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Day 26 Time: 5 hrs 30 min Distance: 27.1 km (489.4) I was up at 7:30, no diddling, into river clothes, pack, tea, load, go…..off minutes before 9:00am. Pretty strong winds to start but still strong current, we stayed to river right sneaking behind a thin island to minimize the wind. We then crossed over to river left to check out Prayer Rock. It was in this area that we saw our first bear, Steve was stopped about 20 metres ahead of me, another 50 metres at the shore the bear was slowly pulling himself on shore, giving a bit of a shake and ambling slowly into the bushes, unfortunately it was gone long before either of us could get to our cameras. From my distant viewpoint it had taken me several seconds to realize what I had been seeing and then of course there is an oh-oh moment when you ponder that this is a POLAR bear not some silly little southern black bear.
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We continued downstream a short distance to the area where I had a waypoint marked, we landed and bashed about through the soggy ground and alders for about 20 minutes somehow managing to not find Prayer Rock. We headed back to our boats stopping just inside the last strip of bushes to have a snack. I walked the 10 metres or so to my boat turned to look at the river and there was bear #2, he was in the water just behind the stern of the canoes, he turned to look at me then turned away and dove under giving me a great view of his rear end! He surfaced about 20 metres from shore, turned back to look at us and then continued to slowly swim upstream. Over the next minute he continued swimming, stopping briefly to look back in our direction and then one last time as he passed the point, raising his head to peer at us over some boulders. I presume he was trolling the river looking for an errant seal, quite a sight to see this bear effortlessly move upstream apparently unaffected by the 10kmph current.
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In the next river section we had a strong side / partial headwind, a mix of strong current, CI's and swifts; add into the mix a confusing myriad of islands and channels. Basically I went left when any significant flow went that way. Somewhere in this area we ran a CII & III, they were distinct but I don't recall the specifics much. All the rapids were big volume but it was easy to locate the best line, which was generally on the left. We approached Deaf Rapids from the backside of the island just upstream. The access to scout was flooded out, the rocks we handed landed on in '06 under water. We struggled through the alders for a clear view, it's a tight left run all the way, the rocks at the very bottom left had plenty of water going over them, in '06 these were exposed forcing us way over to the right. Deaf is as I remembered, one long wave train with enormous standing waves, running the side is pretty safe, one just needs to take extra care not to cross the line that would suck you into the main flow. We both made the run smoothly albeit with a few lapfuls of water that necessitated some bailing at the bottom.
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We now had to deal with 2km of rock filled channels, it was such a dramatic change and not for the better, I struggled but failed to keep from running aground. As I pushed my boat in between the tiny grass covered islands I was peering around every corner expecting to see a bear at any moment just waiting for me to come by. We continued to trend to the left finally passing the last of the small islands to reach the last bit of open river. Jack Bastone's shack comes into view, the tide hasn't come in all the way yet, we run our boats aground about 50 metres from the front steps. It's 2:30pm we haver reached Hudson Bay and our paddling is essentially done!
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I send an SPOT message, wait a few minutes and call Doug for an update. Jack will be coming between 3:00 - 3:30 if the weather conditions permit, the conditions here at the mouth of the Seal are pretty good but there is a substantial wind from the NNW, this could definitely give Jack some trouble trying to leave Churchill. We fidget in the shack in our somewhat damp river clothes, we prepare the boats for a fast exit, covers removed, loose items packed away. It's just a waiting game now, the options, sit inside the dim shack or stand on the porch in the wind. We go back & forth, scanning the bay for Jack, 3:30, 4:00, 4:20; it's not looking good, at 4:55 we give up! It's clear Jack won't be showing up today as the tide is now quickly receding. We unloaded the boats and lugged our stuff up to the shack, dragged the boats far enough so that we could tie them up, opened the shutters and settled in. Here we are, wind bound again!
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We munch a bit, make some lasagna and periodically check the windows for wildlife. It's too unpleasant to go outside, as it's raining off and on and the wind if anything has become more intense. Damp and cool combined with our early start means we are off to bed at 11:00
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