Before our trip began this summer, I was concerned with a variety of things - our route, outfitting, safety - the stuff that all staff think about before leaving for a big trip. However, I was also concerned about something else which is unique to the Bay trip: perception vs. reality. I hadn't done a Bay trip in 13 years, and I wondered if the route that McKenzie and I picked would live up to the campers' perception of what a Bay trip should be. Also, we had three campers this summer who did the Winisk last year, so it was important to me that their experience was unique and wonderful and not just a replay of last summer. Now, though, after completing the first Severn Bay trip in 18 years and the 2nd in Wabun history, I'm confident that our trip this summer satisfied all Bay trip perceptions and even raised the level of expectation for future Bay trippers.

The route we took this summer was anything but tried and true for a Wabun Bay trip. About one third of it was similar to the last Severn Bay trip; the other two thirds we stitched together by looking at maps and talking to various seasoned trippers at Wabun and Keewaydin. When we left Wabun on June 28th, we had a rough idea where portages would be, but we had no trip reports to guide us. Because we anticipated a fair bit of exploration and trial and error this summer, we decided to start our trip about 150km north of Pickle Lake, the area where most Bay trips begin. These extra hours in the van would give us the extra days we needed to get to Fort Severn on time.

The Bay trip really begins when Dick closes the van door and drives away. It's a strange feeling. You're 30 hours by van from Wabun, in the middle of nowhere, and you hope that the lake on which you have been dumped is the right one. Also, once the van is about 100 feet away, all contact with the outside world is cut off. You become a self-supported tripping unit with one purpose: getting to Hudson Bay.

The first couple of days of our trip took us down the North Pipestone River. It was very cold and rainy, which isn't that unusual for a Bay trip except for the fact that for the rest of the summer it was hot and dry with only the occasional rainy day and thunderstorm. The North Pipestone was a decent primer for the Pipestone River which we hit on day 4. After portaging across a peninsula for no apparent reason, we started down the Pipestone - arguably the most intense whitewater river that any Wabun section attempts. The rapids we shot were big, fast and exciting. The portage trails around the unshootable stuff were just the opposite - burns along the river made them slow, aggravating and difficult to follow.

July 4th, day 5, was a dark day for us. We were letting down a narrow and rocky rapid in Hardy Coleman's Playland where we had to let go of the stern and have it swing around in the rapid. I gave the "let go!" command too early, and as the canoe pivoted, the stern hit a huge rock on the other side. We knew that after 15 Bay trips our canoes were brittle, but we didn't expect the canoe to explode with one hit. The impact busted the plastic-covered metal gunnel and ripped the hull in half. The wannigans didn't float out of the canoe - they slid out through the crack. My immediate thought was how we'd cope with five canoes and two mojos for the rest of the trip, but McKenzie gave me a reassuring look and said, "I can fix it."

And Dr. Mackenstein did just that. He bolted the bow thwart under the snapped gunnel and epoxied the two-foot long split. Though it did leak more each day, Roxy - our name for the canoe because it contains the word rock and rhymes with epoxy - made it to Fort Severn.

After a couple of intense days on the Pipestone, we went up the Paseminan River and began our traverse to the Severn watershed. We were told of a route that took us through Opapimiskan Lake to North Caribou Lake. The portages into Opap were clear and well marked, and we figured it would take us a half-day to complete the two longish portages into North Caribou. We had our first and only rest day on Opap, which was great except for the rumbling of a huge and modern gold mine in the distance and a freaky graveyard in the middle of the lake on a long and narrow peninsula.

Our expected half-day to North Caribou quickly turned into a major hassle. There were no portages where we expected them to be. We tried a different exit from the lake and found a 1000 yard portage that took us to a moose pond, but that moose pond had no way out, so we had to turn around and go back to Opap. That was day one. The next day we were determined to get out of Opap. We went to where the portage was supposed to be, took a compass shot and walked until we found the moose pond that was between us and North Caribou. After trudging for a mile and a half through swamp and wild bush, we found the pond. We marked its location on the GPS and returned to the canoes on Opap. Half of the section went ahead with axes and saws to bush a trail, and the other half started portaging. Bushing the trail was difficult, but by following the GPS we were assured that we were going on the straightest and shortest line possible. Making and portaging this trail took the entire day. It was an incredible team effort.

The next day we had to cut another half mile portage to get to North Caribou, but we were getting really good at bushing trails, and we reached North Caribou for lunch.

The goal of the middle third of our trip was to go from one huge lake, North Caribou, to another ridiculously huge lake, Big Trout Lake. We were a few days behind and planning on re-outfitting at Big Trout, so we needed to travel quickly. One day 15 we saw some natives in fishing boats - the first people we had seen all summer. An incredible thing about our summer is that we saw people on only four days of the entire trip, and that includes the two reserves we went through.

From North Caribou we went through some lakes and entered the Schade River nears its headwaters. We went down the Schade for a few days and portaged to a small river which brought us to Makoop Lake. The portage off the Schade was called the Terrible Tyrell. The name implies doom, but besides the difficulty we had finding and following it, it wasn't too bad for a mile portage. Makoop Lake was notable for two reasons: we saw humans for the second time and we got attacked by zillions of little green bugs in the middle of the lake. They covered our gear and us. They didn't bite, but there presence was less than pleasant.

From Makoop we had to find a way to get to the Mishwamakan River. A route was described to me over the phone before we left on our trip, but we really weren't sure exactly how to do it. The route required us to portage through a variety of small ponds and creeks. Armed with McKenzie's powerful axe and the GPS, we motored to our goal. Our portage-making skills were so sharp that instead of wasting time looking for old and unused trails, we simply made our own. With the GPS we could find the shortest way possible, and we shaved hundreds of yards off of the old trails.

The Mishwamakan River flows into the Bug which flows into Fawn  which flows in the Severn, so it was essentially a downhill ride from there. At its headwaters, though, the Mishwamakan is a small creek. We had to break down huge beaver dams and portage around rocky rapids where you could only hear the trickle of running water beneath the rocks. One beaver dam was so big that it had a five-foot drop. After hacking away at it for a while, the water on the other side had risen about three feet which allowed us to shoot through it. The beavers may hate us for it, but it was darn fun.

As we progressed down it, the Mishwamakan grew larger. There were nice lakes on which to camp. However, these lakes had a catch - the water was six inches deep and the bottom was methane-soaked mud through which you could push your paddle all the way down with ease. You might think that all of the gas that was released from the mud as you paddled over it would make you go faster, but it actually had the opposite effect. Even though there was still a few inches of water under your canoe, the sledge beneath seemed to stick to us and slow us down. Our lack of speed was frustrating and forced us to inhale all of the foul smelling gas.

The Mishwamakan ends in a lake like I just described called Bug Lake. Even though its name might indicate that it was more buggy than others, it had the usual amount - mosquitoes, black flies and horse flies numbering in the millions.

Bug Lake drains into Big Trout by the Bug River. The river was rocky and shallow, and we basically had to walk our canoes down the entire thing. We were able to paddle the final few meanders, though, and the final turn stopped us cold - we had arrived at Big Trout.

Big Trout is big - it is about 50km wide and 25km tall. We could NOT see the shore on the other side, which is cool and scary at the same time. However, we could also see monstrous rollers and a huge thunderstorm, so we had to retreat back up the Bug. The weather kept us there for a day and a half.

On day 26, July 25, we woke up and were five days behind schedule. The weather had not cleared up, but we needed to get across Big Trout to the reserve. We were running very low on food, and Wabun was probably worried considering that we hadn't called from Big Trout yet. We had to attempt a crossing, so we packed up and pushed off. Miraculously, as we started across Big Trout, the rollers died down and the sun came out. We made it to the reserve in the early afternoon.

After a junk-food feeding frenzy, we left the Big Trout reserve and headed to the Fawn. We had eight days left and about 350 miles to go. The Fawn is a clear water river that flows fast and is about the size of the Dumoine where we entered it. The first couple of days on it gave us some great shots and some spectacular falls that we portaged around. It was on one of these days that Zach and Steve demonstrated to us how to flip during a floating lunch. Bravo!

The second half of the Fawn is different from the first. As you get closer to the Bay, it becomes big and wide with even faster current. Using the GPS to measure our speed, we did some time trials and were able to max out at 14kmh, about double our average speed on flat water. And when the river turned to the northeast, we catamaraned the canoes and sailed. One day we went 65 miles without paddling which was pretty nice.

Near its end, the Fawn becomes a typical Bay river in size and form. Limestone begins appearing on the shore, and soon the riverbed itself becomes limestone. As the Fawn grew bigger, we began to think about how huge the Severn was going to be considering that for most of us the Fawn was the biggest river we had ever seen.

And the Severn didn't disappoint. The Fawn dumps into the Severn after a long swift, and the confluence is extraordinary. The Severn, make no mistake, is huge. It was about 1km wide with long slopping banks about 300m on each side. The banks were hedged with steep cliffs on top of which there were trees. It was simply awesome.

Traveling on the Severn was fantastic. It was hard to go slow, and we were pushed along by swifts that often had large and friendly stacks of water after them.

About 30km from the end of the Severn are the Polar Bear Rapids. It is about 1.5km long, and it is all limestone. Its length, limestone gravel bars and sharp ledges make it too difficult to shoot, but its width and beauty are magnificent. We camped on the flats just below it.

Up until Polar Bear Rapids we had seen some cool animals. We saw multiple eagles every day, a few moose and a few caribou. However, we were dumbfounded at the little black face that was peering at us at Polar Bear rapids. It was simply floating down the river. When it turned over, we saw a big body and a pair of flippers. It was a seal. Our excitement over seeing such a cool animal was slightly tempered by our fear of the animal that hunts it - the polar bear. Still, our seal spotting reminded us of how far north we really were.

The next day - our last - we paddled and sailed down to Fort Severn. We saw more seals that swam down the river with us. The reserve was relatively small, and the natives, though shy at first, were extremely helpful and friendly. Because the expense of shipping our canoes back to Wabun was far greater than their value, we were able to trade them - including Roxy - for the use of a 4X4 pickup for a day. The truck allowed us to get our stuff to the airport, which was 5km from the reserve, and it also allowed McKenzie to learn how to drive a manual transmission. Most importantly, though, the truck allowed us to drive to the Bay. We drove about 7km down a sketchy dirt road (which included an even sketchier bridge), passing an enormous dead seal on the way. We drove until we were about 500m from the Arctic Ocean. It was amazing. The ocean was huge, and the flat and treeless salt-stained plain was incredibly scenic. We could see many massive thunderstorms all around us, some of which were over Manitoba only 30km away. We had a picnic dinner, and some of the campers walked to the shore for a swim in the Bay.

We flew out of Fort Severn the next day. Our pilots asked us if we wanted to go over the Bay, to which we enthusiastically agreed. We flew out over the water and saw multiple pods of beluga whales surfacing and diving. To give us a better view, the pilots flew very low and did turns that had the wings literally perpendicular with the earth's surface. It was, once again, amazing.

So far I've talked mostly about our trip itself, but what really made our trip special was the group. I've never been with a group that worked so well together. Every portage was a common effort with people helping each other unload, load and even carry if they had finished early. We also rotated sterns to give nearly everyone a shot in the back of a canoe. The best illustration of our group's unity, though, is that we had no duty rotation. Each night and morning campers would simply volunteer for the duties, whether it was doing wood crew or cleaning the monster pot with burnt rice. Though I was skeptical about this at the start of the summer, it really worked. These are a mature bunch of boys.

In case you don't know our staff-hopefuls-in-training, I'll introduce them one at a time in alphabetical order:

Finally, I need to mention one more thing. This trip - our awesome Severn adventure - would not have been possible with out McKenzie. And I mean that - I would not have attempted this trip without him. His whitewater experience allowed us to gracefully shoot rapids, and his incredible personality kept the section working hard while also having a great time. He's an amazing staff, and I'm lucky to have had him by my side the four summers we've worked together. His inevitable elevation to head staff means only one thing: McKenzie, I'll be your thirty-something assistant anytime.