Canadian Yachting April 2022 - 36

The Route
I'll be following traditional routes used by Indigenous peoples
for centuries. These are the same routes that the Voyageurs,
explorers and cartographers used to traverse Canada from
coast to coast to coast. They are well-known and, at least
in parts, well-traveled. Much, however, remains unchanged.
my answer, the response I'm sure will be a universal. " Are
you nuts? " , followed closely by " Why? " , invariably ending
with " Better you than me " . In their defense, being dragged
downhill by a canoe on a two-wheeled cart isn't something
you see every day.
Portaging myself implies walking with a pack. A very heavy
pack. One pack for clothes and sundries, another for food
and shelter, and a third for bulky items that can't easily be
carried by hand. That turns every one kilometre portaged
into five kilometres traveled.
Over the past six months, I've been experimenting with at
least five different packs, ranging from the traditional Duluth
style canoe pack to a high-tech carbon ultra-light hunting
pack. I'll be using a combination of the traditional and hightech.
Unfortunately, they're not designed to be in continuous
use for 200-plus days, so what is going to survive the whole
trip is a question that is unanswered at this point.
A modern composite canoe is easily enough portaged. Just
hoist the thing up onto the back of your neck and start
walking. Towing it fully loaded down the Trans Canada is a
little more involved. After some spectacularly unsuccessful
attempts at creating or repurposing old harnesses, I've settled
on the technology that trans-Arctic and Antarctic adventurers
use. I'll be using a custom-made towing harness and pulks.
Yes, pulks. The fully loaded canoe and I will be literally and
figuratively rigidly attached at the hips.
Lining and Tracking
Lining and tracking respectively refer to floating a canoe
downstream and pulling one up. Lining is hard on the canoe,
but easy on the liner. Tracking is hard on the tracker,
easy on the canoe. When I say hard, I mean grinding your
way upstream in any way possible kind of hard. It's not just
exhausting. It's more often than not soul-sucking misery.
The first seven days tracking up the Fraser River may very well
be the hardest seven days of the whole trip. The only way
to prepare for this kind of abuse is to push the envelope of
what one considers physically possible as often as you dare.
Thus 30-kilometre hikes with a 30 kilogram pack, in 30 knot
winds, with three inches of snow and slush on the road and
more on the trails.
For the greater part of this adventure, I'll be traveling country
that is quintessentially Canadian, passing locations and
landmarks that would be easily recognizable to travelers centuries
ago. Starting at Steveston, BC on the South Arm of the
Fraser River and ending at Big Shippagan Lighthouse, NB on
the Atlantic Coast, the route is daunting and ambitious but
not impossible. Mike Ranta, with his trusty mutt Spitzii along
for company and bear patrol, did this route solo in 2014.
Although I will not be using any electronic navigational tools
or aids, I will have maps. My whole route has been broken
down into 120 11x17 double-sided Rite-In-The-Rain laser printed
maps. Each day is basically one sheet. I used the Canadian
Geological Survey's publicly available topographic map data
and an open-source GIS program to produce topographic
maps with a lat-long grid as opposed to the standard UTM
grid. Each map will double as a celestial navigation plotting
sheet.
I'll dead reckon with the topographical maps as one would
do on a nautical chart. The sextant I'll use to confirm my
position. Incredibly, all of Canada was initially mapped with
a sextant and some of those maps remain the best available
well into the 20th century. The Canada-US border is where
it is because surveyors figured it was there using a sextant.
The issue of a usable horizon is easily solved by using an
artificial one. I've got two along for the ride: the standard
floating puddle of liquid artificial horizon and a high-tech
Cassens and Plath artificial bubble horizon. The bubble is not
as accurate as the simple puddle but it allows me to take
Canadian Yachting April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Canadian Yachting April 2022
