on the map

Dempster Highway Tsiigehtchic Mackenzie River Fort Good Hope Great Bear Lake Coppermine River Fort Con dence

Fortf Conffidence GREAT BEAR LAKE Shoalts will portage along a section of the Dempster — Canada’s only allweather road that crosses the Arctic Circle — to cross from the Yukon into the Northwest Territories. This is essentially the only time he’ll have a trail to follow. Fort Good Hope, a Dene community of fewer than 600 people, is only accessible by air during the summer — unless, like Shoalts, one arrives on the Mackenzie River. This will be the last community he sees until he reaches Baker Lake, three months later. John Rae stayed in Fort Confidence on each of his three 1848-51 searches for the lost explorer John Franklin. Wilderness has since largely reclaimed the ruins of this former Hudson’s Bay Company post, but four stone and clay chimneys remain at the mouth of the Dease River. The largest lake entirely within Canada, Great Bear is famous for its trophy sized lake trout. Shoalts plans to take advantage of this but also expects a battle with the wind and waves along the north shore. Provided the ice has broken on the river, Shoalts will paddle, pole and pull his canoe up the giant waterway, an arduous two-week upstream journey before reaching Fort Good Hope. Samuel Hearne, the first European to make an overland excursion through Canada to the Arctic Ocean, travelled the Coppermine in 1774. Famous for its whitewater, this Canadian Heritage River has a powerful current that Shoalts will have to wade against, making this one of the most physically demanding parts of the route. This tiny Gwich’in town, whose name means “mouth of the iron river,” began with the establishment of a Catholic mission in 1868. Shoalts will resupply here before heading up the Mackenzie River.