Adventurer sees the Nahanni through the eyes of a Golden Retriever
by Jim Brunow, originally published in May/June 1998 issue of Arctic Traveller
“Doing the Nahanni” is no longer the exclusive experience it was in the days of pioneers. You can still run this mountain river without seeing many people. But the trilingual signs – English, French and German – in Nahanni National Park Reserve indicate how accessible this region has become to hundreds of visitors from around the world.
And the occasional dog.
Moondance is a golden retriever. She loves people, fun, activity and adventure. She hates discipline. Three weeks on what may be the most famous waterway of the southwestern NWT didn’t change her personality.
It just fueled her sense of adventure and left her with a few obsessive traits that she now inflicts on the animals around the southern Ontario farm where we live.
Moondance and I paddled the Nahanni with six friends one recent September. A couple of months before our departure, I had contacted the park headquarters to ask about bringing my dog into the area. Officials would much prefer people leave their pets at home. (Dogs tend to chase bears then turn tail and lead them back to camp, not to mention harassing other wildlife.) I was nonetheless reluctantly granted permission to include Moondance in my adventure.
From the experience, I’ve developed a set of guidelines for travelling with your dog that should apply to most wilderness experiences.
Rule 1: Let the chase begin. Our Nahanni trip began in Fort Nelson, British Columbia. From there, we drove over the border to the NWT community of Fort Liard and flew with Deh Cho Air to Island Lakes, just outside the park boundary. Moondance had never flown before but took to it immediately. By the time we landed, she had checked out every inch of the plane.
Her investigations continued when we landed and she discovered the first of her new obsessions: red squirrels, a rodent in which she has never displayed any interest. She must have interpreted their high-pitched squawks as personal taunts. Now, back at home, she angrily gives chase to every squirrel she sees.
Rule 2: Keep up with the Joneses. The sixth member of our group, my canoe partner, Dave, wasn’t due to arrive until the second week of our trip. That meant deciding where to put Moondance during seven days of paddling wasn’t a problem. She sat in the front of my canoe. Soon after we set off, Moon-dance began to whine pitifully. When that failed to elicit the desired response, she switched to loud crying.We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Three weeks of would-be torture.
After a couple of days, we solved the problem. Because I was paddling solo and the others were in pairs, I’d invariably fall behind on the slower sections of the river. Whenever that happened, Moondance launched into her mournful song. She had to be at the front of the pack. She couldn’t tolerate the second-hand view. I got a workout that week, probably two.
Rule 3: The bear facts. During our first week, we took an 18-kilometre overnight hike to Glacier Lake. It was a wet miserable day. The supposed “five- to six-hour round of moderately strenuous trekking” turned into a grueling five hours of bushwhacking, and that was just one way. Only Moondance completed the trip in good spirits. Dogs don’t have to worry about wet clothes and tents.
Our troubles, however, disappeared as we settled for the night next to the blue-green waters of this beautiful lake. Just after sunset, Rick, a member of our group, noticed a commotion. A grizzly bear was chasing a bull moose through the shallows along the far shoreline. Spray was flying everywhere. We eventually lost sight of the chase and returned to our pastimes. Rick, diary in hand. was pondering how to capture the scene in words when he looked up to discover it wasn’t over yet. The grizzly was swimming directly into the camp we had set up beside a cabin used by Deh Cho Air. This was obviously one mean bear.
Rick gave the alert as he raced to retrieve an old ladder he had noticed in the woods behind the cabin. I grabbed a log, leaned it against the cabin roof and scrambled up. The other four followed up the ladder. As the bear swam closer, we yelled and made enough noise to be heard in Vancouver. Its response was to veer away and swim rapidly to shore a few hundred feet further down. He came out of the water on the fly, glanced over his shoulder at us and took off.
So where was Moondance during our encounter? No one knows. But being a smart
dog, it was obvious she didn’t stick around. She just reappeared when we felt it was safe to climb down from the roof. I wouldn’t mind learning her secret.
Rule 4: If the dog won’t eat, then don’t eat it. I’m often asked where Moondance slept and what she ate during the trip. She slept anywhere: under the stars, by the fire, in the woods and under the vestibule of my tent. She ate kibble for part of the trip. When that ran out, she shared our fish and dried food. The only thing she would not eat was a particularly vile pot of porridge we concocted one morning. Dogs have their standards — even when ours fail.
Rule 5: Be ready for a good scare. Dave, my paddling partner, arrived as we began the second week of our journey. Dave is one of Moondance’s favourite people, sort of a case of one-party animal recognizing another. She greeted him with what looked like a big smile that said: Let the good times roll. At one point, Dave and I decided to run a particularly tricky stretch of whitewater known as the Figure Eight rapids. I had already taken Moondance down whitewater of varying difficulty and she maneuvered through them from her position on the skirt of the canoe without mishap.
The Figure Eight rapids were a different class. They’ll spin your canoe 180 degrees.
We felt it was best to leave her with the rest of the group, who had decided to portage.
We were to rendezvous at a place called Wrigley Creek, but all missed the meeting due to strong river currents and “haystacks” in the water. When the group finally re-assembled, I heard a story that made my trip through the Figure Eight pale in comparison.
Moondance was travelling with my friends Jerry and David through a strong current when their canoe tipped. While Jerry and David struggled to right the canoe, Moon-dance slid into water. She bobbed up several times, but the current had a firm grip and repeatedly pulled her back under. She began to cry out in such fear that jerry and David were convinced they’d never see her again. Moon-dance, however, is a very strong swimmer. She made it to shore and hopped back onto the spray skirt when the canoe pulled in to pick her up.
The rest of the trip was a walk in the park as far as Moondance was concerned.