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A walk in the park

Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 25/06) - What was supposed to be a bike trip from Yellowknife to Edmonton turned into a 21-day solo hike through some of the remotest reaches of Wood Buffalo National Park for Yellowknifer Kevin Kennedy.

The Aurora College instructor and computer consultant had been planning the bike trip to Edmonton for months, but on the weekend before he was to leave, he broke his wrist.

No longer able to bike, he decided to hike a 350km loop through Wood Buffalo National Park.

Kennedy took the bus from Yellowknife to Fort Smith, July 30, where he departed on his hike.

His route took him on a loop south through Fort Fitzgerald, Hay Camp and Peace Point, before heading north to Pine Lake, Parsons Lake Road, and back to Fort Smith.

Part of his route was on abandoned roads, some which have not been travelled for twenty years.

He had to rely on old maps of the park, as new ones don't show all of the routes.

Kennedy carried all of the food he needed for the three-week trek.

He also didn't bring any bug spray along, making the trip more challenging, as "the bugs were absolutely incredibly terrible."

Lots of wildlife

Some of Kennedy's most memorable moments of the trip involved seeing wildlife, which are abundant throughout the park.

While camping on the Peace River he found himself surrounded by howling wolves on a night with a full moon.

One morning he was woken up by a snout rubbing up against the window of his tent, directly above his head.

He initially thought it was a dog, but turned to find a bear looking down at him. In the time it took him to reach for his camera, the bear had run off.

Before entering the park, Kennedy was warned repeatedly to be watchful of bison who were in rut at the time.

He did in fact have a close call when he walked around a tree and found himself only feet away from a bison. The bison charged, but Kennedy was unharmed.

As a self-professed environmentalist, Kennedy saw the hike as a "sustainable vacation." He was unplugged from the grid, created no garbage, and his "impact was zero."

The biggest human impact on the land that Kennedy witnessed was along the Peace River.

For several days in the muskeg area he had difficulty finding drinking water.

He finally happened upon a camp where he found one man living there.

The man explained that hydro dams down the river, originating in British Columbia, are holding water back.

He estimates that the water level has dropped by 40 to 50-feet due to the creation of the dams.

Kennedy said that tampering with the flow of water was literally "sucking the life out of that region of the park." Moose no longer visit the area due to the lack of water. Kennedy was struck by the impact that hydro development - thousands of kilometres away - was having on the natural habitat of that section of the park.

To ensure he was walking enough each day, Kennedy wore a pedometer. He walked an average of 20km each day, equalling 455,000 steps.

Even after taking all of those steps, and reaching the end of the trail, Kennedy felt like he could keep on walking. He finished the hike on Aug. 19 and returned to Yellowknife, Aug. 21.

The 350km hike was the longest he's done and it has hooked him on long-distance walking.

Kennedy is still hoping to make his planned trip to Edmonton, but he may now walk it rather than bike.