Great Slave Lake

[PaddlingPitt]

Last summer (2017) my wife Kathleen and I paddled 17 days and 330 km (205 miles) in the East Arm of Great Slave Lake. I am new to this site, but would like to share some memories and images. If you can bear with me, I will need to do this in stages, but will try to update a little bit more each day.

We live in Preeceville, Saskatchewan, and drove 2,400 km (1,500 miles) to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, from where we were flown into Old Fort Reliance at the east end of Great Slave Lake. Way back In 1990, we had bought a Ford Econoline van, primarily to support our canoeing addiction. It was roomy. It held all our gear, and we could sleep in the back. In 2017, it was 27 years old. It had been leaking transmission fluid, and its gauges didn't work anymore. We hoped it had at least one last trip left.

On the first night, however, at the campground in Alberta, it began squirting brake fluid, and we were towed the next morning to Vegreville, Alberta, to repair the rusted out brake line.

​
I don't know if this image is too large to come across when I post, so I will try now. Here goes. Hope it works!







​

 

[PaddlingPitt]

It didn't work. I don't know why. I copies and pasted the image. I have seen large images in other threads, Such as Alan Gage's Wollaston Lake trip. Don't know how he did it. Can anyone help me here? When I click on the camera icon, the images come across very small. I'm about ready to give up.

 

[frozentripper]

Pitt... the way I add large photos is to click the Advanced Editor symbol in the upper right (he underlined "A"), then click the image symbol... in the new window that pops up, paste the URL ending with jpg into the URL box and then uncheck the "retrieve remote file and reference locally"... works for me with large Flickr photos.

 

[frozentripper]

Maybe I should have included saying that the jpg URL and photo file has to be hosted on a photo storage website like Flickr... here's a large photo file, works OK. Opening it in another tab shows it's been automatically reduced in size to suit size requirements (right click on the photo).

I haven't tried uploading directly from my computer to the canoetripping server, if that's what the other option is.

 

[frozentripper]

Here's another large photo, uploaded from my computer this time, by clicking the camera symbol in the upper left. This doesn't produce a large image in the post.at first, but clicking "large size" eventually does. That small image still remains below it.




.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Thanks for your suggestions, frozentripper. I am trying to upload directly from my computer. I have been having trouble with clicking the camera icon. It often "times out" instantly, and then logs me out, without uploading the image. Sometimes it does upload the image, but usually not. The next time it does upload, I will try clicking "large size." But retaining the small image below is not ideal.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Just seeing if this copy and paste works. Clicking on the camera icon just immediately timed out. Things don't seem to be going well for me!

 

[yellowcanoe]

As much as we would like if our direct upload photos turn out nice and big they don't. They turn out teeny

And I have Flickr and have no idea how to get it to share photos to this site. IMG_2299_300_301_fused by Kim Gass, on Flickr
How much of this gibberish should be pared?

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Thanks. It's nice to know that I am not alone in my frustration. Other people do seem to get large images, though. Most of the time I can not even get small images. I choose the image, press upload, and two seconds later it says timed out. I am not really able to contribute to this site with pictures. And pictures are so nice! Perhaps I will just wander away into the darkness.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Yellow canoe. Despite what you said, your previous image was large and striking.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Yellow canoe. Despite what you said, your previous image was large and striking.

Well I am flummoxed.. When I hit preview I had a bunch of code. I used Flickr.. When I posted the code gibberish nothing showed other than the gibberish..
Maybe go to Flickr and use it..
Ya know canoeing is easier

And this site hates I phones when you use the dread apostrophe. It cuts you off. I have a trail of deletes for that reason.

Don't give up I would love to see pics of Great Slave Lake.

 

[Odyssey]

For pity sake Pitt don't give up and don't lose hope. The photo thing is actually a hazing ritual we all are "voluntold" to go through. It's just your turn, that's all. *

As much as I love photos I really really love to read the words. The story is always important. Always.

I along with many others will wait patiently for this to get worked out. Don't stress out Pitt.

ps . * Have you been body painted blue and made to paddle a yak backwards yet? Sounds easy until they strip you naked and blindfold you. Then it gets funner.
Welcome to Canoetripping BTW.

 

[frozentripper]

Kim, what needs to be pared in Flickr... if it is the BB code gibberish in "share photos", you can copy the link inside the square brackets... to keep the image from showing, I removed the link & replaced with three dots.

This is the link that gets pasted inside the URL box I described up above... the image will show without the text underneath.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4532/...b5c7c84e_z.jpg

If the square brackets are included in the cut and paste, you can simply paste the entire thing, square brackets and link inside into the post and the image will appear. Anyway, bring on the Great Slave photos, good luck.

Here is the image from pasting the square brackets plus link inside.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

I think maybe I have it this time! Kathleen & Michael in the East Arm of Great Slave Lake.

 

[Holmes375]

You got it and looks great!

 

[southcove]

I am eager was well to follow your journey, pics or not. (but a good start on that first one!) as I had read a travel journal some years back about a guy who sailed several summers on Slave Lake. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the huge spaces, relatively untouched and untraveled.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Thanks, everyone, for your encouragement. I've got my images uploaded to Flickr, and will start sharing them sometime this afternoon. Got to walk our rescue Siberian husky first.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

We began our trip by driving to Yellowknife, where we chartered a float plane to take us to the east end. Reliance, at the east end, used to be an RCMP post, but is now a fishing lodge. We landed at Old Fort Reliance, which is just north of Reliance. We paddled back 330 km (205 miles), along the north shore, in 17 days to where we were picked up just before rounding the bend turning north. This avoided the very large fetch, where wind could become a very challenging problem. The name for Great Slave Lake in the Denesoline language is Tu Nedhe, which means Big Lake.

We had planned four days to drive the 2,400 km (1,500 miles) to Yellowknife in our 27-year old Ford Econoline van, which we purchased to support our canoeing addiction. I held all our gear, and was roomy enough to sleep in the back. We had just driven into our campsite on the first night, when the brake fluid began squirting out of the back end. The next morning we were towed to Vegreville, Alberta, 40 km (25 miles west, in the direction we wanted to go. It was like a free 40 km!

We were back on the road in only four hours, and on the third night reached Louise Falls on the Hay River, Twin Falls Gorge Territorial Park, just into the Northwest Territories. Back on schedule!

The next afternoon we reached Yellowknife, where we spent a day-and-a-half making final preparations. Renting a sat phone, getting a fishing licence and sitting on the steps of Ahmic Air, talking with Stephen, owner of Ahmic Air.

Ahmic means beaver in Ojibwe, and Stephen named his company Ahmic, because he owns two DHC-2 Beaver aircraft. Cost is always a consideration in terms of the canoe trips that people plan. The cost for us to fly to Old Fort Reliance was $3,028.20 CAN (about $2,300.00 U.S.)

I think I will post now, just to make sure everything is working!

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Great Slave Lake is the second largest lake entirely within Canada, exceeded only by Great Bear. It is the fifth largest lake in North America, and the tenth largest in the world. Great Slave is 469 km (291 miles) long, and up to 203 km (126 miles) wide. Great Slave is also the deepest lake in North America at 614 m (2,014 feet). For a Canadian perspective, total area of Great Slave equals 27,200 square km, which is only slightly less than Vancouver Island at 31,285 square km. For an American perspective, Great Slave Lake is almost exactly equal to the size of Massachusetts.

We landed on a large beach, and area that is still well used by Native Peoples, who refer to the East Arm as Thaidene Nene, meaning “land of our ancestors" in Dene. Parks Canada has proposed that the East Arm become a National Park Reserve that would cover approximately 33,000 square kilometres (12,741 square miles).

In only a few more minutes, our plane would fly away, leaving Kathleen and me all alone on the beach. A great feeling. After all our planning, our adventure on Great Slave Lake would finally begin!

We paddled slowly along the shore, looking for the two chimneys that still remain from Old Fort Reliance. Fort Reliance was originally built in 1833 by George Back during the Arctic Land Expedition to the Arctic Ocean via the Back River. The expedition, partly scientific and partly searching for the missing John Ross, used Fort Reliance as a winter camp. Fort Reliance was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1953.Together with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, Parks Canada is working to preserve and protect the site, which has resulted in the chimneys being rehabilitated.

We continued paddling for several hours, looking for another sandy beach to set up camp. There were no such sandy beaches. Finally, late in the evening, after a long, exciting day, we set up our first camp on the somewhat soft ground above these large, unstable rocks.

Lunch the next afternoon. Don't see how life could be any better than this. Well, maybe a softer place to sit or lie down.

We naturally hoped that this calm weather would last forever. We have been paddling southeast, down a peninsula (Fairchild Point) in Charlton Bay. We need to round this point to head toward the north shore of McLeod Bay, where we will spend most of our trip.

The many islands between us and the north shore, and the calm conditions, allowed us to make a fairly large crossing to reach the north shore, without having to paddle all the way back along Fairchild Point.

On the north shore, we finally found that sandy beach that we had been looking for last night.

I will post again. I needy to fill my tea cup.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

We liked the sandy beach so much that we decided to take a rest day. While Kathleen dozed in the tent, I caught a lake trout on only the third cast, which

which gave us four delicious fillets. I always feel sorry for the fish, though. I'm sure that this was not the day it had planned for itself.

It was a rest day. And on rest days you bath, do laundry and generally hang out.

Kathleen likes to photograph plants. We always enjoy the vibrant fireweed.

And river beauty, a close relative of fireweed.

Chickweed growing with crow berry.

Goldenrod.

Time to walk the dog again, so I will post.