windy days

We are at the intersection of the Columbia River and highway I-90, in the middle of Washington state.

It's very windy. So windy that after the first 10 kilometers of paddling, at a dam portage, some paddlers opted to quit for the day, including our team.

It's hot as well as windy. Did I say that it was windy? Our very large tent is having a hard time--it's such a big sail, and it wears on you.

The country here is spectacular--the river valley is large, and heavily eroded by prehistoric floods. It is very dry, so there is much sagebrush and little grass of any kind. The trees are lopsided thanks to the wind, too. Paddling alongside the high basalt cliffs provide more than respite from the wind--gorgeous to look at, and we saw a herd of mountain sheep. Who needs a foothold? they don't seem to!

This is such open country--big sky, the ribbon of green along the river, and the occasional coulee with water. Very big sky, actually.

This is quite the change from the rainy Lower Mainland.

In the news

Our exploits on the Columbia River have really made the local news. Local communities in the Entiat and Wenatchee area are really showing up wonderful hospitality. Last night here in Wenatchee, they laid on supper of pulled pork (yum!), chicken, potato, salad, etc AND a old time string band concert, and swag for the brigaders.

AND we have made the local newspaper, the Wenatchee World. see http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2011/jun/25/brigade-travels-in-explorers-wake/ for the article--and look for more on the side bar.

We've been very busy with 5 am wakeups, on the water by 7 or so. Arrival ceremonies and canoe maneuvers, then parade up to the stage, accompanied by our own bagpipers. Lots of pagentry.

Today is a day off, so we are doing laundry, and going to the local museum with its new exhibit on David Thompson. They are opening it for an hour, on their usual day off.

We've started--at the Grand Coulee Dam

Well, Katie, Lee, Susan, Sylvia and Margaret plus land crew Al arrived safely at the Columbia River--where the Spokane River enters the Columbia-- on Monday--and now we have paddled for two days.

It has been hot and mostly sunny, quite the switch for us Lower Mainlanders. and for the Brigade too, it appears. They have had much wet and cold weather, like two weeks of it.

Speaking of switches, we have not had a hard time getting the fast and frequent switches of paddling sides down pat. Any wobbles have been fleeting and minor. It's easier when you realize--in your body--that it's actually easier to switch more frequently.

This style of paddling is so very different from the voyageur paddling the Fort Langley Canoe Club does. It's very serious! Efficiency is ultra important. We are offered much coaching and help, from paddle strokes to moving our heavy boat to spare people to help paddle and drive.

Tomorrow we trailer around the Grand Coulee Dam, and enjoy some wild water for a few kilometers before another resevoir comes our way.

Kettle Falls

The photo shows fishing at Kettle Falls, before Grand Coulee Dam was built (1940) and Roosevelt Lake filled up. Kettle Falls fell over 50 feet in a series of rapids and cascades. Salmon had to pause. There is no longer a salmon run past the dam.

Thanks to the fishing, it was a gathering spot, a place sacred to the natives for whom it provided food for body and soul.

What makes a place sacred for you?

I need a place that is both beautiful in some way, and infused with memory and history. It doesn't all have to be my history, but I need to know some of the story.

I need to get to know the place over the seasons. Such a designation for me doesn't come easily or quickly. It has to become so over time.

Maybe it's like the clearing in the Quebec forest where I collected my wits after the group I was guiding was difficult. Maybe it's like the cabin in the Newfoundland boreal forest where we lived full time for 14 months. Our story of that place makes it memorable. How many of us these days can tell the story of living in a place accessible only by cross country ski or snowmobile for months at a time? Where the moose regularly came through the yard, or would have if it weren't for the dog guarding the area. Where the cats stalked the "bunnies" (snowshoe hares)--and were successful occasionally.

What does make a place sacred for you?

Lake Roosevelt and the drawdown

In a few days, the Brigade will trailer across the Colville National Forest--from Ione to Kettle Falls and Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir behind the Grand Coulee Dam. Fear of huge run-off from the huge snow pack has led to a dramatic drawdown of the lake. See http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/apr/24/spring-drawdown-bares-shores-of-lake-roosevelt/ for more details. The low point of the drawdown was at the end of April, at a level of 1225 ft.

And see http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=otx&gage=gcdw1&view=1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1%22 for the latest levels, and forecast. On Sunday, June 12, the level was at 1246 ft, forecast to rise to 1267 feet on June 21, just the day before the Brigade arrives at the dam on June 22.

Apparently Kettle Falls reappears only at 1160 ft. Still, the views available this year are not the usual ones. I can't wait to see them!

The photo is from http://gatheringaroundthetable.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-live-by-this-water-drawdown-on-lake.html, worth reading for another view of the drawdown--and the impact of the reservoir on the land, and its people.

Kootenai Falls

Kootenai Falls

Just downstream of Libby, Montana--where the brigade is this morning, June 9, is Kootenai Falls. The river falls over 300 feet in a few hundred yards, according to the Travel Montana website.

It was, and is, sacred to the Kootenai Indians, the centre of the world. For David Thompson, it was a significant barrier to navigation, necessitating in his journey down the Kootenay River in 1808 much scouting--not for the paddling line, but for the portaging. No wonder the Brigade isn't paddling it! They carefully walked 300 feet above the river, and did not recommend this way as a trade route. Too hard to portage, too hard to travel upstream.

In 1809, Thompson established Saleesh House near the present day town of Thompson Falls on what we know now as the Thompson River.. When Thompson paddled through in 1812, he damaged his canoes in the rapids nearby. It was March, and stormy. Their tent was blown down.

I wonder how much of those rapids are now under a resevoir.

They've started!

Darn! I can't be there at the start, once again. It's happening without me.

Having paddled Columbia and Windemere Lakes last summer, I can visualize what's happening. They drove down the lake (south) to a put in, then paddled back to the campground at the north end, in the town of Inveremere. There's a beautiful marshy creek between the two big lakes--lots of big lake and small river practice for these new teams.

Tomorrow they will embark on the Kootenay River, headed south. When I last saw the Kootenay, it was just barely deep enough to float a voyageur boat. If the heavy snow load has started to melt, the problem will be too much water, not too little!

From the Spot program, I see they paddled yesterday too. I can see they were on the water at 7am, just as they said they wanted to be. Do you realize how early you have to get up to be down the road and on the water by 7? Try 5 am, maybe earlier!

We will join them down the river... we're not ready yet, but we will be.

Why, oh, why?

Why DO we do this?

Who would want to take off for a month long canoe trip--not a wilderness sojourn with a few friends, but the travelling circus that is a Voyageur Brigade? I expect something like 100 people, more or less, in the ten teams participating in this grand expedition. We will not experience solitude, especially in camp. Maybe momentarily on the river.

The stretch of the Columbia River that we will do is not completely wilderness, although I do expect some parts of it to be less travelled. Much of it is resevoir, water trapped behind one dam or another dam. We will have to portage several of them. Hopefully by trailer or a set of wheels under the canoe.

We will join the larger brigade about half way through, near the small town of Miles, WA, west of Spokane where the Spokane River joins the Columbia. From what I can see on Google Earth, it looks like desert, dry and nearly stark naked of trees.

It will be hot and dry, not terribly comfortable. So we will paddle in the early parts of the day.

That might be the best part of the day, anyway. It's the best time to see animals, the coolest part of the day. There's something special about dawn--it's the beginning of a new day, a new opportunity for life. Who knows what will happen!