Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 04/99) - His name is Otter. He's is 57 years old and says that is why his bones creak and his muscles ache when he's been on the portage trail any longer than a few days.

But each summer, for the last three years now, he uses Yellowknife as his starting point for a summer-long canoeing odyssey into the wilderness.

"I like to go where I can find some solitude," Otter said. "Somewhere where you don't see too many people. I was a cow puncher for 21 years in the southwestern United States, so I got used to the solitary lifestyle that comes with that kind of work."

In 1991, Otter broke four ribs while breaking horses in New Mexico and decided that he had enough of being a cowboy.

"That was 20 ribs in 20 years," Otter says. "I was just about 50 and decided that it was time to do something different. I spent the summer camping and decided that was what I'd do with the rest of my life. Now I work four months of the year and live in a tent the other eight."

Otter got his first taste of the North, when he set forth from Colorado in 1994 to check out the Yukon. On his way up, he caught a ride with an airplane mechanic heading for Yellowknife. Deciding that going to Yellowknife would be just as fine as going to the Yukon, Otter quickly fell in love with the area when he arrived.

"I didn't realize that it was shield country," Otter says. "It was a lot like where I grew up in Wisconsin where I canoed a lot in the '50s and '60s. I decided that I would have to come up here and test the waters."

Otter came back in the spring of 1997, with his canoe and camping gear and set out for a 90-day journey around the Jennejohn Lake loop and through the Cameron River system.

"I didn't do anything that rigorous," Otter says, "just camped and fished. I lived off pike all summer and watched wildlife at play."

"One time, after I was done catching my dinner, I came back to camp and found a bear going through my tent. It was no problem though, I just chased him away with a big stick."

Otter had such a good time that summer, he simply could not resist coming up the following year to do it again. It would not, however, be as leisurely a trip as the year before.

"I did the Ross Lake system last year," Otter says. "I was trying to make it to Victory Lake but then the big fire started up.

"I was on Saunder's Lake when it broke out. It was July 6 and there was huge thunderstorm with lightening everywhere. The next day there were helicopters and airplane tankers everywhere. I could smell smoke and ash that evening. From that day on until I pulled out on Aug. 23, I was constantly surrounded by smoke and fire. It was like that for 49 days."

During that time, Otter found himself continuously searching for a camp away from the smoke and flames as storms spread out the fire all around him. Another problem developed when the seat bolts in his canoe came undone, forcing him to jury-rig the seats anyway he could to keep his craft operational.

"I was more afraid about the canoe falling apart than the fire," Otter says. "A rescue helicopter had come by to check how I was doing, but I was OK then, and I just gave him a thumbs up and he took off."

Unable to make it to Victory Lake, and forced to wait it out between Ross and Pensive Lake until fire and wind had subsided, Otter eventually made it back to Reed Lake, after having to bushwack his way through portages he created himself because fire had made the previous portages impassable.

"I made 26 portages back from Ross Lake," Otter says. "Only four were still there from before."

And now Otter is back -- anything but daunted by last year's harrowing adventures.

"I love the country up here and I'll keep coming back as long as my body holds out," Otter says. "I want to go up to Winter Lake but it all depends on how many portages I'll be able to do. I hurt my back jumping out of a semi-truck in '97, and I don't go to doctors, so we'll see. I only do things day to day."