Sarah Hooper's blog - Chapter 3 (The Rivers)

(This is just my rough memory of the river at the moment and am sure will get more detailed info from Dave when he has reviewed the map and notes we made on the trip)

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Hooper Creek

As I mentioned previously we didn't land quite where we had planned. In order to get to the south branch of the Rae ( thus far unnamed and now known as The LaPlante ) we had to travel approximately 3 miles along a very fine little tributary which my good friend Dave named 'Hooper Creek'. Gene was later to describe this as a 'problematic navigation'.

This involved about 600m of portage (more on portages later...) and then a tricky combination of pushing, pulling and paddling when the width and depth of the creek allowed ! It was a creek of tricks since we would no sooner arrive at a widening and opening of the river then round the next bend it would narrow to an impassibility once again. I must confess it was not a grand or distinguished beginning to our trip but it was certainly fun ! - and that's what happens when you get dropped off by a floatplane in the middle of no-where !

I can say however with a reasonable amount of certainty that Dave & I made the first descent of Hooper Creek ! (Quite possible the last for some time also...)

The LaPlante

This is a great little river and it was only a shame we didn't get to paddle as much of the upper section as originally planned. We camped at the confluence of The LaPlante and Hooper Creek which was a beautiful campsite.

The whitewater on this river was great. Some fun little grade 1 rapids, several long technical boulder gardens of grade 2's, some with grade 3 drops at the end. Also on this river was the stunning Damiens' Falls ( named after the biologist and friend of Dave & Mark in Yellowknife who is also a huge fan of John Rae and incidentally Winston Churchill too ). Damiens' Falls was probably a grade 5 on river right and grade 4 on river left, both very technical routes. In a kayak, I dare say that they are perfectly runnable and perhaps even to a skilled canoeist. But 100s of miles from anywhere and where a damaged canoe would cost you a $10,000 float plane home, the only line we were talking was the one on the banking!

'Smell a whisky' falls was the only place on the river where unfortunately Mark & Gene took a swim. A long and very technical boulder garden ended with a grade 3 drop with a large boulder at the bottom...oooops... The name is what Dave & I came up with by merging their two surnames - Scmealawitz (spelling ?) and Choresteki (spelling) and incidentally was the original inspiration for the song I've written about the trip - 'Just the Rae '- more about that later...

I spotted the unfortunate fate of our paddling companions just as we were approaching the aforementioned rock. I have to admit that my concentration was broken for a moment and when my brain finally connected with the 'left! left! the other left!' instructions that Dave was frantically yelling to me I eventually made the cross deck draw that was so badly needed and we managed to skirt the right side of the rock to make a successful descent!

It's fair to say that Gene & Mark took a little longer to hit their 'paddling stride' than Dave & I but when they did, they were looking great.

The Rae

Reaching the River Rae was a special moment. This was the actually river named after the great explorer and for Dave one of the big inspirations for this trip. The river widened considerable here and we still had lots more white water in store. Many long stretches (maybe 1-2km long) of grade 1 and 2 technical boulder gardens with tricky boulder fans at the end to navigate our way through. No portages were necessary (except for Un-named Falls where we camped) on this stretch but we did end up lining some of the more trickier boulder fans.

Hodgkins Canyon (named after Shaun Hodgkins, guide and owner of Wanapitei Canoe) was stunning as was the Un-named Falls further towards the end of the river where we camped for two days.

Hopefully this has given you a little taste of what the rivers were like, once I've hooked up with Dave and got his report too I'll be able to give a more accurate report. Stand by the for the next chapter which includes the GRIZZLY BEAR story!