Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 10, 2007

FORT SMITH - A Fort Smith couple is back at home after a unique canoeing adventure.

Tim Beahen and Larissa Doyle - along with Scout, their German shepherd/husky dog - completed the 65-day, 1,200-km trip on Aug. 19.

Tim Beahen and Larissa Doyle of Fort Smith, along with their dog, recently completed a challenging canoeing adventure. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Beahen, who has been canoeing since he was a boy in Ontario, said the journey was very ambitious.

"It's the longest trip I've ever done," he said. "It physically maxed out our abilities."

Doyle, 30, agreed, noting, "It was certainly the largest endeavour I've ever undertaken."

Beginning on June 15, they left Fort Smith, paddled down the Slave River to Great Slave Lake, through the Simpson Islands to Lutsel K'e, and south to Fort Fitzgerald, Alta., through a series of lakes and the Snowdrift, Taltson and Dog Rivers.

Beahen explained the trip was a tribute to the generations of people who hunted, trapped and lived on the land to which ancestors of many Fort Smith residents can trace their roots.

"It gives you a profound respect for the peoples of the land," he said of the journey.

Doyle said that during some of the more difficult portages she often thought of the women who lived on the land generations ago. "It put it all in perspective."

She added the journey gave her and Beahen a greater attachment to the land.

The couple said the people they met along the way were very welcoming, especially in Lutsel K'e.

"It meant so much to us," Doyle said. "We felt people reach out to us."

The journey was toughest after Lutsel K'e, especially a six-kilometre, three-day portage over the McDonald fault line.

Doyle noted that of the trip's 58 portages, 56 came after Lutsel K'e.

The couple's adventure had some close calls.

While camping on the McDonald fault line, Beahen and Doyle were awakened by the sound of muskoxen stampeding nearby.

"That was the scariest," Doyle said. "I thought our camp was going to get trampled with us in it."

And, while paddling on a lake, a bear swam towards their canoe, before being scared away by yelling and splashing paddles. However, it continued to follow them from the shore.

Beahen said he fired a shot to scare the bear away, but it again charged into the water.

Following the encounter the couple decided to paddle on for a few hours to ensure they had escaped the ornery beast.

Beahen and Doyle filmed their adventure.

They plan to edit the more than seven hours of material into a 45-minute film to show in Fort Smith.

"I would hope it would be done by March," Beahen said.

Depending on the quality of the finished product, they may seek to have it shown at paddling conventions and even film festivals.

The couple - she is the supervisor of a healthy family program and he is a substitute teacher - plans to do another canoeing trip next year, but they are still deciding on the route.