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Canoe trip of a lifetime

Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services
Thursday, September 27, 2007

Quebec - When you've just completed a 55 kilometre paddle in one day on a series of lakes against a headwind the last thing you want to do is a 1.6 kilometre portage.

Things are made even worse if you've got more gear than you can carry in one load and the portage is over swamps, bogs and up hills where there's no trail and bushwhacking is required. Brittany Hardisty-Isaiah knows exactly what this feels like. The experience is one that she faced on the second day of a 40-day canoe trip.

NNSL Photo/Graphic

Brittany Hardisty-Isaiah, bottom right, shares a group hug with members of the group that completed the Wilderness Leadership Program including clockwise: Chris Barber, Svetlana Zeran, Naomi Macintosh, Madeline Springate-Combs, Hannah Altimas, Michelle Bastein, Hilary Brown, Julia Quigley and Andrew Stringer. - photo courtesy of Brittany Hardisty-Isaiah

"At the time I thought I was going to die of a heart attack," she said.

Hardisty-Isaiah spent most of her summer completing the Wilderness Leadership Program offered by a guiding company called PaddleFoot. The program included a 601 kilometre trip down the remote Romaine River in Quebec.

Guiding is something that Hardisty-Isaiah, a 17-year-old from Fort Simpson, has been interested in since taking a rafting trip in Grade 7 down the South Nahanni River.

"I love the land. I like going out in nature," she said. "I thought it would be cool canoeing all my life."

Hardisty-Isaiah's chance to get all the skills she'll need to be a guide came after a canoe trip on the Mackenzie River from Wrigley to Norman Wells in 2006. The guide on the trip was from PaddleFoot and she and Steve Nicoll, a teacher at Thomas Simpson school, lobbied the company to accept Hardisty-Isaiah into their program.

PaddleFoot covered the $4,600 fee for the program and the Liidlii Kue First Nation paid for the necessary transportation. Thomas Simpson school helped Hardisty-Isaiah get all the equipment she'd need.

That's how she found herself at PaddleFoot's base camp in Ontario with nine other youth that were accepted for the program. Together they took a week of training, including wilderness first aid, before heading out on their trip with two guides, six canoes, eight barrels and five packs full of all of the food and supplies they'd need.

The trip was unlike anything Hardisty-Isaiah had experienced.

Starting in Labrador the group had to paddle through 255 kilometres of lakes before even reaching the Romaine River on which they paddled another 351 kilometres through Quebec.

Everyday brought new challenges. Once on the river the group was faced with three canyons totalling about 45 kilometres. It took two weeks to get out of the canyons including approximately five portages a day of 500-800metres each.

"You might think this is easy but no," said Hardisty-Isaiah.

With no trails to follow, participants often had to pick paths along the rocky riverbanks while carrying packs and canoes, or go up and down cliffs with the gear.

Despite the challenges Hardisty-Isaiah can't speak highly enough about the program.

"I would do it again in a heart beat," she said.

Along with strengthening her canoeing skills, Hardisty-Isaiah also learned how to light a fire with one match and how to make and use a bow drill kit to create fires.

"I've gained so much experience and it changed me as a person," she said. "I know now what I'm capable of doing."

With her new experience, Hardisty-Isaiah plans to return to PaddleFoot next year and get a job as an assistant guide and then advance to being a guide in two years time.

Nicoll, who helped her along this path, is looking for more youth who are interested in following a career in guiding and taking the course.

"For a motivated kid it's an opportunity to pursue a career that the territory wants done by locals and not outsiders," said Nicoll.