Our 42-passenger plane lands with ease on the mile-long sand runway just south of the Arctic Circle. Scraggly black spruce trees line the sides of the airstrip and water laps gently at one end. We are 200 miles from a road; 240 miles from the closest town, where our plane had to refuel; and more than 600 miles from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Side-by-sides (that is a type of ATV) take us down narrow sand roads, past a “Welcome to Gangler’s” sign to our cedar cabins on the shores of Egenolf Lake, also in Manitoba.

The name Gangler carries meaning in the fishing world. Advertisements for the facility run in fishing magazines across the country. Anglers come here from around the world to catch the Canadian Grand Slam, which means landing a northern pike, lake trout, Arctic grayling, and walleye in a single trip.

I’m a fishing writer, but I’m not here to fish from dawn to dusk on the hunt for a grand slam. Neither are an increasing number of other visitors to this remote outpost in northern Canada. We have come for more than fishing.

“With a fishing lodge, to make money, you have to run more people through. When you run more people through, you destroy your fishery,” says Gangler’s owner Ken Gangler, a tall 62-year-old from Chicago who is also a bass guitarist.

Gangler, who got into fishing lodges with his dad, Wayne, and mom, Gerry, almost 40 years ago, is now trying to change up the fishing lodge they started together in 1985. He’s not the only one adapting.

Lodges are evolving across North America not to abandon fishing but to appeal to a broader market, in much the same way ski areas like Jackson Hole Mountain Resort are expanding their summertime offerings to via ferratas and downhill mountain-bike courses. Longer seasons and more options mean a greater chance to weather the next recession, bubble burst, or—God forbid—global pandemic.

Adaptation is a way for owners like Gangler to protect a fishery he loves in the face of overuse and impacts from climate change. And it’s a way to respond to an overall declining population of anglers and also to the changing face of fishing in the U.S. and Canada—what was once an almost entirely white male sport is, according to slowly becoming more diverse by gender and ethnicity.

Meeting a new demand

Thousands of miles to the west, tucked along the edge of Alaska’s Denali National Park, sits another cedar lodge with matching chalets along the shores of an Instagram-worthy lake.

Matt Bertke, 33, took over Chelatna Lake Lodge from his parents, Duke and Becky, a handful of years ago. They ran it for decades as a hardcore salmon-fishing lodge, rotating in 16 clients every four days and flying them each morning to remote lakes and rivers to cast for red, silver, and king salmon. Fishing was the point of the lodge. And it worked. (My husband and I worked for the elder Bertkes at the lodge for several years, finishing in 2011.)

Duke Bertke started scaling back around 2001, and by the time Bertke took over in 2016, the place was more of a rainbow-trout-and-grayling fishing lodge with a few salmon runs at the end. Bertke faced a decision: Scale back up to what the lodge had always been or rethink the business model to better suit the changing world of angling.

He went with the latter. Today, three years post Covid, he offers fishing but also hiking, bird watching, kayaking, rafting, and helicopter adventures. He’s done photoshoots with the high-end outdoor clothing company Filson and is hosting photography groups.

“Everybody is more interested in capturing and sharing their experience more than 10 years ago,” Bertke says. “Because everyone has Instagram and TikTok, they want to be in a beautiful place doing different things.”

Bertke says he isn’t sure if anglers are changing or if he has changed, but either way he is attracting people who want a more varied experience. The change is taking pressure off the local fishery and bringing in more families and groups with mixed interests.

Expanding to offer more than just fishing to clients may actually help the fishing industry in the long run, says Stephanie Vatalaro, senior vice president of marketing and communications for the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation.

It’s no secret that fishing numbers across the U.S. dropped in the past few decades as the traditional angler—white, male Baby Boomers—aged out of the sport and recruitment didn’t quite keep up. By the mid-2000s, about 17 percent of the U.S. population fished, according to numbers from the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, which tracks fishing trends. Those numbers have stayed steady for the past 15 years, except for a brief jump to about 20 percent during the Covid pandemic, when people flocked outdoors.

But most notably, the anglers making up for losses in numbers over the last few decades are women. . And one of the main motivations for women to begin fishing, at least according to the data, is to spend time with friends and family.

This fits what Bertke sees at his lodge, and Gangler encounters at his as well. . It’s worth noting, though, that while remote lodges like Bertke’s and Gangler’s also open up backcountry spaces to more participants, the price-point of flying to a remote lodge stocked with food and supplies and offering full-day guided activities, is not, by its nature, accessible to everybody.

The Recreational Fishing and Boating Foundation doesn’t track numbers from fishing lodges, so it doesn’t have data to show how angler numbers affect the lodge industry. Vatalaro is also clear that numbers show generalizations—many women fish to be with friends and families, sure, but many of them also just love to fish. And plenty of fishing lodges will continue catering to the dawn-to-dusk angler, even as others rethink the future.

Ecology with a side of fishing

The afternoon before we head out to fish or hike, we settle onto couches in the Gangler’s main lodge. A projector screen occupies the middle of the room, and Brian Kotak, a Ph.D. scientist from Manitoba, introduces the area, with its 12 river systems and 100 lakes. He explains how all the sand around us, which makes the lodge area feel more like a beach in Mexico than a lake shore in northern Canada, came from glacial retreats 8,000 years ago. Sand and gravel eskers (ridges) crease across the landscape like scars. The tops rise about 400 feet above most of the rest of the flat landscape, giving hikers endless views of trees and lakes.

Kotak has been a critical cog in the lodge’s transition from die-hard angling to something akin to eco-tourism. He takes visitors for hikes on the eskers and to sit in a blind on the runway to watch as wolves wander by. He calls to bull moose, explains caribou migrations, and tells people which berries are safe to eat. He and other staff members stay up late to monitor northern lights for anyone interested in the celestial phenomenon.

To Gangler, the transition to a more nature-based experience makes sense. He’s always been focused on the history and context of the location, and his entire guide staff are Indigenous from either the Cree or Dene First Nations.

Gangler founded the lodge with his father in 1998 on about six million acres of land allocated by the Canadian federal and provincial governments specifically to his business. Any Indigenous people, per their treaty rights, can still use the land, as can Canadians in general, but the allocations prevent other outfitters from setting up shop. Over the years, Gangler has added nine cabins and five smaller lodges, which he calls outposts, on other lakes in the area.

For years, he kept a full schedule with fishing clients from June to the end of August and hunting in September. But he started to see signs: devoted clients aged or died out. Today’s anglers, he realized, still wanted to fish but also wanted their families involved.

“I’ve got a son who plays travel baseball, it eats up all your time,” he says. “Whenever we have vacation time, we want to spend it together.” When fishing numbers went down, he decided to make changes.

He figured maybe he could give people a grand fishing adventure and also provide something for everyone else in the group to do. Maybe the mom fishes and the dad is just getting into it, or the other way around, but a lodge that offers canoeing, bird watching, tundra hikes, and nature walks is bound to capture more of those families looking for vacations.

So far, as it is for Bertke, the gamble is paying off. Gangler runs about 200 eco trips each year and keeps adding more. He hired another biologist to give additional tours.

During the five days I’m at Gangler’s, none of us catch a Grand Slam, but we do reel in some nice northern pike that our guides filet and fry on a beach. We also catch fat lake trout and cast flies to grayling at the mouth of a river. One morning we spend several hours hiking over lichen-covered ground in a forest that looks best suited for fairies.

The day we say our goodbyes in the main lodge, a dozen women with gray hair and sun visors walk in. They’re part of an alumni reunion, and not the historic clientele for fishing lodges like Ganglers. Some will fish, others won’t; most will do some combination of activities.

More Fishing Lodges That Offer More ���ϳԹ���

From Alaska to Virginia, Manitoba to Montana, high-end fishing lodges across the U.S. and Canada are starting to cater to more than just anglers. Do you like to fish but your partner is a kayaker? There’s a lodge for that. Do you want to fish a little but heliskiing is really your thing? There’s also a lodge for that. Check out a few possibilities as you plan your next adventure.

: This iconic Alaskan lodge walks the line between the ski and fishing worlds, and in June, it does both when guides takes guests heliskiing in the morning and fishing for king salmon at night. The lodge also offers yoga, a via ferrata course, and rafting.

: This lodge nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains gives anglers plenty of trout fishing on the Dan River but also offers wine-tasting and cookie-making classes, mountain biking, archery, hiking, horseback riding, shooting clays, and cooking classes.

: Despite its name, the Montana Fly Fishing Lodge now offers more than just fishing in the Yellowstone River Basin. A stay could also include horseback riding, whitewater rafting, shooting sports, and riding ATVs.

: Johnny Morris, the legendary angler and Bass Pro Shops founder, created the Big Cedar Lodge for anglers and families. Expect plenty of golf, a spa, clay shooting, go-carts and yes, bass fishing.

: Go to Bristol Bay for iconic Alaskan salmon and rainbow trout fishing,and stay for unparalleled brown bear and wildlife viewing. The lodge flies guests on tours to view caribou and moose, wolves and whales.

: This lodge opened almost 80 years ago for fishing, and decades later added rafting the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River to its offerings. Go for the day or stay multiple nights.��

: Nestled on the edge of Reindeer Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada, the 11th largest lake in North America, the lodge offers world-class fishing. But it also offers wildlife viewing, canoeing and a full restaurant in the boreal forest.

Christine Peterson of southeast Wyoming has fished from Alaska to Argentina, though spends most of her time chasing trout in her home waters of Wyoming. She writes about fishing for Outdoor Life, TROUT, and the Casper Star-Tribune, among others.

The post These Beautiful Fishing Lodges Now Offer MultiSport ���ϳԹ���s appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Bob Windsor has spent the last six years keeping the streets safe in the arctic town of Churchill—or at least trying to. Even with less than a dozen blocks to protect, the Manitoba conservation officer and his small staff are heavily outnumbered. That’s because every November hundreds of culprits stalk the town and its 800 residents.

Perps are hungry, disoriented, and sometimes very aggressive—and weigh half a ton. Welcome to the polar bear capital of the world. The animals gathering in Canada’s far north are waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze. The return of the sea ice enables the ursus population to resume hunting their favorite meal: seals. But until then, they’re landlocked, and attracted to the sinful smells of civilization. And as the rapacious bears encroach, the salt-and-pepper haired Windsor leads the first line of defense of the .

We rode shotgun to see what it’s like policing the arctic.

OUTSIDE: What’s a typical day in the life of a polar bear beat cop like?
Windsor: Usually starts off with a patrol to see if there’s any bears in town. The chance of a bear coming into town is pretty good; hard part is seeing it in weather like this.

Tell me about your hardware. What do you carry to keep the bears away?
I’ve got a scare pistol. Screamer cartridges go into the barrel, makes a big screaming sound, and it’s a visible one, sparkling as it goes. We use that if a bear’s really close. Next would be my shotgun, our most commonly used tool. Cracker shells shoot about 75 yards, then explode. You don’t want to put the exploding part past the bear, because you may chase him back towards you. You want to aim a little higher so it explodes above them.

With the shotgun, on my bandelier, [these] green cartridges are rubber bullets. If a bear’s close, and not responding to sound, that’s an option to get them moving. I like paintballs better than rubber bullets. Rubber bullets are $6 apiece. Their range: maybe 35 yards. After that, good luck hitting anything. Paintballs are really cheap, range-wise a little better, and you can just let them rip. On the bottom of my bandelier are red cartridges. Those are rifle slugs for me to protect myself.

Have you had to use that?
I’ve had to shoot two bears. I was hoping to go my whole time without having to, but there are moments when it’s necessary.

Tell me what it’s like shooting at a bear.
Last November there was an attack in town. Two people were very seriously injured. I was first on scene, and I ended up shooting the bear. Our policy is if a person is killed or mauled, we permanently remove the bear. There was another attack last September where we didn’t find the bear that night, but we caught him in a trap the next morning. That bear is at the zoo now, permanently removed, but not killed.

Have you seen bears on the road we’re on right now?
Within town,��there isn’t a road or an area I haven’t seen a polar bear. There’s times we’ll chase a bear from town, it ends up on this road, and we drive behind it and push it out of town. The majority of the bears we deal with, that’s what we do. If there’s one in or near town, just traveling down the coast, the town is basically in its way. And if it’s heading north, we’ll just help it continue in that direction. Our program is broken down into three zones. Zone One is the town, and that extends about a third of a mile east of town. Any bear within Zone One is removed immediately.

Tell me about the polar bear jail.
opened in 1980. Over 1,400 bears have been through since then. There are 28 cells; two are double-sized. We reserve those for family groups; little bigger area, less stress. Five cells have air-conditioning, so if we have to hold a bear in the warmer months that keeps them comfortable. As of today, we have 15 bears in the facility. Normally we have the 30-day rule. Zone One bears we hold on average 30 days. Exceptions would be perennial problem bears. We dart them before they get to town so they don’t have the chance to break into buildings or do the nasty things they like to do.

How many calls do you get on an average day?
The most I’ve gotten is 22. One night last year between 5 P.M. and 2:30 A.M. we had 12 calls. In an average year we do about 300 occurrence reports. Once we got a call, and there were five bears we had to deal with in that time before we went home. Then you go home and it’s a matter of minutes before the phone rings again. The town is tourism-based, so it’s great when there are bears around, as long as nobody gets hurt.

Have officers been hurt in the line of work?
Not by a bear. The main priority is safety from bears, the next is the welfare of bears from people. Another is protection of human property, prevention of bears from becoming habituated to humans and human food sources.

Do tourists make your job harder?
Most are with guides looking out for their welfare. We do get some tourists without a clue how dangerous these animals are, or how to remain safe. There’s definitely a bigger chance of something going wrong when there’s more people around. The more people, the greater the chance of an attack.

What was the scariest moment you’ve ever had?
The attack last year. The call I took I hope no one has to take again, including myself, and it was a lady screaming. When I rolled up, the bear was on the street and I could see there was blood all over its mouth. Dealing with a bear, that part is easy, but knowing that somebody’s hurt sticks with you. Every time the bear phone rings now, it’s not, “Oh good, there’s a bear call.” Now there’s apprehension. You hope it’s not somebody screaming about an attack.

How much longer do you see yourself doing this?
Well, it was a three-year posting. This is year six. The biggest challenge is media. We’ve had about 25 requests for a reality show series this year alone, for people to be embedded with us, but we said no. For the last month, almost half of each day’s media-related. Some of my staff are mad at the constant cameras, so I hear it from them, then try to soothe them and tell some people to lay off.

But the bear work I enjoy. This is the most unique district in our province, that’s why I wanted to come here. It’s like I tell my wife: I didn’t want to sit back in a rocking chair one day and say I wish I would have. And I don’t have to say that, because I’m here doing it.

Watch a livestream of Manitoba’s polar bears, courtesy of , , and :

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In the late ’90s, there existed a man who went by the name of Merv Bodnarchuk. He looked pretty much exactly how you’d expect Merv Bodnarchuk to look: a well-kept, lip-tight mustache, some hair that’s more just on his head than there for any reason, wire-rimmed glasses, formless, hairy eyebrows, a chubby-but-mostly-featureless face that just happened to have a mouth and eyes because you need those things to see and to speak.

“,” a 1999 profile of Bodnarchuk written by Guy Lawson, is probably the greatest piece of longform curling writing ever done. It might also be the only piece of longform curling writing ever done, but it stands up, by itself, as a really great piece of writing—curling or not.

As curling sits in that place of a small, concentrated number of passionate fans and a larger novelty/curiosity bump that comes every four years (but never lasts) from the Olympics, it can keep sitting in that place, and it might, which would be fine. Yet, as things change and time creeps forward and the world keeps spinning and etc., it could also move forward into a place of more permanent public consciousness, a place that generally brings along, at the very least, some more sustainable lifestyles tied to the sport. However realistic or utterly and completely unrealistic that thought is, Merv Bodnarchuk tried to make that happen.

Lawson’s piece tells the story of Merv’s grand desires: winning an Olympic gold medal for the United States, and to revolutionize curling into the next big, modern, money-making sport. And, at the beginning, as Merv tells Lawson his story over Coors Lights and clam juice—yeah, I just threw up, too—it sounds like a decent plan as all surface-level plans told extra-enthusiastically do. More Canadians watched curling on TV than any other non-hockey sport. And Merv knew curling because he was Canadian—except, unlike most Canadians, Merv was also an entrepreneur. So, he’d get his U.S. citizenship, create his team (the “Anaheim Earthquake”), pay all of the best curlers (like he was also doing in Canada) to be part of the Earthquake, make it huge in the U.S., and then win the gold in 2002 in Salt Lake City. After that? Anything—“Hell, Merv was going to create beach curling; the technology exists to make ice anywhere, he said”—was possible.

As you know—by virtue of you being alive, and therefore being someone who hasn’t heard of an American professional-curling circuit—none of this happened. Merv, it turns out and as the title says, had one requirement for his teams: he’d curl lead, which means he’d deliver the first two stones. Except, Merv was a terrible-to-maybe-decent-at-best professional curler, and, basically, no team with Merv curling on it could ever be a competitive Canadian/American team, let alone a gold medalist.

Yet, the story ends on an optimistic note, as Merv’s team wins a tournament and the $10,000 big-ass-check that comes with it. Throughout the story, Merv seems like and is one of those people whose ambitions are way bigger than his capabilities; he’s just yet to realize it. It’s sweet in that way—in the you-don’t-want-to-tell-him-that-none-of-this-is-ever-going-to-happen way—and sets up for a predictable series of stumbles and triumphs in a general narrative sense, with Merv settling in somewhere that is not quite curling overtaking soccer globally, but is still Merv achieving some kind of personal success that just doesn’t at all match up with his initial grand ambitions.

It turns out, though, that Merv’s moves might’ve been motivated by something more depressingly-sinister. —which leads “former professional curler and con man Mervin Bodnarchuk has always been a troublesome and contentious person”—is from 2007. It notes that Bodnarchuk had committed at least 50 securities offenses as of 1997 and that in July of 1999 he was arrested on 14 counts of theft. In 2005, he was convicted on all counts and sentenced to 18 months in custody, where “always demanding and complaining, he became one of the B.C. Corrections Branch’s most troublesome clients.”

The next—and last—time Bodnarchuk appears in the news-sphere (his Internet presence is minimal) is in connection with a touring hockey series of ex-NHL players. It’s not clear what Bodnarchuk’s role is here, but he’s some kind of promoter/coach—always involved on multiple levels. All the stories are negative ones. Most concern after they entered into a competitive senior series. (So hard, apparently, that he went as far as to file a police complaint and remove his team from the playoffs. “I wish that I could play them again and I was 25 years younger,” , 59 at the time.) The complaints, , were absolutely bogus, which is not at all surprising at this point.

And that is where Merv’s footprints stop: with his curling dreams presumably never fully formed, and who knows if those were really his dreams anyway, or just a way to make some money and get his name at the forefront of something, which seems way more likely when you look at what’s transpired since he last curled lead. But again, three years is a long time; a lot can happen, and surely did, from 2010 until now.

Whether he’s still trotting out retired NHLers or moved on to exploiting competitive youth trampolinists in Edmonton or selling squirrels-he-trained-to-be-butlers in Manitoba, Merv Bodnarchuk had a vision for a sport, and it wasn’t realistic and it probably wasn’t sincere, but it showed something. Wherever the sport goes—or stays—it’ll do it without Merv because there was enough—structure in place,��people who cared and did this, enough curling—for it not to get sucked in by some batshit entrepreneur tipping himself for some bizarre curling-world dominance, but also, more than that, enough for him to even exist in the first place.

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Every year, we evaluate hundreds of wanderlust-inducing trips to produce a guide to the world’s greatest adventures. This time around, we solicited the aid of a new contributor: you. (The democratic spirit is strong right now.) By the hundreds, you told us where you’re planning to go and what matters most to you on any trip. You also made two things clear: (1) You have zero plans to stop exploring, recession be damned, but (2) that doesn’t mean you’d object to saving some cash. Fair enough—turn the page and you’ll find Trips of the Year that maximize value, plus dozens of strategies for the wallet-conscious nomad.

United States

IDAHO, OREGON & NEVADA


TRIP OF THE YEAR: NORTH AMERICA



Paddle the Upper Owyhee
7 DAYS, $1,890
A good measure of the quality of a float trip is the difficulty in getting there. By those standards, it’s hard to beat River Odysseys West’s new expedition-style journey to the Class II Upper Owyhee. “The road’s crummy, there aren’t any shuttle services, and the portages are a bitch,” says ROW founder Peter Grubb. “But I’ve never been up there and seen another party.” From the Nevada put-in, on either the South or the East fork of the Owyhee (the East is the more striking canyon by far), each guest paddles his own inflatable kayak 50 miles through a basalt gorge to the confluence with the main Owyhee. (A 12-foot raft totes gear.) From there it’s another 30 miles to the take-out at Three Forks, in Oregon. The route goes through bighorn sheep country and passes abandoned stone pioneers’ cabins. Day four is reserved for two tough portages, but hard work makes Dutch-oven brownies taste better. Bonus: ROW’s new trip comes just in time for new federal legislation that, if passed, will add the desert canyon to the national Wild & Scenic Rivers registry, and protect an additional 570,000 acres of the area. Four departures in June and July; .

CALIFORNIA

Float the Tuolumne and Hike Yosemite
5 DAYS, $1,900
This new, amphibious itinerary from rafting specialists OARS starts fast and ends slow. First up: an 18-mile paddle through Class IV rapids on the Wild & Scenic Tuolumne River, Central California’s roiliest. From the take-out at Wards Ferry Bridge, it’s a 50-minute drive to the bar-equipped Evergreen Lodge, on the western edge of Yosemite National Park. The next four days are spent “glamping” on air mattresses on the lodge’s property and trekking to Yosemite classics like 8,842-foot Half Dome and wildflower-studded Tuolumne Meadows. Five trips between May and August; . CASH TIP: Ask if there are any openings—or last-minute discounts—on the May trip, when the Tuolumne runs fastest.

WASHINGTON


KILLER VALUE



Ride the Lewis River

5 DAYS, $1,200
Local mountain bikers have been riding southern Washington’s lush Gifford Pinchot National Forest since the mid-eighties. But it wasn’t until 2007 that the Forest Service opened this 2,138-square-mile forest—home to more than 700 miles of singletrack—to commercial trips. The first outfitter to take advantage: Moab, Utah–based cycling specialists Western Spirit, which debuted this five-day tour last July. The 100-mile haul starts near Mount Adams and traces a series of three subalpine lakes. “The old-growth cedars we ride through make the perfect canopy, keeping the trail surface tacky,” says Western Spirit owner Mark Sevenoff. Other highlights include postcard views of the Lewis River’s descent from the Cascades; nights spent camping and mauling grilled salmon (guides cook while you sip local beer); a trip-capping ride off the flanks of Mount St. Helens; and a price so low you’ll want to book a second date. Eight trips in July and August; .

ALASKA

Explore ANWR

10 DAYS, $10,000
If any splurge is called for this year, it’s this journey into America’s still untapped, northernmost reaches from luxury outfitter Abercrombie & Kent. The trip starts in Fairbanks, from which bush planes fly eight guests to the North Slope of the Brooks Range. Too-loó-uk River Guides will paddle you on 14-foot rafts through 50 miles of the Marsh Fork of the Canning, a mostly lazy river that meanders through green valleys in the shadow of white peaks toward the Arctic Ocean. “You’ve got 5,000-foot peaks right off the river, treeless tundra, open hills and ridges,” says lead guide Juliette Boselli. Bring your waterproof hikers for day trips along the way, and carbo-load each night on fresh-baked breads in the dome-tented camp. Scramble up a small peak and you’ll spot Dall sheep, musk ox, eagles, and falcons. End the trip where the Canning meets the Beaufort Sea and fly out over the famous Porcupine caribou herds. Top of the world, Ma. Four departures between June and August; .

BERING STRAIT

Paddle to Wrangel

13 DAYS, FROM $5,500
See how close Alaska and Russia really are on Aurora Expeditions’ new trip from Nome, Alaska, across the Bering Sea, and along the Chukotka Peninsula, at Siberia’s northeastern tip. Your base is the 100-passenger Marina Svetaeva, but Aurora’s guides offer daylong sea-kayaking options along Chukotka’s rugged coast, where sea otters and harp seals play. And pending icepack levels in the Arctic Ocean, Aurora plans to explore Wrangel Island, home to hundreds of polar bears. “We hope to get the sea kayaks in the water around Wrangel and hike onshore,” says owner Greg Mortimer. August 6–18; .

ALASKA

Kenai Fjords Glacier Lodge
Comprising 16 cabins and a dining building, Alaska Wildland ���ϳԹ���s’ Kenai Fjords Glacier Lodge is the only hotel within the boundaries of 700,000-acre Kenai Fjords National Park. Fresh-caught salmon in the restaurant is nice, but the draw is thesetting: The lodge, which opens in July, sits on a pebble beach in 1,700-acre Pedersen Lagoon Wildlife Sanctuary. And because Glacier is accessible only by boat, your stay comes with a cruise through humpback whale migratory waters. Doubles, $425, three-night minimum; .

Canada

CANADA


TRIP OF THE YEAR: ARCTIC



Paddle Hudson Bay

8 DAYS, $3,500
The locals in Hudson Bay aren’t used to human visitors. “In 2007, a client was minding her business in her kayak when a 30-pound baby beluga whale jumped in her lap,” says Wally Daudrich, owner of Manitoba’s Lazy Bear Lodge, which will host paddlers on this Explorers’ Corner expedition. The trip starts with a floatplane ride from Churchill to the South Knife River. From there, paddle a sea kayak alongside Explorers’ Corner founder Olaf Malver for three days, sifting through mild whitewater chutes to the mouth of Hudson Bay. You’ll know you’ve arrived when belugas start nuzzling the boat. The next five days are spent here, paddling with the whales and eating caribou steak at the Lazy Bear. Departures in July and August; . CASH TIP: Ask about the August trip, when the price falls $500 thanks to lower local airfares.

MONTANA & ALBERTA

Bike Glacier and the Canadian Rockies

9 DAYS, FROM $3,700
Four national parks, two countries, endless high-alpine relief, and a menagerie of outsize wildlife. That’s what you’ll encounter on Backroads’ new 480-mile cycling trip, from West Glacier, Montana, to Jasper, Alberta. Twenty or so guests will spend nights in digs like Glacier National Park’s Many Glacier Hotel—rustic western luxury at its finest. But it’s the riding that shines. The trip starts on Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 50-mile asphalt snake charting an improbable course through the heart of Glacier National Park. With its expansive vistas, Going-to-the-Sun is a worthy bucket-list item for most cyclists, but on this trip the road is just the beginning. After crossing Glacier, guests pedal between 40 and 60 miles per day through Waterton Lakes, Jasper, and Banff national parks, while a support van totes gear. On the way, riders trace the Continental Divide and coast along the 143-mile Icefields Parkway, where three major river systems—and lots of elk and grizzlies—meet. Four trips between July and September; . CASH TIP: Go with a partner and you’ll save the $890 additional fee Backroads charges single riders.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Nelsen Lodge

In ten years, Revelstoke Mountain Resort will be the world’s best ski destination. The place opened in December 2007 with one gondola and a quad accessing 1,500 acres. The master plan calls for 20 lifts, 10,000 acres, and 6,000 vertical feet—the most in North America. But there’s no need to wait. The month-old, modern Nelsen Lodge is just 60 feet from the gondola and offers post-slope relief in the form of a massive outdoor hot tub. Bonus: Glass walls offer views of the Selkirk and Monashee ranges. Thanks to an opening special that lasts through May, doubles start at $200; .

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Black Rock Resort

This three-month-old, 133-suite lodge rests on a rock promontory jutting over Barkley Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The location makes it prime real estate for three things: surfing Long Beach in summer (board rentals, Ucluelet’s Inner Rhythm Surf Co., 877-393-7873); curling up by the fire to watch the jaw-dropping storms that roll through in winter; and hiking into temperate rainforest on the eight-mile Wild Pacific Trail in any season. Doubles from $175; .

Central America

BELIZE

KILLER VALUE


Kayak Lodge to Lodge

6 DAYS, $1,590
Some 450 sun-bleached cays dot Belize’s 180-mile-long barrier reef. The best way to explore them? Take this new, lodge-to-lodge sea-kayak trip with Belize City–based Island Expeditions. The six-day journey is divided between traveling with the currents over coral structures teeming with marine life and unwinding at three rustic lodges (think seaside cabanas and conch-fritter dinners). Expect to cover up to six miles of turquoise per day in IE’s unique, mast-and-sail-equipped sea kayaks. “There’s nothing like sailing your kayak at six knots, two feet above the reef flats,” says owner Tim Boys. Trips depart weekly from November to April; . CASH TIP: Book late—IE offers $100 discounts on unfilled trips within a month of departure.

PANAMA
Surf the Gulf of Chiriquí

6-DAY CHARTER, $2,500 PER PERSON
Don’t want to take out a second mortgage to reach Indonesia’s Mentawais? There’s a better way to plan your dream surf trip. In 2006, Panama-based Lost Coast Excursions started plying the Gulf of Chiriquí, on that country’s Pacific coast, in its 100-foot motor yacht, the Explorer. What the outfitter found was a Pacific paradise with dozens of empty reef and beach breaks. The Explorer accommodates up to 16 guests in shared rooms—bring ten or so buddies and you’ve got a blue-water epic, complete with surf guides, for less than the cost of a week in Aspen. Start recruiting now for next spring, when southern swells wrap up the coastline. Guests take a shuttle from Panama City to Puerto Mutis, board the Explorer, and hit the water before lunch. Charters available between December and August; .

South America

GUYANA

TRIP OF THE YEAR: SOUTH AMERICA


Trek the Big Empty

10 DAYS, $4,600
Guyana has the land mass of Idaho, a population of 770,000, and exactly one road passing through its rainforest-rich interior. Which is to say, the place is wild. This year, high-end operator Geographic Expeditions leads an exploratory trekking trip in the country. After landing in the capital, Georgetown, guests are whisked into the jungle. First stop: 741-foot Kaieteur Falls, one of the largest single-drop waterfalls in the world. “There are no signs, no handrails, and no people,” says Michael McCrystal, GeoEx’s associate director of operations, who scouted the trip last year. Guests then hop between lodges via bush plane and canoe. (One lodge, the Karanambu Ranch, houses a small clan of rescued giant river otters, in addition to visitors.) Local guides lead the way on four-hour jungle hikes and harpy-eagle-nest-finding missions, but, accordingto McCrystal, “if you want to take the machete and bust into the jungle, we can arrange that.” Year-round; .

CHILE

KILLER VALUE


Torres Trek
7 DAYS, $2,280
Situated on the east side of Torres del Paine National Park, ���ϳԹ��� Life’s new EcoCamp—a series of wind-powered, fireplace-equipped domes—is your launchpad for four days of guided treks. Highlight: an 11-mile round-trip to the glacial lagoon at the base of the granite towers of Los Torres. Bonus highlight: Colchagua Valley cabernet back at the dining dome. Trips leave between October and April; .

PERU
City on a Hill

9 DAYS, $4,000
Haute outfitter Austin-Lehman ups the ante on the classic Peruvian adventure by turning Machu Picchu into a starting block. After hiking seven miles of the Inca Trail and entering the big city via the Intipunku, or “Sun Gate,” you get the rest of the day to explore the ruins. Then it’s off to the Tinajani Canyon for two days of mountain biking through 100-foot rock spires. The trip wraps up on the shores of Lake Titicaca, where your sea kayak awaits. After a day of paddling to stark Taquile Island, you’ll be ready to crash at the Sonesta Posadas del Inca Hotel, in Puno. Four departures between April and October; .

BOLIVIA
Andes to Amazon

12 OR 19 DAYS, $2,750 OR $4,600
Most Mountain Madness itineraries assume clients have high-altitude expertise. Not this one—though there’s serious peak bagging to be done if that’s your thing. The trip starts in the upper reaches of the Andes, where you’ll hike through 50 miles of high mountain passes and decide as a group whether or not to scale 18,600-foot Cuchillo 2. Next up: three days and 10,000 feet of jeep-supported mountain-bike descent to the Amazon basin. After dismounting, guests hop into three-man rafts and Huck Finn it through untamed Madidi National Park on the Class II Beni River. Keep your eyes peeled for giant river otters. June 10–21 or 10–28; .

New Zealand and Australia

Milford Sound, New Zealand

Milford Sound

DEAL OF THE YEAR

That New Zealand is the place you fantasize about most is no surprise. But here’s what is: This is the year to stop drooling and go. With a historically favorable exchange rate (at press time, one U.S. dollar equaled just under two New Zealand bucks) and round-trip flights available for around $800, adventure in Middle Earth is suddenly on sale.

FOR TROUT LOVERS

TRIP OF THE YEAR: NEW ZEALAND


Heli-Fishing Heaven

11 DAYS, $4,475
A year ago, this trip would have cost about $2,000 more. With New Zealand’s top guides, you and your partners ride a chopper from Auckland to the private Poronui Ranch, a safari-style camp on the North Island, 16 miles away from the nearest road. Catch your fill of piggish trout on the Mohaka River, then fly to the South Island, where you’ll set up shop at a hut in the Minaret Peaks. Spend your days choppering between alpine streams where the water is vodka-clear and the browns are football-size. Trips run between October and March; . CASH TIP: Four-day heli-fishing trips cost $2,680.

FOR MULTISPORT GLUTTONS
Do It All

8 DAYS, $2,300
“This is a really punchy trip,” says Andrew Fairfax, owner of Active New Zealand. “Punchy” is a Kiwi-ism for packing your days with adrenaline. To wit: On this whirlwind, called Tui Multisport, guests hike the Franz Josef Glacier, a World Heritage site; cycle Hollyford Valley; sea-kayak Milford Sound; and take a scenic flight to the Siberia Hut, one of the South Island’s many isolated mountain lodges. Departures between October and April; .

FOR HARD RIDERS
South Island Singletrack

14 DAYS, $2,200
If the thought of riding the South Island tip to tail on century-old logging roads makes your heart pound, add this: You’ll take a helicopter ride over the Roaring Meg River, get dropped in the Pisa Range, and descend 20 miles through high country overlooking the Southern Alps. Sacred Rides’ new South Pacific Singletrack trip has everything: steep canyon descents, mountain traverses, and undulating cross-country pedaling. On a rest day, don crampons and pick your way through eight-mile-long Fox Glacier. End the day sipping local Monteith’s ale at a bed-and-breakfast. Departures in December, February and March; .

DON’T FORGET ABOUT AUSTRALIA
Trek the Larapinta Trail
11 DAYS, $6,500
“Everybody thinks there’s not much out there,” says James Fuss, the Aussie guide who cooked up this new trip for Wilderness Travel. “But the Larapinta is one of the best desert treks in the world.” Fuss selected the most scenic sections of the historic 139-mile Lara­pinta Trail, in the Northern Territory, and condensed them. Guests follow the West MacDonnell Ranges, just as Aboriginal red ocher traders have done for thousands of years; gape at the massive night sky from luxurious bush camps; and eventually wind up at iconic Uluru (Ayers Rock). May 25–June 4; . CASH TIP: Book now, with the U.S. dollar strong, and WT will lock in a discount that could reach up to $600.

Asia

BOTSWANA, NAMIBIA & ZAMBIA

Safari for Less

8 DAYS, FROM $3,850

Want to save on a safari? Go in the off-season. On Wilderness Safaris’ new Summer Spectacular trip, guests visit iconic sites like Victoria Falls and Botswana’s Okavango Delta while staying in camps where plunge pools come standard. But the draw is your first stop, the Kalahari Desert. In the wet summer, from November to April, areas like Deception Valley teem with herds of springbok, which come to drink standing water. Lions and cheetahs aren’t far behind. Trips leave between December and April; .

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Mount Logan & the St. Elias Mountains

Summer Skiing
Mount Logan
Yukon Territory
By the numbers, summertime skiing on Mount Logan can seem daunting. At 19,524 feet, it’s Canada’s highest peak. Sitting squarely in the St. Elias Mountains of the Yukon’s Kluane National Park and Reserve, Logan dominates a 12-mile plateau of eight subpeaks over 18,000 feet. The mountain itself rises more than 13,000 feet above its glacial base, which has a circumference of 100 miles.

But don’t let Logan’s Himalayan stats dismay you. The most popular route up, King Trench, is a North American classic—comparable to tackling Mount McKinley’s West Buttress. You can ski the majority of the Trench’s gently sloped glaciers, and with a dependably toasty sleeping bag and at least two weeks, intermediate skiers (with mountaineering experience and a guide) have a good shot at the summit.—Sam Moulton

DETAILS: International Mountain Guides (360-569-2609, ) will run an expedition May 30–June 19 for $4,000 per person. With Imax views, Icefield Discovery Lodge (867-633-2018, ), on the St. Elias icefields, is a great base camp for ski touring. A two-night package for two costs $875, including meals and round-trip airfare from Silver City.

Heli-Hiking
St. Elias Mountains
Yukon Territory
Flying over the St. Elias peaks in Kluane National Park and Reserve, you’d never guess the Ice Age ended some 10,000 years ago. Eighty-two percent of the park is glaciated, but at 8,487 square miles, there’s plenty of lower-elevation terra firma to explore. From Haines Junction, on the park’s eastern edge, Paddle/Wheel ���ϳԹ���s can arrange guided heli-hiking on the 5,600-foot Kluane Plateau, located just outside the national park. It’s a quick 35-minute flight, but it’s long enough to see the Dall sheep that dance, Dean Potter–like, up the sheer Kluane mountainsides.

Once you’ve landed on the plateau’s sprawling alpine meadows, the choice is yours: Hike down the five- or six-hour route back to the road, or stick to the ridge and rendezvous with the chopper five or so miles farther southeast near Outpost Mountain. Either way, the views of Kluane Lake, the Slims River, and the hanging glaciers on Mount Vulcan are dizzying. But do stay focused: Grizzly sightings are common in these parts.—S. M.

DETAILS: Paddle/Wheel ���ϳԹ���s (867-634-2683, ) runs heli-hiking trips on the Kluane Plateau starting at $190 per person for an afternoon, including lunch and guide.

Stikine River & the Cirque of the Unclimbables

Canoeing
Stikine River
British Columbia
In a little more than a week and 150 miles of intermediate canoeing on the lower Stikine River, you can travel between two countries, among 10,000-plus-foot oceanfront peaks, and through two biological worlds—the dry eastern slopes of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia and the temperate rainforest of the southeastern Alaska coast. It’s a mountain corridor so spectacular and varied that when John Muir visited in 1879, he likened the Stikine Valley to the grandeur of Yosemite.

We shoved off for our ten-day trip from Telegraph Creek, B.C., silt grinding audibly against the canoe, and dug into the swirling current, bound west for Wrangell, Alaska. We gazed up at the blue-white glaciers and the awesome barrier of the Coast Mountains. Some of the highest peaks—Devils Thumb, Kates Needle, and Castle Mountain—mark the boundary between Canada and Alaska, and shield the interior from Pacific storms.

Beneath us was the Stikine, a highway during the Klondike gold rush of the late 1800s, with a current so fast that only jet boats can navigate upstream against it. You can raft the river—and many do—but the mazes of braided channels take full advantage of a canoe’s dexterity and make paddling much more satisfying than floating.

Camping along the way is simple: At the end of each 15-mile day, pick any of the Stikine’s numerous gravel bars and beaches. On day eight, we camped at the Great Glacier of the Stikine, where a short trail leads to the snout of the glacier and a pool of icebergs. A magnificent delta, an important migratory stopover for sandpipers and other shorebirds, marks the journey’s denouement. To reach the true conclusion, paddle till the Stikine’s silty outflow gives way to green salt water, then cross the bay over to Wrangell and scrape ashore. —Byron Ricks

DETAILS: Alaska Vistas (866-874-3006, ) runs jet-boat shuttles to the Telegraph Creek put-in from Wrangell, $1,400 for six people. Or canoe with an outfitter. Nahanni River ���ϳԹ���s (800-297-6927, ) charges $3,160 for a 14-day Stikine trip from Whitehorse.

Climbing
Cirque of the Unclimbables
Northwest Territories
Deep in the glacier-scoured valleys of the western Northwest Territories stands a crop of sheer granite so formidable that 1950s explorers dubbed it the Cirque of the Unclimbables. Today, however, it might be better labeled Funclimbable. Take, for example, Lotus Flower Tower, a 2,200-foot wall that’s a smaller version of Yosemite’s El Capitan. A floatplane will drop you off at Glacier Lake, 300 miles east of Whitehorse, where a nine-hour hike will get you to Fairy Meadows, a patch of grass surrounded by a rock amphitheater. Spend two days working your way up the tower’s 22 pitches, bivouacking alongside a sea of granite after the first ten. For the best shot at clear weather, pencil in a two-week block in July or August. —Tim Neville

DETAILS: Gravity ���ϳԹ���s (877-772-5462, ) leads climbers up Lotus Flower Tower, starting at $3,800 (including flight from Finlayson Lake, in the Yukon).

Queen Charlotte Islands & King Pacific Lodge

canada parks, adventures

Rivers Run Throughout It: Queen Charlotte Islands, BC

Sea Kayaking
Queen Charlotte Islands
British Columbia
Despite the North Pacific storms circling off the coast, our guide, Gord Pincock, is doing his best to see us through our eight-day kayak expedition in the Queen Charlotte Islands, called Haida Gwaii by the native Haida people. For three days, we’ve been pinned down on a sheltered beach waiting for a weather window to open and let us continue to SGang Gwaay. The island was named for the sighing sound made when storm surf rolls across a reef, but this is a wonder Pincock doesn’t want us to witness.

We’re paddling the southern end of this 150-island chain through Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. Nearly 5,000 people live on Haida Gwaii; about a third are descendants of the Haida, seafaring warriors whose naval daring draws comparisons to the Vikings. Haida canoes, longhouses, and cedar totem poles represent a high point in North American art. Cedar is exceptionally durable, but in Haida Gwaii—essentially a moated rainforest—a pole stands only about 150 years. The SGang Gwaay Ilnagaay village contains the most famous poles; the island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In the morning, under clear skies, we circumnavigate SGang Gwaay. The staring faces of eagles, killer whales, frogs, bears—heraldic crests of previous inhabitants—gaze back at us from 40-foot poles. Their deftly carved features are exaggerated and intimidating: Tongues loll, nostrils flare, teeth are bared, but these expressions seem more the effects of rigor mortis than of the ferocity of life; this is a place of ghosts.—John Vaillant

DETAILS: Gord Pincock and Butterfly Tours (604-740-7018, ) lead eight- and 12-day trips for $1,480–$2,230.

Fly-Fishing
King Pacific Lodge
British Columbia
You’re in a luxury floating lodge moored to 870-square-mile Princess Royal Island in northern British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest: a realm of deep fjords, islands thick with red cedars, and astounding vertical relief. Stand at the edge of the craggy rock of the ridgelines and you feel like you’re on top of the world—at sea level. The channels below teem with killer and humpback whales, and the forest behind you is home to the rare white kermode (“spirit”) bear.

It doesn’t seem possible, but this 17-room, 15,000-square-foot structure, with its enormous, cathedral-ceiling living room, is built on a barge that gets hauled about 100 miles back to Prince Rupert in the fall. Despite the lodge’s portability, no detail has been spared—from the forged-iron chandeliers to the slate floors and red cedar walls. Rooms are big enough for a king-size bed plus a couple of cushy chairs positioned for gazing out over Barnard Harbor. Jonathan Chovancek, a chef from Victoria, astounds with his fresh fish creations—yet uses a light touch, going easy on the beurre.

Most guests—typically fly-fishing gentry and splurging honeymooners—come for the summerlong parade of salmon or for catch-and-release fly-casting (cutthroat, coho, pink salmon) in mainland streams. If you’re craving adventure, the lodge can set you up with a day of paddling Princess Royal’s Cornwall Inlet. Or just take off out the back door and into the rainforest in search of the storied spirit bear. —Robert Earle Howells

DETAILS: An all-inclusive package at King Pacific Lodge (604-987-5452, )—with round-trip floatplane from Prince Rupert, kayaking, meals, and drinks—begins at $2,644 a person for three nights.

Whistler Blackcomb, Gulf Islands, & Sentry Mountain Lodge

Mountain Biking
Whistler Blackcomb
British Columbia
So you call yourself a mountain biker. You rip local ribbons of singletrack, bunny-hop logs, and drop wheelies off rocky steps like a pro. But deep down inside, you know there’s more. Those pictures of riders speeding over scarily narrow log bridges look like so much fun. Problem is, you’re made of breakable bone, and the thought of busting a clavicle on some do-or-die jump isn’t your style. Well, there’s hope. This summer, Whistler Blackcomb opens about seven miles of new singletrack, accessed from the top of the Garbanzo lift, part of a network totaling more than 125 miles, with a whopping 3,200-foot vertical loss—arguably the largest downhill bike park in North America.

Here in southwestern British Columbia, the nexus of the fast-growing, thrill-based mountain-bike subgenre called freeriding, you can test your mettle at three separate areas that have jumps and stunt obstacles built by adults who know that injuries can mean lawsuits. No rickety teeter-totters built by a 14-year-old using garbage-picked wooden pallets here—the resort spent close to $750,000 building the trails. Pro riders like Richie Schley were called in to help design jumps, making sure they’re solid and have good landings.

“We need to make things safe,” says Whistler Mountain Bike Park manager Tom “Pro” Prochazka, whose 12-year-old son, Alex, braves every one of the park’s dozens of stunts. “You’ll get the same butterflies as if the net wasn’t there, but we’ve taken out the element of danger. Last thing we want to see is a broken neck.”—T. N.

DETAILS: Summertime Whistler Blackcomb lift passes cost $26 per day (800-766-0449, ). Full-suspension downhill bikes rent for $76 per day.

New Park
Gulf Islands National Park
Reserve B.C.
This 6,425-acre reserve, off the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island, has one of the province’s highest densities of marine mammals. Kayak among harbor seals and the occasional killer whale; camp on any of eight islands.—Pieter vanNoordennen

DETAILS: 250-654-4000,

Hiding Away
Sentry Mountain Lodge
British Columbia
Your journal might read like this: “We flew in to Sentry Mountain Lodge by helicopter, dazzled by Kinbasket Lake and the Columbia Icefields. The bird dropped us at a cedar house, on a meadow at 6,920 feet, cradled by the Selkirks. Before settling in, we explored some of the lodge’s 13 square miles of alpine meadows and interlaced ridges. A black bear and two cubs crossed our path in the distance, but otherwise we didn’t see a soul. Afterward, we sipped Big Rock ales, basked in the alpenglow, and waited for Venus to pop out and guide us on a midnight hike.” Of course, that would be just the first entry.

This hideaway, which you share with only seven other guests, feels like a European-style mountain home: vaulted ceilings, mural-size windows, and a piney kitchen in which your hosts rustle up cheese fondue and coq au vin. —Amy Marr

DETAILS: A one-week all-inclusive package (heli access from Golden, excursions, meals, and nonalcoholic drinks) begins at $1,280 at Sentry Mountain Lodge (250-344-7227).

Icefields Parkway & Don Getty Wildland Park

Cycle Touring
Icefields Parkway
Alberta
I’ve had a stiff neck before, but never from constantly looking up. Looking up around every turn. Over every pass. At mountain after mountain. But the view from the Icefields Parkway—a 143-mile ribbon of wide-shouldered road strung among the horned peaks, blue ice, and milky lakes of the Canadian Rockies between Lake Louise and Jasper—is worth the pain. It’s not a secret place, this corridor that hosts Banff and Jasper national parks, but it’s surely a spectacular place. Cyclists can ride one-way to Jasper from Lake Louise in a few days, or join an outfitted trip that stops at mountain lodges along the way. My wife and I wanted a more demanding tour, so we stuffed our panniers with food, camping gear, and repair equipment and took a week to pedal the parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper and back, overnighting in the parks.

We survived passes (Bow Summit, 6,781 feet, is the route’s highest point) and screaming downhills. And when we got tired, we stopped. We gazed at Bow Lake, fed by one of the eight glaciers descending from the Wapta Icefield, and at pyramidal 10,850-foot Mount Chephren. We hiked Banff National Park’s Parker Ridge Trail (3.4 miles round-trip) through fossil beds to catch views of the Saskatchewan Glacier. And after what seemed like infinite turns of the cranks, our quadriceps were even more appreciative of these frequent respites than our scenery-tweaked necks.—B.R.

DETAILS: The Jasper National Park Information Center (780-852-6176, ) provides national parks camping information. Backroads (800-462-2848, ) leads a six-day cycling trip, with accommodations in lodges, for $2,298.

New Park
Don Getty Wildland Provincial Park
Alberta
Avoid the Banff crowds at 155,115-acre Don Getty, nestled among south-central Alberta’s classic parks. A five-mile climb to Forget-Me-Not Ridge is rewarded with views of 11,000-foot peaks.—P. V.

DETAILS: 403-591-6322,

Slave River & High Arctic Lodge

Whitewater Kayaking
Slave River
Northwest Territories
Trying to catch the biggest river wave you’ve ever seen in front of ten pro kayakers is like trying to catch Lance on a breakaway, so I did my best to look casual as I floated stern-first toward The Edge—a 15-foot-high curler. When I found myself actually carving down the face of this monster, my stoic veneer gave way to unhinged glee. I wasn’t throwing donkey flips like I’d just seen the pros execute, but this was the most exhilarating surfing of my life.

Still, the pros and I did have something in common: We’d all come to the Slave River, in the heart of the boreal forests of the Northwest Territories, for epic playboating. Consider this: The Slave’s monthly flows peak, in June, at almost 200,000 cubic feet per second—more than six times the peak monthly flows of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. And on its 258-mile course from the northern Alberta prairie to Great Slave Lake, the Slave creates a 17-mile playboating stretch, home to four enormous Class I–VI rapids, each one several miles long. Dozens of pink granite islands dot each rapid, forming hundreds of channels, countless drop-pool rapids, and nearly every kind of river running imaginable. Rumors of this smorgasbord of liquid delights have begun to circulate among boaters, but 100 paddlers per summer would still qualify as a busy season on the Slave. And with the bonus of nearly endless subarctic sunlight, roll-savvy Class III intermediates on up through Class V hucksters can paddle till their arms fall off.

A river that takes nearly an hour to ferry across has myriad places you don’t want to be—hire a guide to ensure that your intended Class III wave train isn’t actually a Class Death sousehole. Book Keith Morrison, who knows the surf stashes intimately and runs Slave Kayak Lodge, a cluster of five guest tepees and a log cabin overlooking the river. After you ditch your wet duds at day’s end, there’s a wood-fired hot tub all warmed up and bison steaks on the grill.—Sam Bass
DETAILS: A weeklong package at the Slave Kayak Lodge (866-588-3278, ), which holds up to eight people, starts at $1,000 per person, including meals.

Solitude Seeking
High Arctic Lodge
Nunavut
There’s no hyperbole in the name High Arctic Lodge. Three hundred miles above the Arctic Circle on Nunavut’s Victoria Island, the bright-red cabins have room for only 12 people, guaranteeing a low-impact, high-solitude vacation.

Spend your days looking for polar bears or hiking through the tundra to ancient tent rings left by the Inuit. Bring a rod (or rent one) and fish nearby Hadley Bay, where many a guest has landed a 25-pound arctic char. A flightseeing tour over the Arctic Ocean is a must: Watch icebergs slough off the edge of the polar ice cap. Take a closer look by canoeing the Nanook River, a calm ribbon of fresh water.—T.N.

DETAILS: Seven-night packages at High Arctic Lodge (800-661-3880, ) start at $3,695 per person.

Treeline Lodge, Killarney Park, & Payne River Fishing Camp

Lake Fishing
Treeline Lodge
Manitoba
When I want to see envy plastered on the faces of my fishing pals, I mention that I’m heading to Treeline Lodge, on Nueltin Lake in the roadless Manitoba wilderness, to land trout and pike longer than my legs on a body of water that’s longer than the drive from Tampa to Orlando. There’s no better lake than Nueltin for catching northern pike and lake trout, and there’s no better lodge than Treeline from which to launch a fishing expedition. The log outpost and its surrounding clapboard cabins sit atop a sand esker 230 miles from the nearest road. It’s so remote that it has its own private airstrip and flies its guests in every four days via turboprop from Winnipeg.

Treeline’s registered guides are among the country’s best, and in 1978 it instituted a catch-and-release policy (everyone fishes with single barbless hooks to facilitate the release of fish, unharmed, although keeping a five-pound or smaller fish for daily shore lunch is permitted), making Nueltin the first lake in Canada with such a distinction.

After a day fighting pike, anglers can return to private cabins for a shower before gathering at the lodge. First, cocktails are served around a blaze in the stone fireplace, the warmth enhanced by floor-to-ceiling lake views and the wolf-and-bearskin-rug decor. Then there’s roast turkey or grilled steak for dinner. Afterward, most visitors choose to wind down the way I do: lounging on the deck and basking in the memory of the day’s action while watching the faint glow of a sun that never sets. —Ken Schultz

DETAILS: The cost for a five-day trip is $1,964 per person (all-inclusive) from Winnipeg. Treeline Lodge (800-361-7177, ) also runs three self-guided mini lodges on Nueltin and Shannon lakes ($1,510 for five days).

New Park
Killarney Provincial Park
Ontario
Ontario’s hottest expedition-kayaking spot may soon almost double in size, but you don’t have to wait: A $7.50 permit gives you access to Killarney, as well as about 74,000 acres of surrounding public lands that officials hope to add to the park soon. Put in at the George Lake campground, then explore 40 interconnected lakes and the thousands of islands scattered around Lake Huron.—P.V.

DETAILS: 705-287-2900,

Char Fishing
Payne River Fishing Camp
Quebec
Almost 1,000 miles north of Montreal, you’ll find Ungava Bay, home to some of the most plentiful arctic char in the world. After flying to Kuujjuaq, board a Twin Otter for the 45-minute flight to the Payne River Fishing Camp, a four-cabin spread with a lodge overlooking the tundra.

Your Inuit guides will show you to Payne Bay Fjord, where low tides improve your chances of landing a lunker. Nearby Payne River is the ideal spot to motor out in the lodge’s 24-foot freighter canoe and test your angling skills against the native brookies. Spend your sun-filled nights watching herds of caribou before crashing in an oil-heated cabin.—T. N.

DETAILS: Arctic ���ϳԹ���s (800-465-9474, ) runs six-night trips for $4,350 (including flight from Montreal).

Reserve Faunique des Chic-Chocs, Jacquet River Gorge, Bonaventure River, & Gros Morne Park

New Park
Réserve Faunique des Chic-Chocs
Quebec
The 3,000-foot Chic-Chocs are more than just fun to say: They’re some of eastern Canada’s highest mountains. Spot moose and other megafauna or fish for trout in this 278,982-acre reserve. —P. V.

DETAILS: 800-665-6527,

New Park
Jacquet River Gorge Protected Natural Area
New Brunswick
The Jacquet River cuts a 200-foot-deep ravine through the hills close to New Brunswick’s northeastern coast. Access salmon-filled streams and Jacquet River whitewater from wilderness campsites in the 64,312-acre park. —P. V.

DETAILS:

Canoeing
Bonaventure River
New Brunswick
“Ah, tabernac,” I swore, as my boat pinballed its way down the snaky headwaters of the Bonaventure River at the end of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. It had been less than an hour since the put-in, and already I was ricocheting off rocks and spinning 360s in my solo canoe. “Tricky little devil, eh?” said Claude, one of the two French-Canadian brothers who were my guides. “Look there,” he said, pointing. “An eagle.”

Sure enough, a bald eagle with a wingspan the length of my paddle was glaring at me from a stump. I swear the bird cackled when, in the nanosecond I took my eyes off the river to watch it take flight, I was whipped over the gunwales. The next thing I knew, I was bobbing boatless through Class III froth. They don’t call it the Bonaventure, or “Good ���ϳԹ���,” for nothing.

In the six days it took to paddle 76 miles to Chaleur Bay, we passed 12 other humans: seven fishermen and five paddlers. The Bonaventure’s eerie timelessness makes you half expect to see tepee settlements from 16th-century Micmac Indians lining the shore.

The river lacks the things that can turn canoe trips into heinous nightmares: mosquitoes, portages, and hypothermic weather. But it still proffers enough of the raw elements—icy whitewater, old-growth forests, and guides who stand up in their boats while navigating the fray.

Other than my clumsy canoe exit, the only catastrophe was losing four bottles of chilling chardonnay to the swift current. The loss would have put a dent in cocktail hour, but Ulysse, the other brother, pulled out a bottle of cognac left over from the chocolate flambé he’d prepared earlier. “You gotta have that French taste on this of all rivers,” he said, winking.—Stephanie Pearson

DETAILS: Quebec ���ϳԹ���s (888-678-3232, ) runs six-day canoe trips on the Bonaventure from May to early July for $995 per person.

Hiking
Gros Morne National Park
Newfoundland
We had set up camp at dusk and gone in search of water when both of our flashlights went dead. Anywhere else, this would have been a mundane incident, but we were in western Newfoundland, where the spruce forest blotted out the remaining light like death itself. Our situation felt forbidding. It felt Arctic.

Forbidding had not been part of the plan. My boyfriend and I had come to 697-square-mile Gros Morne National Park strictly to relax, spending four days toodling around the slopes of Gros Morne, Newfoundland’s second-highest peak. After we’d stumbled around through the dark for less than an hour, a man carrying a flashlight, a cooler, and an umbrella came whistling toward us. He gave us his spare batteries and then disappeared into the night.

The next day, we continued into the waist-high mosaic of springy conifers. The place was strung with lakes. Lakes fringed with raspberry and blueberry bushes. Lakes with moose thrashing and bellowing in the shallows. Lakes with woodland caribou grazing quietly on the shore.

We climbed the rocky, well-marked Gros Morne Mountain Trail toward the shoulder of 2,644-foot Gros Morne, pausing when an arctic hare the size of a terrier hurtled toward me. Clearing the shoulder, we saw the park’s famous Long Range: green-topped plateaus edged by cliffs that plunge 2,000 feet into freshwater fjords.

While the rest of the Long Range is gray granite and gneiss, Gros Morne is rose-colored quartzite. The light was pink and ancient; the cairns marking the trail looked like early Christian crosses. We crunched slowly across the rock, as awed and quiet as monks.—Lisa Jones

DETAILS: Gros Morne ���ϳԹ���s (800-685-4624, ) runs hiking and sea-kayaking trips in Gros Morne National Park (709-458-2066, ).

The post The Bounty Up North appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

DESPITE THE NORTH PACIFIC storms circling off the coast like jets in a holding pattern, our guide, Gord Pincock, is doing his best to see us through our eight-day kayak expedition in British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands, also known as Haida Gwaii. For the past three days, six of us paddlers from the United States and Japan, plus Pincock and his assistant, Suzane Couture, have been pinned down on a sheltered beach waiting for a weather window to open and let us continue to SGang Gwaay, an island at the southwestern tip of the 180-island archipelago. SGang Gwaay was named for the sighing sound made when 40-foot storm surf rolls across a reef, but this is a wonder that Pincock, who has been paddling in Haida Gwaii for half his life, doesn’t want us to experience—this and something called “clapitus.”

Haida Gwaii’s Rose Harbor: summertime population: 6

Clapitus, he tells us, occurs when a large wave bounces off a cliff face and collides with the wave behind it, turning the sea into an aqueous trash compactor. It is hell on small craft: A 20-foot wave rebounding off a wall will head back to sea as a ten-footer, but when it butts heads with the next 20-footer the two will merge into a mountain of confused hydropower. The feeling aroused in the paddler as this bastard child of fluid dynamics first buries him and then sends him free-falling into the trough is, at best, one of exhilarated consternation, and at worst one of cotton-mouthed terror. The problem with clapitus is that it doesn’t stop. It runs its violent routine over and over again, until you flee far enough offshore or battle through it into a safe harbor.
Pincock, a solid, agile, ruddy-faced 38-year-old British Columbia native, first encountered clapitus on a scale he had previously experienced only in a recurring nightmare. “The swell was 30 feet,” he explained as we gathered around the campfire at a deserted Haida village site on Kunghit Island about five miles north of SGang Gwaay. “The mountains, the color of the sky—everything—was exactly as it had been in my dream. I was thinking to myself, ‘This time, you’ve really done it.'” Exhausted, seasick, and terrified, Pincock suddenly found himself surrounded by porpoises. Buoyed by the encounter, he surfed and submarined his way into the cove he’d been looking for. “Once I made landfall,” he said, “I didn’t leave my campsite again for five days.”


Lying 50 miles off the B.C. coast and 40 miles south of the Alaska border, Haida Gwaii resembles a disembodied wing flying west into the Pacific Ocean. We’re paddling the southern end of this chain, through Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. Nearly 5,000 people live on Haida Gwaii, and just less than half of them are directly descended from the islands’ original inhabitants, the Haida people, a tribe of seafaring warriors whose ferocity, mobility, and naval daring have drawn comparisons to the Vikings.


The Haida’s reputation isn’t well known south of the border, but their canoes, longhouses, and cedar totem poles represent a high point in North American art. It is because of these poles—the Angkor Wat of the Pacific Northwest—that we wait so patiently for a shot at SGang Gwaay. Cedar is exceptionally durable, but in Haida Gwaii—essentially a moated rainforest clinging to the shoulders of the snowcapped Queen Charlotte Mountains—a typical pole stands only about 150 years before it falls over and is consumed by moss. SGang Gwaay’s village of SGang Gwaay ‘Ilnagaay (aka Ninstints) contains the most famous and most intact of these poles—more than two dozen still stand—and the island has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


The Haida have survived against all odds, despite having their numbers reduced in the late 1800s from more than 10,000 to fewer than 600 in one generation of warfare and a biological holocaust of smallpox and influenza that came with the fur traders. As the Haida’s numbers have rebounded to about 2,000, so has their art of pole carving. Six poles were raised in the village of Skidegate on Graham Island in 2000, and dozens more have been carved since the Haida began the monumental task of cultural reclamation initiated by native artists in the fifties and sixties.


In 1985, after a long battle that pitted logging interests and the B.C. government against a coalition of Haida and other concerned preservation and environmental groups, Gwaii Haanas was made into a 138-island national park preserve. As such, it has been saved from the clear-cut logging that has razed forests in much of northern Haida Gwaii. In the park, the forest primeval still grows unchecked. There are cedars roomy enough to live in and spruce trees with more than a thousand growth rings. The deer and black bears, not to mention the killer whales, seals, and sea lions, have little fear of humans. There are no trails and no signs. In Gwaii Haanas, it is clear that nature rules and you are only a visitor. It’s an easy place to disappear.


If anything goes wrong out here, there is no cell-phone coverage, and many areas are blind to radio reception altogether. To get to Rose Harbour, the site of an abandoned whaling station on Kunghit Island at the southern end of the park, where Pincock keeps his kayaks, we flew from Vancouver to Sandspit, in the northern part of the Queen Charlottes, then traveled in a van 20 miles over logging roads, followed by more than 100 miles in a Zodiac. A friend who made the trip on a rough day said, “It was like sitting in front of a fire hose for four hours.” At that point, the journey has only just begun.

The British Columbia way: a centuries-old spruce on Moresby Island

ROSE HARBOUR IS AN odd place. The first thing that catches your eye in the sheltered cove is a pair of rusting boilers once used for rendering blubber from sperm, gray, and humpback whales. Closer inspection reveals a rocky beach littered with bone fragments and shards of metal from exploding harpoons. Beyond this wreckage are the furnaces. Until the 1940s, Rose Harbour had been a slaughter ground for whales. Today its calm waters feel like a sanctuary.

Only a handful of white people live in the village now, those who went back to the land in the seventies and stayed. In 1978, a small consortium of them bought 166 acres on Kunghit Island and homesteaded. The Rose Harbour Whaling Company, as the group is called, predates the creation of Gwaii Haanas and owns the only private land within park boundaries. Only six people remain.
The land and sea provide most of what Rose Harbourites need, but money for the outboard, the radio phone, and the children’s clothes has to come from somewhere. As the watery path to Haida Gwaii is taken by more tourists, Rose Harbour has turned increasingly to a service economy: If you need a shower, a room, a kayak, or a meal, Rose Harbour has it all.

Because of the manic-depressive weather, kayakers paddle these waters the way a mouse negotiates a kitchen patrolled by cats, darting furtively from one hiding place to another. It requires considerable patience—something that three days under a wind-battered, rain-beaten tarp will test. Witnessing a bald eagle execute a flawless barrel roll is a wonderful reward for being still, but not enough to keep restlessness from driving me into the freezing water—suitless and maskless—to dive for sea urchins.

On the fourth day the wind dies down enough to allow us across Houston Stewart Channel, the southern gateway to SGang Gwaay. We paddle five miles around the south end of Moresby Island through dense fog. We might as well be paddling through clouds. There is no other sound but the rhythmic dipping of paddles and the muffled roar of the surf breaking up on Adams Rocks a mile away. These moss-covered rocks are all that lie between us and SGang Gwaay. At the end of Louscoone Inlet, a craggy, tree-lined cove, we spot five of the largest and rarest birds in Haida Gwaii: sandhill cranes. Even Pincock has never seen so many in one place. It’s deemed a good omen and we camp there.

The skies clear during the night, and the following morning, squinting in the unfamiliar sunshine, we pack the kayaks for the one-and-a-half-mile paddle to SGang Gwaay. Today the sea is glassy and the waters around Adams Rocks seethe quietly as puffins hurtle back and forth like bumblebees on speed.

Circumnavigating SGang Gwaay, we feel the Pacific swell beneath us, but it’s only four to six feet today. We tie off to knobs of bull kelp and fish for greenling, rock cod, and maybe a salmon.

Today, the Haida sites are guarded during the summer by an organization called the Haida Watchmen, whose job it is to make sure they are treated in a respectful manner. It’s considered an honor, particularly for the watchmen who guard Ninstints. The village was evacuated in the late 1800s after smallpox wiped out all but 30 people. Nearly half the remaining poles here are fire-scarred because, according to local legend, once the village had been reduced to a mass grave, members of an enemy coastal tribe braved Hecate Strait, the shallow, storm-prone channel that separates the islands from the mainland, and set fire to the village in an act of posthumous revenge. In the 1950s, anthropologists carted off many of the finest surviving poles; you can find them today in museums around the world.

On this sunny August afternoon we look at what collectors and time have left behind. Bleached like bones, the fixed and staring faces of eagles, ravens, killer whales, frogs, bears, and beavers—heraldic crests of the previous inhabitants—gaze back at us from a forest of 40-foot poles. Their deftly carved features are exaggerated and intimidating: Tongues loll, nostrils flare, teeth are bared, but these expressions seem more the effects of rigor mortis than of the ferocity of life; this is a place of ghosts.

Back at our camp on Louscoone Inlet, a culture away, two doctors—an uncle and nephew from the States—discuss the relative merits of kayaking and motoring. Marty, the uncle, waxes eloquent on the joys of paddling, while his nephew, Jay, extols the virtues of the BassMaster motor. The uncle counters with the cardiovascular benefits of paddling for yourself. “Frankly,” says the nephew, “I’d just as soon go to the gym for two hours and then jump on my Jet Ski.” You can almost see the lightbulb go off: “That’s it! I’ll bring a Jet Ski up here. Then I could see everything.”

Pincock is listening to all this—it is impossible not to because we are sitting in the midst of a profound, Edenic silence. He crouches down to stir a pot on the fire. “It wouldn’t be worth the trouble,” he says, chuckling mirthlessly. “You’d be dodging too many bullets.”

Alone Among the Dunes

The Canadian Sahara can be reached by floatplane, but it’s way more fun getting there by boat

Saskatchewan's Fond du Lac River

THE SECOND TIME I RUN into Jean Graham, she still thinks I’m crazy. After five hours in a van dodging semi trucks freshly loaded with radioactive yellowcake from the uranium mine at the end of northern Saskatchewan’s Highway 905, I am once again at her dilapidated oasis of gas and essentials where river meets road. The last time I was here, three years ago, I had arrived by canoe. Five college-bound teenagers and I had just muscled 50 miles up the Johnson River, and Jean, the 53-year-old owner of the Johnson River Lodge, was amazed—she had never, ever heard of anyone ascending the waterfall-riddled Johnson. I explained we had 300 more miles to paddle, and that a ride 20 miles north to the Wollaston Lake bridge would help tremendously. She was shocked, but handed me the keys to her pickup truck, telling me to just leave it at the river; construction workers would drive it back. This is northern Canada: Dishonest people neither live nor travel here.

The second time around, she’s less surprised. Our shuttle driver needs gas. “You’re doing what?” Jean asks as we fuel up and John Stoddard, my paddling partner, wanders about the ramshackle compound of cabins, old cars, and odd hunks of metal. “We’re headed to Lake Athabasca…” I begin. “By canoe? This time of year?” she interrupts, rolling her eyes. “You really are nuts.”

It’s early September and the leaves have already turned orange, but we’re planning to canoe nearly 330 miles in less than a month. We’ll start at Hidden Bay, paddle across Wollaston Lake, run the Class I-III rapids of the 170-mile Fond du Lac River, and then head west into Lake Athabasca. There, stretching 60 miles along the southern shore, lies our goal: the surreal desertscape of Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Wilderness Park, one of the most northerly sets of major dunes in the world. No roads lead to them, and the handful of park visitors reach them by chartering a floatplane. I’ve been paddling canoes with John, a full-time NOLS instructor and part-time carpenter, since we were kids growing up in Wisconsin; between us we’ve logged more than 250 days on remote Canadian waters. The route is straightforward, and with 150 pounds of food, seven pounds of French-press coffee, a slew of books, and several bottles of scotch, we are well provisioned.

We don’t expect to start drinking and reading so early on, but the morning of day two, four-foot waves on 100-mile-long Wollaston Lake force us to crash-land on a tiny speck of reindeer moss and granite. Twenty-four hours later, the weather breaks, and we safely reach the headwaters of the Fond du Lac River. Flowing in and out of shallow lakes, the river follows a fault line between hard granite and soft sandstone formations through roadless, boreal-forested crown land.

Only a handful of people have ever paddled this river. Revered canoeing author Sig Olsen wrote of his 1963 trip, “If this place, I thought, should ever become a national park, the scene might become world famous.” Fortunately, it hasn’t. Except for evidence of the Chipewyan and other tribes who have lived here for centuries—a few well-used campsites and the odd trapper’s cabin—the river is almost exactly as it was in 1796 when Canadian explorer David Thompson and two Déné guides ran it for the first time. They almost perished lining up what is now called Thompson Rapids.

Our experience at Thompson is not so dramatic. We portage the first four-foot drop, then decide to take our chances with the rest of the Class III rapids. Despite my frantic draws, we plow into a series of standing waves that knock my paddle out of my hands. I manage to recover it, and just downstream we reach Manitou Falls, where we sign the unofficial registry—a notebook in a rusted-out coffee can lodged in a rock cairn with a handful of entries dating back to the 1970s.

We paddle on. Days blend together and we settle into familiar patterns. Then, as is the case with many expeditions, variables beyond our control take over. Northwesterly winds and an annoying mishap (I fall and fracture a tooth while scouting a rapid) delay us. To ensure our safe and timely arrival at the dunes, we leapfrog a short section of Lake Athabasca by floatplane, which we find at Stony Rapids, a Fond du Lac settlement and one of the only towns for hundreds of miles.

By any measure, Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Wilderness Park is a strange place. Imagine a small Sahara Desert on a desolate Caribbean coastline. Now remove the palm trees and add a conifer-forested, subarctic environment inhabited by moose, bears, and wolves. Finally, plop it all down on the shore of a massive lake. Local legend has it that a presumed-dead beaver, tossed there by a giant, formed the dunes by kicking up sand. In reality, the 8,000-year-old dunes are the result of retreating glaciers, northerly winds, wave action, and forest fires. They ripple snakelike across the landscape, towering hundreds of feet above the William River, one of two major waterways that flow into Lake Athabasca.

We begin battling with the lake on the western edge of the park. To reach our floatplane pickup on the MacFarlane River in 12 days, we will have to paddle 60 miles along the southern shoreline, camping on the beach as we go. Paddling on Lake Athabasca is a bumpy, touch-and-go affair. Its massive size (3,120 square miles—roughly as large as Rhode Island and Delaware combined) and lack of sheltered bays or islands allow Arctic-born storms to pummel the shallow, exposed southern shore.

Our drill is to wake early, check the weather, and decide if we should carve through the surf and get soaked or remain on the beach and stay dry. Often the decision is easy and we lie low, exploring the dunes by foot. Because the park is only ten years old and hard to reach, traces of humans are rare. Broad expanses of desert pavement, a delicate carpet of pebbles on which a footprint will remain for decades, often detour us.

As we poke our way down the coast, winter begins to arrive and snow flurries become more frequent. We jury-rig our tarp and sail for an afternoon, celebrating John’s 28th birthday with the last of the scotch and a perfectly baked devil’s food cake. We arrive at our pickup a few days early with barely enough food. But we don’t want to leave. The simplicity of life on the trail has finally overtaken us and we are just learning how to enjoy the big lake. Midafternoon on our last day, a pack of wolves rambles by only a hundred yards away. They howl, then pause for a long look at us before disappearing. We understand. We are in their backyard, and it is time to move on.

Canadian Bounty

Don’t miss out on this trio of premier paddling adventures

The Sluice Box along the Nahanni River

MAIN RIVER, NEWFOUNDLAND
Officially designated as a Canadian Heritage River last year, the 36-mile Main slices through Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula—a pristine wilderness of tundra, old-growth boreal forests, and grasslands. The first half is technical Class II-III whitewater. The grand finale is a nail-biter through a 14-mile, steep-cliffed gorge. The salmon fishing, black bear, moose, and caribou sightings, and frequent stops for scouting and portaging easily turn running the Main into a weeklong wilderness adventure.
SEASON: May and June.
DO-IT-YOURSELF: To reach the headwaters you must charter a floatplane (about $330 for two people and a canoe). Contact Parks and Natural Areas of Newfoundland & Labrador for permits, regulations, and services: 800-563-6353; . Guided Trips: Eastern Edge Kayak ���ϳԹ���s (709-782-5925; ) offers an eight-day trip for $760 per person.

SOUTH NAHANNI RIVER, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Tumbling through Nahanni National Park Reserve, the Class II-III South Nahanni River offers Grand Canyon thrills in an alpine tundra setting. In the shadow of the toothy 5,000-foot Mackenzie Mountains, the Nahanni snakes through 4,000-foot canyons and past fields of rare orchids. With highlights like 297-foot Virginia Falls (almost twice the height of Niagara Falls), numerous hot springs, and extensive cave systems, it’s no surprise the park was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
SEASON: Early July to late August.
DO-IT-YOURSELF: The 220-mile canoe trip from Rabbitkettle Lake to the Liard River takes about two weeks. Reservations and registration are required; call Nahanni National Park Reserve (867-695-3151).
GUIDED TRIPS: Nahanni Wilderness ���ϳԹ���s (888-897-5223; ) runs a raft-assisted canoe trip from Rabbitkettle Lake to the Liard River ($2,088 per person).
WABAKIMI WILDERNESS PARK, ONTARIO
Ontario’s 1.1-million-acre Quetico Provincial Park is a well-loved destination among avid wilderness canoeists. But double its size and remove 99 percent of the people, and you’ve got Wabakimi Wilderness Park, just 200 miles north of the Quetico. Established in 1983—and expanded sixfold in 1997—the park is rugged, remote, and accessible only by train, floatplane, or canoe. Including adjacent provincial wilderness parks, Wabakimi offers almost seven million acres of interconnected lakes and rivers, making it the largest wilderness-canoeing destination in the world.
SEASON: Late May to early September.
DO-IT-YOURSELF: A classic multiday trip down the Class II – IV Allanwater River and across various lakes begins with serious rapids and ends with placid water. The two-hour train ride in and floatplane out cost around $300 per person (canoe transport included). For information on permits call the park at 807-475-1634.
GUIDED TRIPS: For rental equipment and guided-trip information, contact Wabakimi WildWaters Canoe Outfitters (807-767-2022; ).

Lord of Your Own Fjord

Arctic pleasures in Newfoundland’s wet and wild Gros Morne National Park

Beachfront seclusion along Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park

WE HAD SET UP CAMP at dusk and gone in search of water when both of our flashlights went dead. Anywhere else, this would have been a mundane enough incident, but we were in western Newfoundland, where the spruce forest blotted out the remaining light like death itself. Our situation felt forbidding. It felt Arctic.

Forbidding had not been part of the plan. My boyfriend and I had come to 772-square-mile Gros Morne National Park strictly to relax, and that afternoon we’d loaded up on chocolate chips and declared our desire to spend four days toodling around the slopes of Gros Morne, Newfoundland’s second-highest peak and the park’s centerpiece. We chose the well-marked James Callaghan Trail, a ten-mile round-trip.

After less than an hour of stumbling through the dark, Gros Morne served us its first bit of odd grace: A man carrying a flashlight, a cooler, and an umbrella came whistling toward us. He gave us his spare batteries and disappeared into the blackness.

The next day, we continued into the waist-high mosaic of springy conifers locally called tuckamore. The place was strung with lakes. Lakes fringed with raspberry and blueberry bushes. Lakes with moose thrashing and bellowing in the shallows. Lakes with woodland caribou grazing quietly on the shore like the polite Canadians they are.

We climbed the rocky trail toward the shoulder of 2,644-foot Gros Morne and entered a misplaced slice of the Arctic. The frigid currents off Newfoundland keep temperatures low enough that animal residents of intemperate spots like Baffin Island make this their southernmost home. An arctic hare the size of a collie hurtled toward me. Clearing the shoulder, we saw the park’s famous Long Range: green-topped plateaus edged by cliffs that plunge 2,000 feet into deep-blue freshwater fjords. Although some of these waterways are ten miles long and 500 feet deep, park officials are quick to point out they aren’t technically fjords, because their water isn’t salty.

On the mountain’s cloud-shrouded uppermost reaches, the mood was funereal. While the rest of the Long Range is gray granite and gneiss, Gros Morne is rose-colored quartzite. The light was pink and ancient, somehow dim and bright at the same time. The cairns marking the trail looked like early Christian crosses. We crunched slowly across the rock, as awed and quiet as monks.

Lunkers Lurk Here

Casting for big ones at Treeline Lodge on remote Nueltin Lake

This way to paradise: a dock at Nueltin Fly-In Lodge

WHEN I WANT TO see envy plastered on the faces of my fishing pals, I mention that I’m heading to Treeline Lodge on Nueltin Lake in the roadless Manitoba wilderness to catch trout and pike longer than my legs—on a body of water that’s longer than the drive from Los Angeles to San Diego. Then I add that the last time I went fishing on Nueltin I hooked a small pike and was about to land it when a monster fish appeared, chomping the smaller one sideways like a shark. In the ensuing pandemonium, the piscine beast released the tiny fish to attack my lure. After running around the bay, it streaked past the boat, where the guide deftly intercepted it with the net. Together we hoisted the three-foot-long pike into the boat, drenching ourselves with spray.

There’s no better place than Nueltin Lake for catching northern pike and lake trout, and there’s no better lodge than Treeline from which to launch a fishing expedition. The log outpost and its surrounding clapboard cabins sit atop a sand esker 300 miles from the nearest road. It’s so remote that it has its own private airstrip and flies its guests in each Saturday via charter jet from Winnipeg.

Sure, Canada has its share of outback fishing lodges, but Treeline is one of the few facilities that replaces the motors on its boats every year, and its registered Chipewyan and Cree guides are among the country’s best. In 1978 it instituted a catch-and-release policy (everyone fishes with single barbless hooks to facilitate the unharmed release of fish, although keeping a five-pound or smaller fish for daily shore lunch is permitted), making Nueltin the first lake in Canada with such a distinction.

After a day fighting pike, anglers can return to private, heated cabins for a shower before gathering at the lodge. First, cocktails are served around a blaze in the stone fireplace, the warmth enhanced by floor-to-ceiling lake views and the wolf-and-bearskin-rug decor. Then there’s roast turkey, prime rib, or grilled steak for dinner. Afterward, guests can check e-mail or catch up on the news, thanks to a stealthy satellite connection, or head into the midnight sun to hit a few golf balls on the lodge’s driving range. But most visitors choose to wind down the way I do: lounging on the deck and basking in the memory of the day’s action while watching the faint glow from a sun that never sets.

Summer Splashdown

Get your feet wet in these undiscovered playgrounds

Isle Bonaventure Gaspe in Quebec

With more than 169 million acres of protected land, 12 times the coastline of the United States, and about two million lakes, Canada’s park system is one of the biggest and wettest on the planet. Despite its largesse, our good neighbor’s national and provincial park system is still growing. Here are a few of our favorite recent additions.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
By late 2002 (barring any bureaucratic snafus), British Columbia will be home to 14,579-acre Gulf Islands National Park, which will gather several existing parks under one umbrella, increasing the protected area by about 50 percent. To experience this surprisingly Mediterranean climate, gather seven friends and charter a stately 46-foot yacht for a week of swimming with harbor seals, diving in search of rare six-gill sharks, and sailing among the 14 scabrous islands.
OUTFITTER: Cooper Boating (888-999-6419; ).
PRICE: weekly charter for eight costs $3,100, crew not included.
The new Stikine River Provincial Park in northwestern British Columbia combines with Mount Edziza and Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Parks to form a 2.7-million-acre paddling extravaganza. One 12-day trip starts in Smithers, where you take a seaplane to Happy Lake in Spatsizi. Then canoe west for five days along the upper Stikine toward a hot meal and warm bed in your own small log cabin at Laslui Lake Lodge. From there return to the river for seven days of whitewater canoeing.
OUTFITTER: Spatsizi Wilderness Vacations (866-847-9692; ).
PRICE: $1,800 per person.

NUNAVUT
It’s three times the size of Texas but has fewer people than Northampton, Massachusetts. Auyuittuq (say “I-you-we-took”) and Quttinirpaaq (just say it fast) were both raised to national park status in April 1999 when Nunavut became Canada’s third territory. The two parks, totaling 14 million acres, offer mountain and tundra hiking across roaring glacial streams. Nunavut will soon add five or six more territorial parks, not to mention an additional 4.7-million-acre national park, Wager Bay, north of Hudson Bay, where polar sea kayaking is the sport of choice. The 5.4-million-acre Sirmilik National Park, on the northern tip of Baffin Island, certainly falls into the “untouched” category, and is another spot to sea kayak through deep fjords, then stretch your legs hiking and exploring hidden lakes.
OUTFITTER: Polar Sea ���ϳԹ���s (867-899-8870; ).
PRICE: $1,775 per person.

ONTARIO
Not to be outdone by its backwoods brothers, Ontario will add 61 new provincial parks this year. The Great Lakes Heritage Coast will stretch across 1,800 miles of Lake Superior and Lake Huron coastline, protecting 2.7 million acres from Thunder Bay to Port Severn. Sea kayak the remotest stretch, a 118-mile, 14-day paddle from Hattie Cove to Michipicoten Bay. En route, hike up to the base of 100-foot Dennison Falls, a favorite hideaway of Canadian paddling legend Bill Mason.
OUTFITTER: Naturally Superior ���ϳԹ���s (800-203-9092; ).
PRICE: $1,200 per person.

QUEBEC
Quebec has bolstered its already bountiful outdoor cachet by adding three new parks in two years: Parc National des Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie, Parc National de Plaisance, and the 141,344-acre Parc National d’Anticosti, at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. Sea kayak along 300-foot limestone cliffs on the northern shore of Anticosti Island, and look for blue, fin, humpback, and minke whales. All park activities are run by Sépaq, the province’s government parks division.
OUTFITTER: Sépaq (800-665-6527; ).
PRICE: $1,000 per person.
—Ryan Brandt and Dan Strumpf

Waterworld North

Mapping Canada’s Coolest Spots:

West Coast Sea Kayaking

1: Gwaii Hannas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site


Canoeing the Far North

2: Wollaston Lake
3: Fond du lac River
4: Athabasca Dans Dunes Provinvial Wilderness Park


More Premier Canoe Trips

5: Nahanni National Park Reserve
6: Wabakimi Wilderness Park
7: Main River


Backpacking Out East

8: Gros Morne National Park


Fly-Fishing Manitoba

9: Nueltin Lake


Canada’s Newest Parks:



British Columbia

10: Gulf Islands
11: Stikine River Provincial Park
12: Mount Edziza Provincial Park
13: Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park


Nunavut

14: Auyuittuq National Park
15: Quttinirpaaq National Park
16: Wager Bay National Park
17: Sirmilik Naitonal Park


Ontario

18: Great Lakes Heritage Coast


Quebec

19: Parc National des Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Riviére-Malbaie
20: Parc National de Plaisance
21: Parc National D’Anticosti

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Chilko River
Southern British Columbia
Twenty-three miles from its source, the relatively calm Chilko squeezes into 11-mile Lava Canyon and becomes a roller coaster full of towering waves, house-size hydraulics, and jagged boulders. The canyon's sheer walls prevent paddlers from scouting several Class IV-V rapids, making the run even more harrowing. Distance: 40 miles; 2 days Gradient: 50 feet per mile Season: June-August; best in August Do It Yourself: Put in at Chilko Lake; take out at Tsieko Junction. No permit required. Guided Trips: Chilko River Expeditions (250-398-6711) offers weekend raft trips ($300 per person) that include two runs through Lava Canyon.
Upper Youghiogheny River
Western Maryland
A run on the Upper Youghiogheny (known as the “Upper Yock”) begins in lush, wild-ginseng country with a peaceful, one-and-a-half-mile float. But don't get too relaxed: Once you hit Bastard Falls, the Yock rages, with more than 20 successive Class IV-V rapids that exhaust even expert rafters and kayakers. The real test: Miracle Mile, which drops 140 feet and ends in a maze of cabin-size boulders. Distance: 10 miles; 1 day Gradient: 114 feet per mile Season: April-October; best in May. Do It Yourself: Put in at Sang Run; take out in Friendsville. No permit required. Guided Trips: Precision Rafting (800-477-3723; www.precisionrafting.com) runs one-day trips for $105-$115 per person.

Easy Drifting

Labyrinth & Stillwater Canyons, Green River
Southeastern Utah
Your only concerns as the Green zigzags through the red rocks of Canyonlands National Park? Taking a few paddle strokes now and then—and admiring one jaw-dropping view after another. Distance: 120 miles; 6-8 days Gradient: 1.6 feet per mile Season: Year-round; best in September and October Do It Yourself: Put in at Green River State Park; take out at Spanish Bottom. For a permit (required) call Canyonlands National Park, 435-719-2313. Canyon Voyages ���ϳԹ��� Company (800-733-6007; www.canyon voyages.com) rents canoes and rafts for $32Ð$75 per day. Guided Trips: Moki Mac River Expeditions (800-284-7280; www.mokimac.com) runs six-day canoe and raft trips for $995 per person.

Eleven Point River
Southern Missouri
This Wild and Scenic River blows off most of its steam high in the Ozarks. By the time it reaches Thomasville, in a valley rimmed with dolomite and sandstone bluffs, it musters up little more than a few Class II riffles—perfect for an easy canoe or float trip through the Mark Twain National Forest and the Irish Wilderness. Distance: 35-44 miles; 4 days Gradient: 5 feet per mile Season: April-August; best in May Do It Yourself: Put in at Thomasville or Cane Bluff; take out at Missouri 142. No permit required. Richard's Canoe Rental (417-778-6186) rents canoes for $35 per day. Guided Trips: Doug's Outdoor ���ϳԹ���s (616-468-5203 ) offers two- to five-day canoe trips for $135-$300 per person.
Grande Ronde River
Eastern Oregon
You can paddle this river in four easy days just by letting the gentle Class I-II current carry you from the Wallowa Mountains through Umatilla National Forest. But the riverside campsites—shaded by Douglas firs and carpeted with pine needles—are so cush you'll want to tie up your boat and dally at least a week. Distance: 46 miles; 4 days Gradient: 20 feet per mile Season: Year-round; best April-June Do It Yourself: Put in at the confluence of the Wallowa and Minam Rivers; take out in Troy. No permit required. The Minam Store (541-437-1111) rents rafts for $65 per day. Guided Trips: Little Creek Outfitters (541-963-7878; www.oregonrivers.com) runs four-day raft trips for $250 per person per day.

Expeditions

Nahanni River
Northwest Territories, Canada
Carve the Grand Canyon a bit deeper, plunk it down in Canada's Mackenzie Mountains, and you've pretty much got the Nahanni. The Class II-III route plunges past 5,000-foot mountains and through 4,000-foot canyons. Distance: 180 miles; 14 days Gradient: 8 feet per mile Season: June-early September; best in September Do It Yourself: Put in at Rabbitkettle Lake; take out at the Laird River. For a permit (required), call Nahanni National Park Reserve, 867-695-3151. Nahanni Wilderness ���ϳԹ���s (888-897-5223; www.nahanniwild .com) rents canoes for $21 per day. Guided Trips: Nahanni Wilderness ���ϳԹ���s runs 14-day canoe trips for $2,130 per person.

Noatak River
Northwestern Alaska
You'll likely see caribou and grizzlies—along with stranger-looking creatures like long-billed dowitchers and musk oxen—as you paddle the Class I-III Noatak from Gates of the Arctic National Park to the wetland tundra of Noatak National Preserve. Distance: 340 miles; 24 days Gradient: 13 feet per mile Season: June-early September; best in September Do It Yourself: Put in at Pingo Lake; take out at Noatak village. No permit required. Brooks Range Aviation (907-692-5444) rents canoes and rafts for $25Ð$50 per day and offers float-plane service to put-in and take-out points. Guided Trips: Equinox Wilderness Expeditions (877-615-9087) leads 24-day canoe trips for $3,600 per person.

Hayes River
Northeastern Manitoba
Think of the Hayes as a wide, meandering highway (with a few Class II-III rapids and a portage or two thrown in for good measure) through the vast boreal forest of the rocky Canadian Shield. About 50 miles before the river dumps into icy Hudson Bay, you'll start spotting playful ring seals. Distance: 225 miles; 14 days Gradient: 4.5 feet per mile Season: June-August; best in August Do It Yourself: Put in at Oxford Lake; take out at York Factory. No permit required. North River Outfitters (204-778-6979) rents canoes and kayaks for $20 per day. Guided Trips: Wilderness Spirit (204-774-2140, www.wildernessspirit.com) runs 14-day canoe trips for $2,750 per person.

One-Day Blasts

Cache la Poudre
North Central Colorado
Leave the fancy French pronunciation at home: Locals know this Class II-IV river, which twists and churns through a 2,000-foot gorge just north of Rocky Mountain National Park, as “The Pooder.” Duck as you race through the Class IV Death by Dismemberment. Distance: 19 miles; 1 day Gradient: 60 feet per mile Season: May-August; best in June Do It Yourself: Put in below Poudre Falls; take out at the Narrows picnic area on Colorado 14. No permit required. Poudre River Kayaks (970-484-8480; www.poudreriverkayaks.com) rents kayaks for $20 per day. Guided Trips: Rocky Mountain ���ϳԹ���s (800-858-6808, www.shoprma.com) runs one-day raft trips for $82 per person.

Tygart River
Central West Virginia
Thought waterfalls were only for adrenaline-crazed hair boaters? Not so. Spend a day on the Tygart and you'll get the hang of it. The Tygart's half-dozen four- to 15-foot-high waterfalls, all Class II-IV, are runnable in a kayak (all summer) or raft (May-July). Distance: 9 miles; 1 day Gradient: 27 feet per mile Season: May-August; best in June Do It Yourself: Put in two miles west of Arden; take out at Cove Run. No permit required. The Riversport School of Paddling (814-395-5744; www.shol.com/kayak) rents kayaks for $25 per day. Guided Trips: Wilderness Voyageurs (800-272-4141; www.wilderness-voyageurs.com) leads one-day raft or inflatable-kayak trips for $65 per person.
Dead River
Northwestern Maine
In May, there are about as many crashing waves on the Class III-IV Dead River as there are moose staring out from the forest along its banks. In June, when the waves shrink to shoulder height, beginners take inflatable kayaks and canoes all the way to the Kennebec River. Distance: 16 miles; 1 day Gradient: 20 feet per mile Season: May-early October; highest water in May Do It Yourself: Put in 23 miles west of U.S. 201; take out in West Forks. No permit required. Three Rivers Whitewater (207-663-2104) rents inflatable kayaks for $25 per day. Guided Trips: Unicorn Expeditions (800-864-2676; www.unicornraft.com) leads one-day raft trips for $79-$104 per person.

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CHURCHILL, MANITOBA, ATINRY PORT TOWN perched on the western edge of the Hudson Bay some 600 miles north of Winnipeg, bills itself the “Polar Bear Capital of the World.” And rightfully so. Each fall, hundreds of the white-furred beasts, and the thousands of tourists who come to see them, converge on this hardscrabble Canadian outpost and its 1,000 human residents. Growing up in Winnipeg, I’d heard about the bears and about Churchill’s rough side—the dockhand life, the visiting Soviet freighters and their hard-drinking crews. Only later did I find out about the natural beauty, and about Churchill’s long history as a crossroads of humans, animals, and ecosystems. It’s a place where native Cree longshoremen help Korean sailors load grain in the seaport and caribou and red foxes roam the tundra and taiga.

Tread lightly: Churchill’s fragile, technicolor tundra

In late spring and summer, you won’t find many polar bears—the icebreak deposits them farther down the coastline—or, consequently, many other visitors. What you will encounter are nearly 200 species of birds, including snow geese and eider ducks, in one of the Northern Hemisphere’s key flyways; flowering tundra; and pods of beluga whales—no shortage of thrill-seeking in Churchill while the bears are away.

Exploring Wapusk National Park

I’m here for a week to explore Churchill without its famous blanket of white. I get a good start the morning after I arrive, when I hitch a helicopter ride to Wapusk National Park, 35 miles southeast of town. Wapusk—nearly 4,500 square miles—is one of North America’s wildest places. From my hovering perch, I can see where the treeless tundra morphs into taiga—a thin boreal forest of stunted conifers, muskeg, ponds, and rivers. In Wapusk you could see an Arctic fox and a red fox, a ptarmigan and a spruce grouse, a caribou and a wolf, a polar bear and even the odd grizzly—all in one day.
But in the three and a half years since its founding, only a handful of people have visited. The reason? Wapusk (which means “white bear” in Cree) may be the most concentrated polar bear denning area anywhere; on average, one in three overnight visitors—of only about 200 per year—has an aggressive encounter. (A future general park plan, tentatively slated for summer 2001, could increase the number of outfitted trips to the park.)


So you might think twice about camping here, but provided you plan your trip carefully—namely, with the guidance of the park’s chief warden, Doug Clark—Wapusk is ripe for adventure. In early June, when the bears are still out on iced-over Hudson Bay, you can canoe the Class II-III, spruce-and-tamarack-fringed Owl River, where you’re likely to see kingfishers, wolverines, moose, and in its easternmost reaches, the occasional harbor seal. Or if you heli-hike the coastline, according to Clark, “caribou will walk right alongside you because they’ve never seen a human.”
I certainly didn’t see anyone when I was there.

Subarctic Snorkeling in Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay belugas

Now’s a good time, whispers my guide, Barbara Draper, a Winnipeg native who’s lived and worked in Churchill for the last decade. She smiles—perhaps a little too enthusiastically—as I brace myself for the 38-degree-Fahrenheit water. I clamp my snorkel onto my mask and slip over the side of the Zodiac in my titanium-lined, blubberesque wetsuit, tow rope in hand. Barbara revs up the boat and slowly accelerates, with me trailing face down.
As I’m towed—we’re hoping the boat’s movement will attract a nearby pod of whales for me to see—the ice-chilled waters of Hudson Bay torturously infiltrate my wetsuit. Small wonder, I muse, that each season only a few twisted souls give this a whirl.


First I hear them: Their calls range from whistling tea kettles to chattering monkeys to squealing tires—kind of like several Hollywood sound-effect CDs all at once. Yet I see nothing but a gray-green gloom. Then a plump torpedo of radiant white, maybe 14 feet long, shoots up from the depths on its back. In seconds a beluga is beneath me, close enough to make eye contact before it dives out of sight. Moments later a second beluga coyly approaches, veering away when yet another joins in.
For two hours we carry on, me and dozens of belugas from different pods, including a handful of slate-colored calves. When I finally flop back into the Zodiac, the cold water has frozen my mouth into a permagrin.

Tundra-Trekking Cape Churchill

Ten minutes east of town, my companion and guide Paul Ratson, a tundraman from central casting, looking swarthy in a rust-colored flannel shirt, pulls his weathered van off the road and, as a matter of course, grabs his pachyderm-stopping .375 rifle.
We’re here in Cape Churchill Wildlife Management Area for a morning trek from the wreck of a cargo airplane that crashed in 1979 just off the coastal road to the shore of Hudson Bay. As we head out, the flat, rocky vista looks benign, if not boring. It dawns on me that the terrain’s subtleties demand an attentive eye. I squat and rest my palm beside a tiny flowering oyster plant. The tundra, which at first seemed dull, even desolate, is actually a finely woven carpet of lichen, peat moss, and plants in bloom, laid between stone and boulder. We try to walk weightlessly across the fragile, technicolor moonscape so as not to leave our Vibram-patterned footsteps for a millennium’s time.


Reaching the water’s edge, we give wide berth to a recently killed whale, keeping our boots clean of its dangerously bear-enticing scent. I ask Paul how he spends his holidays, expecting to hear about the usual trip to Florida.
“I go further north.” A man in his element.
And why, years ago, did he come up for a visit and end up staying? “Just look around.”
Out in the bay, a pod of arched white backs cuts through sunlit water. Beyond the point lies the Ithaca, a huge rusting freighter grounded in a 1961 storm, a reminder of just who has the final word up here.
It’s answer enough. It really is.

Thawed beauty. But still, beware the summer cold.

Churchill during bear season can seem as crowded as New Orleans during Mardi Gras (just don’t sleep in a doorway). The rest of the year the vibe is much calmer, but it’s still essential to book lodging and activities early. July and August are the only months you don’t need to pack serious winter garb; even then, days can be cool and nights near freezing.
GETTING THERE: Other than by freighter or dogsled, the only way to Churchill is by plane or train. Canadian Airlines (800-426-7000) flies to Churchill from Winnipeg, with round-trip fares starting at $425. The train ride from Winnipeg is 36 hours each way on Via Rail (888-842-7245); fares start at $189 round-trip.


ACCOMMODATIONS: The Churchill Chamber of Commerce (888-389-2327) can connect you with the town’s handful of utilitarian hotels—I stayed at the clean, friendly Polar Inn ($69, double occupancy; 204-675-8878)—and B&Bs (starting at $58, double occupancy).
OUTFITTERS: Sea North Tours (204-675-2195) runs beluga-spying snorkeling trips for $112 per hour. It’s BYO wetsuit: One Stop Diving in Winnipeg (204-257-2822) rents toasty seven-millimeter titanium-lined suits with hoods, gloves, and booties for $80 per week. Paul Ratson’s ���ϳԹ��� Walking Tours (204-675-2147) offers tundra treks (starting at $36 for a half day). Churchill-based Hudson Bay Helicopters (204-675-8823) does drop-offs and pickups in Wapusk National Park (no park fee, contact warden prior to your arrival; 204-675-8863) for $575 per hour for groups of up to four.

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