On The Land: Great Bear River, Northwest Territories, October 2013.

The Great Bear River was part of the Northern Transportation Route and from the early 1930s to the 1950s, uranium ore was transported over 2,200km from Port Radium on Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories to the railhead at Waterways which is now called Fort McMurray in Alberta to Port Hope, Ontario (another place that I have worked at) where the ore was refined to produce radium for medical purposes. Later on, the uranium was destined for nuclear fuel and military applications.

Some information on the route can be found on the LLRWMO web site (http://www.llrwmo.org/?page_id=188).

October 1^st we began our 12 day work detail on the Great Bear River, we were heading into an unknown camp in an unknown (to us, but used extensively by the locals for traditional land uses, hunting, fishing, gathering and teaching the young about living on the land) area on Great Bear River. While that’s not totally true, we did know the area on Great Bear River where the camp was supposed to be located (we figured it was going to be near the airstrip, or at Bennett’s Landing, but were we wrong) however we had not been able to contact the camp provider (he was out hunting, as was the alternate contact we had) to get any details on the camp, the boat, wildlife monitors etc.. so we were going in with the understanding that if we are not met at the airstrip by somebody, we would be leaving (we would give them a couple of hours leeway, of course)and returning to Yellowknife or to Deliné, whichever the case would be.. As we had no idea what to expect we were taking some of our own camp luxuries: toilet piper, a port-o-let (that a small portable toilet, basically a bucket with a plastic bag), tents, extra tarps (because in the last communication we did receive from the camp provider, he requested that we bring tarps, lots of them and some food!!!) and of course some boil in a bag food.

The flight in was uneventful and the landing was as smooth as you can expect considering we were landing on tundra tries and most of the airstrip was covered in four foot willows. Much to our surprise, there was nobody there to meet us, so we waited and waited, discussed walking to the river and looking for the camp and waited some more. Three hours later we boarded the twin and took off for Deliné. Not 10 minutes into the flight we spotted our two wildlife monitors on ATV’s heading to the airstrip and only about 20 minutes out, so we turned the twin around, landed at the airstrip again and waited, and waited some more, when they arrived we loaded all the equipment that could not be left on the airstrip (the sensitive electronics) into two trailers (one with a flat tire) as well as our personal gear and all the tarps and headed to the river where the jet boat was to meet us (the second place we thought the camp would be). . . where we waited…and waited, until the jet boat arrived. From there to was a twenty minute ride down the rapids to the camp where we arrived just as the sun was setting and to a hot cup-o-coffee.

The camp was a soft camp (meaning it was a tent camp) we slept in Woods wall tents on spruce boughs, with a wood stove for heating (I forgot to mention that the temperature did not go above -3^oC the entire time we were there with a lows of -10^oC at night). I thank God, the angles and all the saints but mostly Woods for making -40^oC sleeping bags. I had great sleeps the entire time I was there (way better than a hotel bed, I was as warm and comfortable as a bug in a rug) however waking up in a frost covered sleeping bag and having to get out of bed and get the fire going, was a real treat.

We had an amazing cook from Tulita who did all the cooking on Coleman and wood stoves to feed our crew of four as well as the five crew who operated the camp, the jet boat and guided/wildlife monitored for us. All this work she did a half plywood, half tarp kitchen with the minimalist of equipment. She even taught the driller and me how to cook a proper bannock (over much laughing at our skills in making dough). We did manage to get some fishing in on the Great Bear River for grayling and dolly varden trout (or Salvelinus malma which is a species of salmonid native to cold-water tributaries of North America. It is in the family of true chars, which includes: the most prominent being the brook, lake and bull trout, as well as arctic char. How’s that for an explanation, most of that was taken from “From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”) which we were only to happily ate for dinner to supplement our meager (as in only enough food to allow for seconds and even thirds if you had the room) diet of moose, beef and potato, and bannock.

The work we were conducting was drilling and soil sampling along the northern transportation route portage. We were working in very specific areas along the GBR route, for the driller and me that area was limited to the Bennett camp, airstrip, barge landings and a few locations along the portage route, somewhere in the middle between Deliné and Tulita, however for our gamma survey crew, they had to cover the same areas we worked and travel the route back to Great Bear Lake, which for them meant an overnight stay the our wildlife monitors cabin situated on one of the tributary rivers (that’s a whole other story, and not mine to tell). Except for the work part, which was long days of lifting and carrying equipment, and drilling, the experience was great, traveling daily in a jet boat up and down rapids to get to work sure beats Richmond Hill traffic and the fishing (which only took place after the days’ work was done) was awesome, grayling on almost every cast.

Some Photos:

The flight in, that's Great Bear River and the road that is visible is part of the NTR.

That's our driller and the gamma surveyor lead with our equipment that cannot be left alone on the airstrip, under the white tarp is all the drilling equipment.