they go every year but never this far north before , ryan just got married last weekend , so , we will see if he goes again
Crew canoes to arctic
By Jane Laskey •
jlaskey@stcloudtimes.com • September 30, 2008
Buzz up! Six young men headed north this summer. Far north. Think ice in July and a sun that never sets.
Armed with canoes and 100-pound packs, they paddled their way to the Arctic Ocean.
"I'd been dreaming about this trip for a long time," guide Ryan Strack said. "I'd always wanted to take a trip to the Arctic Ocean. It's a pretty beautiful place and very few people have ever made this trip."
The 28-day canoe trip was a first for Les Voyageurs, a wilderness adventure program for high school students.
"Its focus is fostering growth in young people," Strack said. "It gives them direction, builds self-esteem and empowers them to make other decisions. For many people, it's a life-changing experience."
The St. Cloud nonprofit has been sending youth into the wilds of Canada for more than 30 years. But this is the first time it has ventured into the Arctic Circle.
Les Voyageurs
Strack has worked with the Les Voyageurs program for 10 years. After attending the program for two years, he became a program guide and has been leading groups north for eight years.
Les Voyageurs has two programs: Expeditions North for first-time participants, and Far North for program graduates who want to take the experience to the next level. Three Far North trips were offered this year. Two followed familiar terrain up the Seal River to Hudson Bay. But the third set off in a new direction: the Arctic Ocean.
Preparations
Strack's crew included three Cathedral High School seniors: Will Engel, Evan Koubsky and Aaron Remer. Matt Holton, a 2008 Cathedral graduate, and Brad West of Minneapolis also joined the group.
"I wanted to do it because no one else has done it before," Remer said.
West agreed: "I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance and convinced my parents to let me go on it."
The group spent as much time preparing for the trip as they spent in the wild. For a full month they practiced critical wilderness skills.
"We want our participants to take ownership in the trip," Strack said.
Gathering on the Mississippi River near the Sauk Rapids bridge, they paddled the rapids in their canoes. There were lessons in paddling techniques, risk management, surface and water safety drills and rescue skills.
"This is not a trip for just somebody who loves to canoe," Les Voyageurs founder Fred Rupp said.
Participants also learn how to scout rapids and plan paths between hazards. They became a cohesive team whose members knew they could trust each other.
The crew also prepared all its food. They made granola and dehydrated meals and loaded their packs with gear and supplies. When they finished they had 13, 100-pound packs.
Into the wild
The journey began with a 44-hour drive into Canada's Northwest Territories. Eventually, they traded their van for a float plane and flew two more hours to Lac de Gras. There the group launched canoes on the Coppermine River and began the 400-mile trip into the tundra.
The Coppermine River is an isolated waterway riddled with major rapids. One stretch of whitewater is more than 31 miles long.
"This is a big-scale adventure to pull this off," Rupp said."It's a very remote river and there's a tremendous amount of whitewater. It's considered a dream trip by people who are passionate about wilderness paddling."
The young men paddled six to eight hours a day. They were forced to portage six times when rapids proved too rough.
"A lot of the portages were difficult. You're walking a mile or so with a 100-pound pack on your back," Will Engel said. "But you really learn your limits."
One challenge they could not adequately prepare for: bugs. "People will tell you the bugs are terrible, but until you're there and they're swarming you 24-7, you don't understand," Remer said.
Another world
During summer in the Northwest Territories, temperatures fluctuate from 40-60 degrees in the day, but it has been known to snow in July. The water of the Coppermine River was just above freezing, and it was not unusual for the crew to glide by floating ice.
"The whole trip was a surprise," Engel said. "Things up there can't be described. You don't understand until you get up there."
"There are cliffs, mountains and snow-covered hills," Engel said. "... All the water is extremely clear ... you could see forever."
The tundra of the Arctic is briefly covered each summer with low-growing grasses and wildflowers, supported by a thin layer of soil that covers the permafrost below.
Much of the terrain is rocky, with rolling hills that stretch to the horizon. But there are also marshes, lakes and bogs during the warm months.
As the canoes approached the Arctic Ocean, the landscape grew even more dramatic.
"One of the things that stood out for me was when we reached the end of the Coppermine," Remer said. "We were paddling through endless areas of whitewater and there were sheer cliffs on both sides of the river. It was so cool to be able to do that and survive."
Abundant life
Although the group was definitely away from it all, they were never alone.
"We saw grizzly bears, peregrine falcons, eagles, Arctic wolves, moose, and many, many caribou. Twice we had to stop paddling to let caribou herds that were crossing the river pass," Strack said. "We were pretty lucky. The only thing we didn't see was a musk ox."
The group's trip up the Coppermine coincided with the annual caribou migration.
"We saw hundreds of them," Evan Koubsky said. "I remember one night lying in the tent and we could hear them moving past."
West recalls another memorable day: "First we saw trumpeter swans overhead. Then Evan yelled 'Bear!' and there on the shore was a mother grizzly and her cubs. Then we started paddling up the river and scared this moose out of the water."
Endless days
The sun never set during the 28-day trip, dimming only to a gray twilight that was still bright enough to read or play cards by.
It was so difficult to tell day from night that the group decided to do an experiment. They packed their watches away and followed their instincts instead. Only Strack was allowed to look at a watch.
The group made good time. Without a clock to regulate their efforts, they pushed farther and faster than planned — and shaved a full week off their expected travel time.
"These kids were amazing paddlers and their work ethic was so strong that they just kept going," Rupp said. Long hours in the canoe together left plenty of time for talk. So the group pulled out the Ten Minute Talk.
"The idea behind the Ten Minute Talk is that people can speak uninterrupted — no laughs, no questions — so someone can go a little bit farther into who they are," Rupp said. "If you talk for 10 minutes about yourself, you get pretty quickly through talking about your girlfriend, parents and favorite things. You get down to things that are pretty real about your life."
But the group already knew each other well. So they decided to take the exercise a bit farther. They challenged Remer to tell his life story from birth to death. He did, talking for two and a half hours uninterrupted.
The group laughs remembering Remer's epic narration.
"I heard his whole life story and then he continued with his life story to age 129," Engel said.
Kugluktuk
The canoe trip ended at Coronation Gulf, where the Coppermine River empties into the Arctic Ocean.
"The Arctic Ocean is almost a mythical place," Rupp said. "It is where all these famous explorers traveled trying to find the Northwest Passage. Many of them lost their lives in that search."
The crew's final destination was a coastal Inuit village called Kugluktuk, home to about 1,500 people. Though visitors are rare, they welcomed the travelers with open arms.
"When we pulled up to the beach, two kids came running up to us, waving," Strack said. The crew explored the village, talking with the villagers and playing basketball with Kugluktuk youth.
"A lot of the crew had never been outside the United States before. To see a native culture and to see how they struggle opens up a conversation on how people live in different ways," Strack said.
They saw poverty.
"When we walked into the grocery store everything was so expensive," Koubsky said. "A 12-pack of pop was over $30. A bag of Skittles was $5."
The people of Kugluktuk know how to find food in the harsh Arctic landscape.
"They still live off the land. They hunt and fish," Engel said. "They wanted to know where we had seen the caribou herds running."
Because they had made good time, the Les Voyageurs crew had lots of provisions left. They donated more than 200 pounds of food supplies to the town. The Kugluktuk planned to use the food for a weekly meal that serves the town's poorest children. They left behind their three canoes and flew back to their van.
With their packs empty and their canoes remaining behind to ply the Arctic waters, the crew knew it was time to go home.
"We had accomplished our goal," West said. "It felt great to know nothing had gone wrong. We had done everything we set out to do with fashion and style."
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