Alone Against the North

by Adam Shoalts

  Unanswered questions vexed me. For one thing, I had not resolved the puzzle of how the river got its unusual name, nor had I located the old surveyors’ records from the 1930s. More problematic was the question of the waterfalls—I had supposed that upon my return home, I would be able to determine their precise locations with the use of satellite imagery, given that I now knew they existed and their approximate positions—which would allow me to add them to a map of the river.

  But the available satellite images were too poor to pinpoint all the waterfalls, including the one I plunged over in my canoe. I could only detect with confidence the horseshoe waterfall in the canyon and the furious cataract at the end of the same canyon. Even a trip to the National Air Photo Library in Ottawa, where I dug up the original black-and-white aerial photos of the Again River from the 1950s, proved of little use. The old, grainy images revealed no more than the newer satellite ones. And so it began to seem, almost against my better judgment, that if I wanted to precisely map the Again River, I would have little choice but to canoe it again.

  The irony of the river’s name was not lost on me. Difficult and hazardous as it had been the first time, and eager as I was to move on to new challenges, like a moth to a flame I seemed irresistibly drawn back to it. No sooner had I returned from the wilderness than I began making preparations for a return journey into the Lowlands.

  My intention was that a second trip to the Again River would not be a hasty, last-minute venture to satisfy personal curiosity like the mad quest I had pulled off in 2012. Instead, it would be a carefully planned expedition complete with gear that I had previously lacked. Hopefully, I could also recruit a partner, which would make it safer and easier to carry the extra equipment. For the return expedition, besides the equipment that I would need to survey waterfalls, I planned to invest in a tripod and a better camera to obtain high-quality photographs. This time, I would also forgo my woodsman’s preference for traditional navigation and instead carry a GPS, so that I could plot each waterfall’s exact location. After all, much as I disliked electronic gadgetry, this was a chance to literally change the map by adding waterfalls to it—a fine feather in the cap of any explorer. But more than that, there was something deeply alluring about the thought of mapping unknown waterfalls.

  Ever since the Belgian explorer Louis Hennepin’s awestruck description of Niagara Falls first appeared in print in 1683, explorers’ tales of finding unknown waterfalls have captivated imaginations. In 2003, for example, the rediscovery of a single waterfall in a park in northern California made headlines in National Geographic. According to National Geographic’s story, a park ranger “discovered a giant waterfall that had languished unseen for decades because of rugged territory and inaccurate maps.” The waterfall in question was not entirely unknown—rumours of its existence had circulated for years, and it was even marked, albeit inaccurately, on an old map from the 1960s. That map had led the park rangers on an initially futile search for the phantom waterfall. Undeterred by their failure to find it, they next turned to aerial photographs, which revealed a white blur about a kilometre from the spot marked on the map. A second hike into the remote area finally revealed the long-lost waterfall. The ranger and his colleague were credited with the discovery, even though they reported that the area around the waterfall had been logged decades earlier. But the loggers and other occasional hikers in the area had never properly documented the falls, and at least according to geographers, documentation is the essence of exploration and discovery.

  In contrast, the multiple waterfalls hidden along the Again River’s torturous course were infinitely more obscure than the California waterfall. There was never any logging anywhere near the Again River; no maps of any kind had ever shown waterfalls on the river’s course; and the river was not part of an easily accessible park where hikers need only stray a few kilometres off established trails to glimpse a hidden waterfall. Accustomed as I was to travelling hundreds of kilometres from the nearest road or town, it seemed ironic that the unknown California waterfall was located a mere three kilometres from an existing trail and only twenty-four kilometres from the park’s headquarters—all of this in a state that is home to thirty-eight million people. But the rediscovery of the California waterfall is a testament to how even in the twenty-first century, rugged wilderness and thick forest can conceal all sorts of features as well as the fact that the world has not been as thoroughly explored as many might assume.

  The Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s Expedition Committee was quick to approve my plans and offer me funding for a return to the Again River. The Committee knew that there was something special about finding unmapped waterfalls, particularly on a river in the Hudson Bay drainage basin where waterfalls are much less common than in mountainous terrain. In the Rockies, for example, undoubtedly dozens of unknown falls are located on isolated streams waiting to be discovered. The objective for the new expedition was to carefully photograph the waterfalls, measure their height, and record their precise locations. I would get underway the following summer, when the Lowlands would be free from the grip of its long, harsh winter.

  In the meantime, I was busy speaking at schools and other venues about exploring, snowshoeing around the woods in preparation for a winter expedition I was planning, and tracking down explorers’ papers as part of my doctoral research. My quest for old explorers’ records, which took me far and wide, at last bore fruit. I found buried in some tedious records the secret I had been looking for—the origin of the Again River’s peculiar name. I had finally located the surveyor’s account from the 1930s—which was, as far as I knew, the only written description of the Again River in existence beyond my own.

  The description was made in 1931 by Shirley King, an Ontario Land Surveyor, who along with his Quebec counterpart J.M. Roy, had led expeditions to survey the northern part of the provincial boundary in the summers of 1930 and 1931—something that had never been done before. Their challenge was to survey a perfectly straight line through difficult terrain and unexplored wilderness all the way to tidewater on James Bay. King wrote of their preparations:

  As a preliminary to starting the survey, little or no definite information could be obtained from any source of the area north of Mile 140. The composite of most of the information we did obtain was that it was a great muskeg, containing areas through which it would be impossible for us to go.

  Undaunted by these reports, King and his surveying party pressed on. Their route north along the artificial line was extremely difficult—especially when they attempted to paddle the rivers. King explained, “Canoes were literally cut to pieces in these shallow rapids filled with sharp angular stones.” As a result, they were forced to resort to “man-hauling” —that is, carrying their equipment on foot. As they blazed their way north, they passed through forests and swamps, over creeks and rivers, and across lakes and ponds. The party, King reported, then came upon a certain nameless river, the existence of which they had been informed of ahead of time by a Cree trapper on James Bay. King recounted:

  At Mile 178, we were fortunate in coming upon a stream which more or less paralleled our line all the rest of the way to the Bay. This river we named the Again River from the fact that the native who first told us about it was constantly interpolating the word “again” in his talk. Soon Mr. Roy and his men found themselves talking of the Again River.

  That explained the origin of the river’s name. Apparently it was conceived on a whim for a river that King and his men had only passed over at one small point.

  Unfortunately, King wrote nothing more about his native informant, but most likely he was a trapper from one of the James Bay communities who was familiar with the lower part of the river, near where it joins the Harricanaw River. Whether King and his party had managed to canoe any of the Again River—other than where they had to cross it—was unclear. If they had attempted to explore it at all, it was only the lower, more tranquil half, beyond the worst rapids and waterfalls, most of which Kin
g was unaware existed. The destruction of his canoes and the difficulty of the terrain soon convinced King that his entire route was impractical: “It never was a feasible route for good travel or transport,” he concluded.

  Like me, King was struck by the rocky cliffs and hills enclosing the Again. He noted:

  It is composed of pre-Cambrian granite rocks, and is said to be the line of contact between the old pre-Cambrian shield and the later Devonian rocks. It is a miniature mountain range with its little valleys filled with moss and scrub growth and its 50-100 foot mountains, bald or bearing scant timber growth. The total drop of the escarpment is about 100 feet down to the James Bay coastal plain. About half a mile west of the boundary, the River Again cuts through the escarpment, in a small canyon or waterfall.

  King and his surveying party never saw the various falls farther upriver—they never went upriver and passed well east of its course. King had referred to only a single waterfall, though it seemed difficult to believe that he and his men could have failed to notice the two waterfalls less than five hundred metres apart in the canyon. But waterfalls and rivers were not their concern—their objective was to survey a boundary line. At any rate, their glimpse of the Again River left most of it unexplored, and plenty of blanks to fill in.

  I experienced déjà vu when I read one part of King’s narrative. After King and his party had completed their survey and arrived at James Bay, they ran into difficulty attempting to cross the sea to Moose Factory. King appreciated the difficulties of trying to travel on James Bay:

  Extremely low water for as much as two miles out from shore, muddy shores, tides, winds, scarcity of landing places and camping places, all combined, make for a different set-up in conditions of travel than is found on inland waters. Good seaworthy boats or large canoes and plenty of provisions are two very important things to remember in coastwise travel on James Bay. You cannot live off the country and you cannot travel when the wind whips in from James Bay. Stories were told [to] us of parties being held up for two, five, even up to twelve days on windbound points. In going across James Bay, low tide caught us on a bar, about 3 or 4 miles out from the mouth of the Harricanaw River. Two hours elapsed before tide again floated our 2 foot draught boat.

  Over eighty years later, making the crossing wasn’t much easier.

  WHEN THE SPRING arrived and the snow melted, I was spending my days on an archaeological excavation near Lake Erie and my nights preparing for the Geographical Society expedition. Preparing by myself, that is. To my dismay, in spite of my earlier vow, it looked as if I would be going on another solo journey. Wes, who I had hoped would join me, had big news of his own—he was soon to become a father. I thought this news might be all the more reason for Wes to embark on one last great adventure, but to his credit Wes believed that it precluded him from undertaking any more dangerous expeditions. After my experience with Brent, I was reluctant to trust anyone besides Wes on an expedition. At least if I went alone, I could be certain of an absolute commitment to the expedition.

  However, exploring the Again for a second time and measuring its waterfalls alone presented its own set of challenges. Measuring the height of each waterfall would be tricky—the obvious way of doing it would be to use a theodolite to measure vertical angles, and then calculate the heights using basic trigonometry. But a theodolite is a heavy and bulky surveying instrument, and carrying one on top of all my other gear and provisions across the punishing portages and quicksand-like muskeg was not a promising option.

  My father was an experienced surveyor, and when I put the task to him he came up with a lightweight alternative to a theodolite. He took a .22 calibre rifle scope and mounted it on the side of a Mastercraft Torpedo Level, a hand-held electronic measuring tool used in construction. This instrument could then be mounted on a lightweight tripod. The scope would allow me to precisely measure things from a distance by fixing the crosshairs on a given point and measuring a vertical angle. The whole contraption weighed less than one-tenth as much as a theodolite and was small enough that I could easily slip it into my backpack. Together we tested this device for accuracy against an ordinary theodolite by measuring the heights of some trees. It proved less than a centimetre off the measurement obtained with an ordinary theodolite—more than accurate enough for my purposes.

  As for my canoe, reasons of economy and sentiment dictated that I would rely on my old vessel, Avalon, notwithstanding the damage that it had sustained from the plunge over the waterfall and the many jagged rocks. The three-decades-old craft needed extensive repairs. My father and I rebuilt the gunwales from scratch, patched the holes, strengthened the hull with epoxy, removed the damaged front seat, and added a second wooden thwart for increased stability. I also removed the foam padding from the outside of the canoe, which had lost much of its buoyancy from old age. It had also proved a hassle on portages. The padding would wedge against trees as I dragged the canoe through the forest, causing me lengthy delays as I struggled to free it. Since I anticipated high water levels, which would make the river’s rapids more dangerous, I wanted more floatation to lash inside the canoe. But it turned out that the demand for canoe floatation devices was small, and the manufacturer no longer made them. In the end, I had to settle for an inflatable pool toy—a small raft—which I lashed inside the bow of the canoe. When the repair work was finished, I felt confident that the canoe and I could handle just about anything.

  Besides the Royal Canadian Geographical Society funding, I also managed to attract some private-sector sponsorship for my expedition. An American manufacturer, Globalstar Communications, offered to provide me with its latest model of satellite phone. In the past, I had shunned such gadgets as unworthy of a true adventurer and had undertaken wilderness journeys without them. But Geographical Society policy dictated that they have some means of communication with me. Meanwhile, Outdoors Oriented, a local store specializing in outdoor gear, outfitted me with a new water purifier to replace my broken one, a larger watertight canoe barrel, and some other gear. The handheld water purifier, which works with a carbon filter, is a useful device. Even in the remote, isolated rivers and lakes of northern Canada, drinking untreated water is not entirely safe, given the parasites found in wild animal urine and feces. On the other hand, I had now spent nearly a month in total drinking untreated water on my wilderness journeys, and had never fallen ill. But given all the other risks inherent in my undertakings, my preference was to minimize those hazards that I could.

  Lastly, I had the unexpected backing of a private benefactor, an armchair geography enthusiast interested in my expeditions, who kindly wrote me a cheque for a thousand dollars. Victorian and Edwardian explorers, such as Sir Ernest Shackleton, often relied upon the patronage of private individuals for much of their expedition funding. In return, Shackleton offered to name his geographical discoveries in his sponsors’ honour. For instance, he named a large, rocky promontory jutting into Antarctica’s Wendell Sea after Janet Stancomb-Wills, a wealthy tobacco heiress who supported his expedition. I could not promise the same, since the Geographical Names Board of Canada, the government body in charge of approving names for geographical features, has stringent rules that forbid naming anything after a living person, and commemorative names for deceased persons are restricted to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the country.

  In the midst of my expedition preparations, I was contacted by a journalist in the United Kingdom who was interested in doing a story on me. She was a budding freelance journalist and couldn’t be sure whether any publications would be interested in the story, but I agreed to an interview. She said that she would shop her article around to a few media outlets to see if there was any interest. At the time, I didn’t think too much about whether the interview would be published since I had already done several interviews with Canadian newspapers about the Again River, and for years my adventures had been covered by local media. Several weeks went by and I heard nothing further from her, and I soon forgot abou
t the whole thing.

  Just before I was to depart for the Again River, as a sort of warm-up, I embarked on a shorter wilderness trip with Wes, my twin brother Ben, and a mutual friend of ours. We spent three relaxing days—aside from a thunderstorm—fishing and paddling around a few uninhabited lakes in northern Ontario. But little did I realize, sitting on a granite rock beneath a white pine on a glacier-carved lake, that half a world away in the United Kingdom the freelance journalist’s story had found a publisher. The article appeared in The Guardian, one of the United Kingdom’s biggest newspapers. It became the top-viewed story of the day on The Guardian’s website, and it sparked substantial interest on social media. Of course, I had no idea about any of this until I returned home from the wilds. Once back, I didn’t bother checking my email until the following morning. When I did, I gained a new appreciation for Lord Byron’s quip: “I woke one morning and found myself famous.” My inbox was deluged with emails—it seemed that every media outlet on the planet wanted to interview me. Requests came from the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, the Weather Network, and dozens of other stations as far afield as Poland, Israel, and China. It was only then that I learned the story had been published. I was at a lost for how to respond to all the interview requests—they seemed to be never-ending and, as a result, I spent nearly the whole week before my departure in a series of non-stop interviews with journalists from around the world. It felt strange that what had been a private obsession of mine for years—an obscure river virtually no one else had ever cared about—was suddenly the subject of such intense interest.

  Each interview I did seemed to generate more interest. I was besieged with requests from production companies to make a TV show about my adventures. A geologist asked if I would gather rock samples for him from the Again River, which could be used for his university classes. Math teachers wanted to know the details of how I used trigonometry to measure waterfalls, in the hope that they could use this example to stimulate their students’ interest in math. One enthusiastic entrepreneur contacted me to say that he had devised a fool-proof, all-organic bug repellant, which would keep me perfectly protected.