AWARD WINNING WILDERNESS EXPEDITION FILM | "BIG LAND" | Brook Trout Fishing In The Heart Of Labrador

two weeks ago I'd never even seen a floatplane now myself and a team of three others were trapped on a small sandy island in the far north of Labrador subarctic Tundra crossing our fingers that we'd make it back to our extraction point two days paddle upriver where we hope to find a turbo otter waiting to pluck us off a small nondescript Lake and return home to civilization it's times like this to make me wonder why we'd all fought so hard to get there why we'd spend over a year of late nights on over topo maps and dreaming of frost covered tents and dark boulder-strewn rivers the truth was that we were chasing after a fish a fish that swims through all of our dreams it is fading quickly from our home waters we're on one hell of an adventure but we were just getting started [Music] when I was ten my grandfather put a fly rod in my hands a gesture that significance would take me decades to understand that singular pursuit breaching the contract between air and water in search of the mysterious fleeting creatures that lie beneath has done more to shape me into the person I am today than anything else it's taken me to a lot of places and I've seen a lot of fish but none have left an impact on me as greatest the first a species which I would later introduce is the first to my wife Amy as well and a fascination which would spark a love affair that has spanned the rest of our lives and lead us down a path we could have never predicted that fish is salvelinus font and Alice the brook trout not a true trout the brook trout is a species of char a similar at the distinct genus of salmon ed certain characteristics like light spots against a dark body and white piping along the leading edges of the fins are typical of char but even amongst its close relatives the brook trout's vibrant beauty stands in a league of its own [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's no wonder that for 400 years the inhabitants of North America and the indigenous peoples before them have held these fish in high regard considering them the most beautiful of all freshwater fish in some cases but the tribes of the Six Nations brook trout were considered sacred and never eaten but as European expansion and colonization reached the continent a grim reality was soon to play out for what the natives spared the new world would destroy by the millions brook trout once thrived from the great lakes south to Georgia and North to Hudson Bay but habitat degradation and fragmentation acid rain overfishing climate change and the introduction of non-native species have pushed this delicate indicator species to the brink now extirpated for more than half of their historic range the remnant populations are often stunted and poorly adapted to environmental fluctuation due to watered-down genetics from inferior hatchery stock as the very first game fish encountered by the settlers it's easily argued that there's no more quintessentially American fish than the brook trout yet apathy poor management and destructive practices are on track to see it disappear entirely from the landscape though a nuanced issue one undeniable truth about the health of brook trout populations throughout the East is that where people go destruction is sure to follow like most with an interest in native species we've spent countless afternoons sitting along the edge of our local streams imagining what things may have been like before the European settlers had arrived when fish over ten inches were not only common they were abundant in a way that for contemporary English is hard to fathom there's really only one place left on earth where brook trout have thrived almost entirely unadulterated for the last 10,000 years Labrador a place referred to by the natives as simply the big land for more than a decade I fantasize about making it to the Labrador Peninsula a place the still to this day is largely unexplored with half of the under 30,000 inhabitants concentrated to two small cities the rest of the over 100 thousand square miles of raw wilderness use very little human traffic at the turn of the 20th century Labrador was rich with harrowing tales of adventure and hardship as both foreign and domestic men and women began to map its vast interior sweltering heat and unimaginable hordes of fighting insects in the short summer months make travel hard on a landscape comprised of either wet Boggs and muskeg or glacially scoured razor-sharp metamorphic rock the bitter cold of a nine month Arctic winter makes serious travel unthinkable the rest of the year today Labrador is still largely roadless by the advent of modern aerial and satellite imaging technology have helped fill in the empty maps of the late 1800s though some estimate that over 50% of the provinces lakes and rivers have still never been paddled or fished in fact the fly-fishing world at large would know very little about this vast expanse until the 1950s when famed angler and pilot Lee Wolff began his historic exploration of the interiors pristine waters dreams have wings and so do the sea planes that carry anglers into the heart of the northern wilderness at the time Lee had landed what is arguably the greatest job of all time scouting off-base recreational opportunities for American Air Force personnel stationed to Goose Bay and here where no one has ever fished before the seaplane pilot can take his choice of the best brook trout waters of the North American continent with a 16 millimeter camera on a single-engine float plane Lee would discover the greatest brook trout fisheries the world has ever known and pioneer the methods and equipment still used to catch them to this day [Music] soon names like menapii eagle and adalah talk on the tips of all brook trout anglers tongues and lavish sporting camps with modern amenities from up throughout the region giving sportsmen the opportunity to explore Atlantic Canada's wilderness for themselves the brook trout in this little fish River are consistently between three and five pounds an anglers dream all right and one that could only come true in Labrador Labradors government is taking great care as well to ensure the tourism based sport fishing and hunting is closely managed because the provinces greatest appeal its wilderness if mismanaged could easily become its own greatest threat these laws would be our first real hurdle to overcome if we wanted to enter the Labrador wilds on our own fifteen years ago an accomplished angler and outdoor writer by the name of Eddie nickens published an article in Field & Stream magazine that turned more than a few heads him and three of his fishing buddies returned from an exploratory mission to the headwaters of one of Labradors longest and most remote river systems the kinetic talk they'd followed a rumor from some caribou hunters who tossed a line in while waiting on a floatplane pickup and allegedly caught massive brook trout by the bucketful they mounted a leaf long expedition to the area and discovered that the rumors are not only true but barely scratched the surface what they found could only be described as a brook trout nirvana where fish are measured in pounds rather than inches and are more likely to feed on flies resembling rodents than insects since then no one had returned to pick up where they left off on the fishery plunged back into obscurity [Music] it's incredibly rare as a filmmaker to have the opportunity to be the first to document something and after speaking with any myself I knew we had to find a way to get back there the indigenous people of Labrador the Inuit Anu and Ness copy have lived and traveled the barren expanse of the peninsula for centuries using the most efficient and elegant form of transportation available the canoe we knew if we were to be successful we need to do the same the canoe would become more than just a tool it would be our home our companion there is only one problem we didn't know anything about paddling [Music] entering a landscape as treacherous as Labrador unprepared can mean the literal difference between life and death we learned the only way we knew how by plunging headfirst into the world of canoe expedition completing over a hundred miles of travel over ten days on Maine's allagash wilderness waterway we learned quickly that without a canoe would be impossible to travel and transport the necessary gear survived several weeks in the bush we were students of our failures and trial by fire eventually sauce improving day by day paddle stroke by paddle stroke [Music] labrador fishing regulations require non-residents to fish exclusively with a licensed guide present and to engage the services of an outfitter in doing so it was one thing to mobilize some friends of adventure junkies on the trip of a lifetime but finding a working professional and virtual stranger to agree to leave dry cabins home-cooked meals and big tipping clients for two weeks hard camping in the bush would be like finding a needle in a haystack we searched relentlessly for months and after countless dead ends when all else seemed hopeless and the expedition appeared destined for failure we found that needle a young Nova Scotian named Christopher Sinclair who'd spent the better part of his adult life guiding at Labrador as Moses steamed lodges answered the call and agreed to follow us into the unknown [Music] [Applause] [Music] we later find out how lucky we were when Chris confided in us the world of our expedition was getting around and no other guides wanted to touch it with a 10-foot stick though we'd gone from novice to experienced paddlers in a few short months we knew our gear would need to be significantly strengthened and improved before taking on the taiga an emergency on the allagash was one thing though sparse there was other human traffic designated campsites private roadways and even park rangers who could give aid in case of an emergency but in Labrador we knew we'd be the only human beings for a thousand square miles and if weather was bad or communication was down it could be days before help would reach us [Music] [Music] most paddlers will consult local River data for flow rates and water temperatures before embarking on a trip but the wilderness offered us no such luxury we believe what we could from scouring satellite imagery and topo maps but had to prepare for the worst areas that Eddie had recalled his dried-up alder field to a marked as mile long Rapids on our maps we made the decision to health that our canoes with stray vets a custom sewn vinyl tarp that laces over the top of the canoe and serves to keep the paddlers dry and warm with an added benefit of reducing drag from landed simultaneously trapping air and gear in the event of a flip we still had one problem our team was three yet we needed a fourth to round out the tandem canoes luckily we knew just who to call [Music] our friend Dylan Marquis am a certified brook trout nut and seasoned whitewater rafting guide had spent years planning a trip of his own to Labrador but unable to cobble a crew together he's all but given up hope of making it there we knew Dylan's whitewater experience would be a major asset for our ragtag team of first-time expeditioners he didn't take much convincing either going so far as to defer a year of med school to fulfill his dreams of chasing big rookies and running Rapids in Labrador we had our gear our crew and our route the only thing left to do was get ourselves there a feat that would prove to be an adventure all its own we needed to make it to chef Ervil a small mining outpost in northern Quebec nestled just over a mile from the Labrador border in the heart of miss copyin in New Territories established in the 1950s the town served as a hub for extracting the rich iron ore deposits characteristic of the region but when mining operations grinded to a halt in 1982 the town was literally wiped off the map today the mines are once again working but chef Ervil still wears the scars of its tumultuous past [Music] for us it serves the nearest point of civilization from which to mount our expedition with no roads leading in or out our only choice to get ourselves our gear and canoes there safely was to ride the twice a week dawn till dusk training starting in the coastal town of Satya Quebec where we'd rendezvous with Christopher but first we had to make it there which meant 16 hours and nearly a thousand miles of travel by car stuffed to the ceiling with gear Chua 10 means Northwind and II knew a fitting name to describe the 350 mile Exodus through some of the most remote and pristine wilderness in all of North America [Music] despite the length of the railway and never once passes through another town and serves as the primary lifeline to connect both the northern communities with civilization and provide a vehicle for the southern welling a new endoscopy to return to and connect with their ancestral lands and heritage [Music] frequented by paddlers and explorers in the summer months we were only the most recent in a long line of adventurers to make the journey [Music] our pilot Sam Pinkett whose family has owned and operated sporting camps along the George River in northern Quebec for 35 years was waiting for us when we arrived in Scheffer Ville before we could even catch our breath our canoes and cargo were off the train and in Sam's bus we sped off into the night down a winding gravel road we took on faith would lead to his airbase [Applause] whether in the north is a fickle thing we paced around anxiously waiting for reports from a nearby mining camp stationed between us and our destination we are transporting our canoes externally on the plains floats or even a light wind could prove deadly decisions are made by a combination of sourced information and gut feelings and any bush pilot worth their salt knows there's no substitution for a man on the ground even with the advent of modern weather imaging technology when the call finally came the plane was loaded in a flash and without a moment to think they change our minds [Music] [Applause] as we neared the canary talk it was immediately clear that things weren't gonna go as we planned the water was low and the lakes which looked deep and full on the maps were clear shallow and rocky our drop-off point was out of the question we flew over our route to the proposed extraction point which also proved unsafe to land a lake in the middle held the most promise and a split decision was made we'd land there and Traverse up and down the system traveling against the current is never your first choice but we'd come too far to give up so we all agreed to make it happen [Music] [Music] as Sam disappeared out of sight it finally hit us we were completely and utterly alone we decided to make camp and save our energy for the morning when we push downstream after some searching we'd found a suitable spot between boulders and bogs enough to fit our tents and huddle around a small fire [Music] we fish for several hours that evening but only managed one fish a 15 inch female it was an exciting confirmation that the area indeed helped trout but we're all feeling a little nervous about how little was yielded from such promising water and we come all this way to discover the fishery it disappeared years ago we decided to stay put fish hard before moving on maybe our technique was to blame for the conditions but the following day didn't bring any fish either we knew from Eddie's nose that where we'd landed the middle of our route was the end of theirs and by his recollection that peak of their fishing success as well it certainly looked apart how could it be that we were coming up empty-handed had any made the story up and there been some sort of ecological collapse a lot can happen in 15 years maybe we were too late that evening as we prepared dinner we had our first brush with catastrophe a lapse in concentration while I was courting firewood sent us into emergency action the blade had narrowly missed severing major veins and tendons and under any other circumstances would have required a trip to the ER and some stitches given the dangers of infection from a procedure like that in the bush we opted to flush the wound thoroughly and field rested in hopes that it might close on its own we were only two days in and the thought of having to evacuate now because of my own absent mindedness was more than any of us could bear [Music] we knew we couldn't stay in one spot any longer and if we're gonna have any shot at finding fish we'd have to move into mazes and smelt so the same on flex the same on the Sun telling tales of our trousers still the same old song [Music] you remember the fun we travel through a number of lakes and ponds spilling into each other by a series of narrow chutes before it even really resembles a river every new corner returned our hopes would rise with the prospect of finding fish but time and time again we come up empty-handed [Music] yeah and astray a fool looking down [Music] [Music] over there to document the fishery but knowing that every time we stepped out of our canoes we'd be the first to plant our feet there was becoming reward in and of itself the thought of fish became almost secondary as the river picked up steam and Dylan put us all through a white water clinic [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the bear marked the end of the headwaters and below was countless miles of dangerous Rapids and deep canyons he was like a gate keeper there to remind us would come too far travel any farther and we'd never make it back to our extraction point this was strange behavior for an animal that had never seen a human being before and we knew better than to push our luck the rest of the afternoon he paced the perimeter of the lake forcing us to camp on an island an island we'd spend the next several days trapped on bound by wind and rain [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we've grown addicted to seeing new country and the long dull days with no travel of maddening after three days we knew we had to move when the 60 mile-an-hour head winds died down to 20 we made our push [Music] we travel the full length of our route upstream navigating the rapids we'd shot days earlier only this time on foot dragging and hauling our gear thin slippery boulders we pushed past our extraction point and onwards to new water as the day's slipped past our hopes of finding fish diminished we didn't care we knew we were part of something special something we'd remember for the rest of our lives [Music] our outfit was now running like a well-oiled machine we could set up and break camp in a matter of minutes and back the canoes even faster we'd started fishing less during our pit stops and marbling more at the outstretched country in front of us we could travel a hundred miles in every direction and not find another human being but something wasn't right [Music] we couldn't shake this nagging feeling what the fish had to be their years of collective experience told us the environment was too perfect not to hold fish how it Amy landed that first fish on day one was that the only fish in the entire system then suddenly and all at once on a day no different than any other and on a piece of water indistinguishable from the rest everything changed [Music] [Music] the fish were here we found them moments earlier the river had seemed barren but now was teeming with life more bountiful than we could have imagined [Music] [Music] the fish were abundant and hungry feeding in a frenzy on Mouse patterns in the midday Sun [Music] [Music] rain and wind the bear the axe wound the long days of travel all suddenly seemed a million miles away we made it we'd found a brook trout paradise after all [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] berries all over the ground [Music] Labrador had offered us an opportunity to peel back the layers of time and briefly experience a life less complicated and conflicted by the burdens of the modern world [Music] we only living in close contact with the land slowly aligning its rhythms with our own [Music] [Applause] [Music] why [Music] [Music] as our departure date neared we kept a close eye on the weather we knew them unless we found a window of ideal conditions we'd have to abandon our canoes if we waited it out we risked missing our train home we confirmed over Sat phone with Sam that we had a shot at 7:00 a.m. the following morning a day early even though we'd been in the bush for nearly two weeks it felt like we were just getting started [Music] [Music] raindrops like bullets my fragile skin as we sped away from the canary talk I felt a sense of sadness like saying goodbye to an old friend the truth was that we were all mourning the loss of a part of ourselves we'd left a little piece out there with the Spruce and the Tamara [Music] maybe we'd be reunited one day maybe he wouldn't but I filled a tremendous amount of comfort knowing that whether I'm there or not the place will persist just as it has for thousands of years and long after I'm gone those big predatory brook trout will patrol the tannin deaths like transient goes [Music] [Music] [Music] in some ways it's a miracle that places like Labrador still exist in North America but with the resources running thin and a rapidly changing climate there's no guarantee that they'll stay that way forever just a few miles west across the border of Quebec the largest resource extraction and economic development project in Canadian history is underway the plan Nord it hopes to bring roads commerce and tourism to the otherwise virgin boreal forest it's been met with strong opposition from the Inu but their voices continue to be stifled [Music] race [Music] I used to think that the answer to preserving wilderness was to keep people away from it but now I know that's not right either human beings have been a part of this landscape for millennia but we're also its greatest threat the problem lies in the way we view the land as a resource to be developed and managed all the while missing its greatest value we ask how the land is being used and what we can do to increase its productivity human expansion paints with broad brushes rarely stopping to think of the intrinsic cultural and spiritual value that wilderness has maybe it's our inability to describe the intangible benefits of time spent in wild places we have no metric to express the ways we grow and are enriched by the experience of wilderness immersion or perhaps it's simply a skill that's been lost a skill that can be relearned through time spent in the woods along ancient shores or under a primordial moon [Music] with the places incredible as the chimeric talk headwaters remaining relatively unknown this surely untold numbers of lakes and rivers of equal splendor scattered across the bass of Arctic tundra of Labrador it's up to us to make sure they don't go silently into the night under the unrelenting machines of development and Industry [Music] having explored only a drop in the vast ocean of the provinces fresh water there was really only one question left where to next [Music] and to the pace of the only thing King darvis my ways Landry this is how it all must have been for the new world around don't mind stayin stay well I never found water this way I think I needed thumbs to be nice he chartered Audi over rocks and sang through a parent from our we've done lonely River long [Music] lift and down through nature heavy Claire so we're here sim blue keep the mass somewhere sing after all we've done only rivers [Music] lift and down Thrun a heavy Claire so we're here sim blue keep the mass somewhere sing after all we've done lonely rivers on the run [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Tight Loops

Views: 578,221

Rating: 4.8673062 out of 5

Keywords: wilderness, bushcraft, adventure, labrador, canada, travel, explore, expedition, canoe, fishing, trout, brook trout, fly fishing, tight loops, tightloopsfly, chase bartee, aimee bartee, orvis, old town, patagonia, sawyer, eureka, camping, backpacking, hiking, paddling, rapids, white water, river, wild, float plane, salmon, survival, forest, nature

Id: 2iFlDYWmj8E

Length: 47min 7sec (2827 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/maxcaven]

I bought this movie when it was on Vimeo. Watched it a ton during the start of quarantine. Make sure to check out the northern scavenger series about crossing Labrador.

[u/cheap_dancer]

My brother just sent me this link. Are you my brother?

[u/HDmayo]

I might have to save this for winter, I barely have time to make half assed memes this time of year.

[u/Aldy1]

I like this..Great material, beautiful shots and editing. But the narrator and script sort of ruins it for me. It is delivered too dramatic in an effort to sound profound. Give me a dry script/narration and this is 10/10.

[u/Cobra317]

Is that an Old Towne Penobscot?! Damn that's an 85lb canoe base weight!