially just been sitting empty for that many years like 20 years pretty much really cool spot we will not be staying here it looks very run down and sort of smells bad we're gonna go find some shelter somewhere and probably set up camp for the day because this wind and rain doesn't look like it's going to let up what's up we gotta sweet Chill Zone for these howling winds it stopped raining for a second let's get some tents set up here hunker down and really just uh get the vibe going you know this club's open for business those are cruel berries they're the worst Berry out here all it is is skin and Seed but it's one of the main Berry sources for the grizzly bears here I spent a lot of time looking at the ground here whether it be on portage's walking around or just examining stuff there's things you always see on the ground of the barren lands always a sort of berry down here animal poop or animal bones guarantee it's always here let's try a sample size right below my feet what do we got poop [Music] crowberry and a different type of berry is that the last of our whiskey hey what we're staring at here is the last of the whiskey we saved the best for last we hauled this thing over Pike's Portage yeah and many more productizes and then dragged It Down The Back River and then and then after guitar gets last choice if I think it needs another this one this one has no more do those look more or less even so you know cheers last of the whiskey oh actually did we still did the gateway to the Arctic I think I still think so for sure we just ran out of time we also really experienced the Arctic how much ice we had yeah we had all the hard work I'm happy we stuck with the plan yeah yeah so am I there's a lot after after that Confluence it was just like really cool area that we've traveled and we just changed our whole mindset we slowed down and just started having fun yeah yeah it's easier to do shitty [ __ ] when you're a bit slower took away at it [Applause] foreign spot has a place at this point in the trip most days when we're paddling we're often scanning the shorelines looking for subtle changing color and movement that could be wildlife this morning Graham noticed a cluster of brown objects far in the distance at first we couldn't make out what they were but as we drew nearer the graceful forms of these animals became clearer what we were witnessing was the Bathurst Caribou herd a highly endangered Barren ground Caribou whose population has declined by 98 percent in the last 40 years today less than 7 000 Caribou remain Caribou have been documented to migrate over 3 000 kilometers each year which is known as the longest migration of all land animals this was a pretty special experience that we just got seeing that herd of caribou that's actually scattered across multiple different Ridge lines we don't think we're done seeing them yet we're going to continue paddling on down the lake and we think we may even come across more I had the binoculars out and on these two ridges counted 52 and then we realized afterwards the whole other side of the lake has a bunch of caribou I didn't count those but I would say probably around the same so I'm within view there's at least 100 I would say which is pretty amazing yeah seems very confused what's that you seems confused yeah yeah so there's a young moose in the water right beside us right now he looks very curious on to what we might be moose don't actually live up in the barren lands but they come up here to escape forest fires down south and this moose is really far away from that tree line and it's interesting that he's so close to the Caribou herd he might just feel a little lost he's looking for a companion out here so uh what we can see here is we're actually on the world's flattest esker it's a really strange phenomenon it's almost like you could drive a car on it it's it's incredible it's actually a nice red there's a mine uh called Lupine I think maybe an active now they would call this the Portage because the road goes into the lake and then that portion the lake portion would be on ice and this road goes I think about 600 kilometers to Yellowknife and all of the mining equipment would be brought in and kind of between February and March maybe January February March by a truck on the ice Road and all of the provisions for the whole year so all of the fuel that the mine uses and the building materials and the mining equipment all go in during that two two or three month period tortillas what's the menu today Kyle same thing that's on the menu every day we used to have Jam but we're at a jam so just tortillas and peanut butter and trail mix some people put the trail mix in the wrap I don't like to do that some people put everything in the wrap no you put everything in the wrap I do put everything in there that's a good amount it's your favorite this guy's looking a little small this one's looking small on Santa okay we're gonna rotate the thing grab you have to close your eyes close my eyes sweetie it's come here cutie so we just had an amazing final paddle up pellet Lake here just after lunch today beautiful Barren Landscapes there's Caribou kind of running along the shorelines the entire paddle up and we just made it to the final River connection between pellet Lake and continuito Lake um where we were hoping to be able to track our canoes but at first glance here it's looking very bony and looking like it might be one final Portage for the team here just absolutely beautiful out here and I don't think anything can phase us at this point not much water going on in there contorto lake is a hundred kilometers long and this is the outflow and you'd think there'd be a lot of water coming out of it we're probably looking at about a 2K Portage but personally I'm like okay well this is probably a track because of the size so I wasn't mentally prepared for this so I'm gonna need a moment to like get back into Portage mode foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you we got eyes on Kentucky Lake eyes on Kentucky though pretty stoked this is a it's a big moment for us we made it boys [Applause] I've been hiking for a month and I made it I made it to control it wow looking good there's definitely some strong winds over a large section of water at the south end of Continental Lake and we've got about a kilometer and a half or to reach where we want to camp where we'll be fully exposed to the big side of the lake I feel like we all feel pretty well seasoned at this point probably about 700 meters 700 meter Crossing so we won't have necessarily Shoreline beside us all right you guys made it really close we just did a big paddle just so that we could make it to what we assumed would be a really cool area to Camp which is this island behind me here and we're just about to go check it out right now to see if we can find a leeward side be a stove of some sort I wonder if it washed up or if it was actually from here old file in the middle that's pretty cool cloudberries for dinner oh man look at this bat this is the pad remember Noah you were like we're gonna hit a patch we talked about an epic patch that would all be ripe at the same time and this is the patch there is a full field of ripe cloudberries here you want one bite on those or no no I'm gonna Savor these [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] morning guys it's a little later than we usually get up but the wind has been howling all morning and all night we're not going anywhere until this subsides a bit we checked a weather report and tonight it's supposed to die a bit where we will make the final push to the final camps that will be extracted in a couple days I was very impressed with this tent it was shaking violently all night and still in great condition again this is a Four Season Marmot Thor for three people I think Alex and I can both agree that this has been a a great investment for this trip I agree I don't know if a plane could land in this right now he's real windy and cold out here it's eight degrees but feels like four degrees and that's a big jump from the earlier days where it felt like 30 degrees you really get a sense that summer is dwindling up here already and it's just pretty much the beginning of August the wind's gone down a bit but not enough to paddle it's looking like now we'll be doing a night paddle wind is typically lighter in the night and stronger during the day and this is because of the relationship between the jet streams and the atmosphere and how hot the Earth is wind is generated by the mixing of air and when the earth is warmer it's creating more of a polarity between the cooler jet streams creating more turbulence thus creating more winds but at night when the earth cools down there's less turbulence and there's more laminar flow and that results in less wind so we're gonna be taking advantage of that tonight do this final 20K just about nine o'clock here and in the last two to four hours the wind has really died down and there's no longer White Caps out there it looks like a strong wind tomorrow too so we're trying to take advantage of this window in the night it's very weird right now to be packing up camp at 9 30 at night getting ready to set sail on the water for the day and the Sun is still shining very bright it's uh this is gonna be a new one for us we haven't experienced anything like this before and looking forward to paddling hopefully with light most of the night I'm generally not a night guy so the hardest part of this paddle tonight is not falling asleep out there we're gonna have a lot of coffee to start this trip and also some Sour gummies and chocolate to keep me occupied as we paddle through midnight tonight yeah thank you [Music] foreign [Music] on July 30th 2022 we're on control Lake and Nunavut and this is the lighting right now [Music] foreign campsite where we're getting picked up by air Tindy two days from now I guess tomorrow at this point because it's about two in the morning this is about as dark as it's gonna get and from here it's only going to get lighter the wind started picking up at the very end of our paddle so we timed this absolutely perfectly and uh it was a special paddle across the lake well tonight's the final night of the trip we're getting picked up tomorrow and I went and got some blueberries some wild blueberries and made a blueberry sauce uh with some leftover brown sugar we had and then I came down and I was like man well we should put the Bannock make a little blueberry um cobbler and then Noah materialize this amazing chocolate cake mix so we're gonna do for the last night kind of uh chocolate cake with a blueberry topping unreal man will we give her 10 15 minutes I don't know look at hot in there Steam and stuff it's a big moment holy look at that oh boys it looks good you know I think I think the patience is the game guys I think we need to go back to the drawing board wait because it'll be amazing if we wait part of it is cooked oh man that looks like a Perfect combo yeah it's pretty awesome oh yes speak to it hey there little guy you've really done well um so here we have the yolk um you hardly know you hardly know I mean it was a Broken Yolk and we sacrificed my paddle and believe it or not 20 days later or more or less still here and it got us over a lot more portages so I would say mission accomplished on the oak [Music] we're getting very close to the end of the trip here this is the time that you start to think about all the great things that you got out of the trip you start to look forward to some of the Comforts back home [Music] I find these trips really give you an appreciation for how easy we have things in our normal day-to-day lives even a task as simple as getting water for coffee or making a coffee kind of like a humbling thing that you know it makes you appreciate it more when you go back to it the pace really dropped off a ledge once we realized we weren't making it to bathrooms Inlet the delays that we had were enough to make it unrealistic bathrooms in lit was definitely the goal but a bigger part for me is just traveling through the land it's not necessarily for the destination I really do love working hard to 12 hours a day and moving through these areas and seeing new things every day and I've learned over the last week or so when our Pace has really dropped off a ledge how important that is for me [Music] with time comes change and that's like a very cliche thing to say or something that I'm really feeling right now whether you're pushing through a storm whether you're dealing with bad bugs the fact that these trips force you to deal with these things but also teach you a lesson in doing so [Music] we're just getting ready the plane should be here any minute and there it is I was hoping the plane was going to take a little longer trying to just uh enjoy it final couple seconds here and before we take the flight out [Music] it's about the journey not the destination and this is a philosophical conundrum our team really struggled with out here it's become a bit of a tradition here's voice this is such a beautiful place we were so lucky to be able to spend a month out here the Landscapes fishing and Wildlife make the barren lands one of the most special places I've ever visited a big part of me wants to stay out here and keep working our way to bathrooms Inlet but I know our story isn't done and we'll be back to finish what we started [Music] [Music] oh God when I signed up for this I thought it was gonna be easy the Gateway Arctic uh more like that yeah the mountain we are

Channel: Northern Scavenger

Views: 115,429

Keywords: gateway to the arctic, contwoyto river, nunavut, arctic, arctic fishing, wilderness camping, northern scavenger

Id: 8UJeA3J9Em8

Length: 71min 22sec (4282 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 05 2023