Nahanni River
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Below Virginia Falls (after a 1200m portage) is where the canyons are for which the park is famous (and part of what gave it its UNESCO Heritage status). It is in these canyons where we found the most serious whitewater of our trip. The canyons are labelled first through fourth from the downstream end (because that was the direction from which the natives, and eventually prospectors aproached the area).

The first we came to was Fourth Canyon after putting in below the falls. Figure 8 Rapids (the most respected wave train on our trip) followed a day later.

 

The Gate and Pulpit rock are located at a constriction in the river with a clean stream coming in just upstream. Clean (i.e. low sediment load) streams were a hot commodity on the trip because of the high sediment load of the Nahanni.

We made camp at the foot of the gate and enjoyed fishing, hiking and a good wash-up.

 

 

Canyons three and two are separated by the Big Bend. The two canyons seem to be only different by geology, otherwise it is one long canyon. There was only short sections of whitewater in this section, but Stuart and I found a wave to surf and nearly swamp on. Thanks to Miles for the Cinnemon Buns.

 

 

 

Prairie Creek brought our first sign-in station and warden cabin in some time. Although we never saw the warden, we did come across the cabin full of paddles. A long-standing tradition is that each paddler (or group of paddlers) whittles a paddle and writes their name on. Stuart carved a canoe, and we each did a paddle. The canoe was named the HMCS Fitch. A hike up Prairie creek resulted in some wet shoes, but was well worth it.

Following Prairie Creek, at the beginning of First Canyon was George's Riffle, which wasn't as bad as the scouting trip had it made out to be. The end of First Canyon had us going through Lafferty's Riffle, which was worse than the scouting trip made it out to be.

 

First Canyon gave way to Kraus Hotsprings (the best idea all trip to get up early for it) and the Splits. The Splits is a flat, meandering section of the river with lots of wood to avoid and shallow bits to rub the paint off your canoe.

We exited the park and soon passed Nahanni Butte settlement and camped our final nite at Swan Point on "Lake Liard".

 

A hot shower (although not without its hassles) and an incredible meal were waiting for us at the Lindberg bed and breakfast. They were very accomodating and generous with the fresh veggies from Sue's garden and moosemeat stew.

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