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The Nahanni: Pride of Canada

July 1: Our river guides greet us with morning coffee and press-on red maple leaf tattoos. We are celebrating Canada Day by hiking 900 feet above the South Nahanni River, but not before trip leader Mike cajoles the five other Canadians into singing their national anthem at breakfast. The rest of the rafters are American, the bar has been set for the 4th of July and the Star Spangled Banner looms ahead, its octaves more fearsome than the river's rapids.

The hike to the Gate quickly morphs into a scramble up a staircase of limestone scree. Below us, the river hairpins through a 1,500 foot deep canyon. One by one, we edge onto a narrow lookout to view Pulpit Rock, standing guard at the canyon entrance. That afternoon, the guides swing the rafts 360 degrees when we pass the pinnacle, then hold them in the slower eddies as we drift along a vast mosaic of lichens and mosses clinging to the walls of Third Canyon.

We are eight Americans who have traveled together in various configurations over a dozen years. Our traveling companion Clark, tried without luck to find more friends to book the remaining slots on this 12-day trip with Nahanni River Adventures. Instead, by day four, we have already coalesced into one congenial party with three other voyagers -- Canadians Bob and his son Matthew, and Bob's lifelong friend and firefighter Mike. Our three Canadian guides share their delight for the northern landscape as they pilot us in 20-foot oar-rigged rafts.

In the Northwest Territory, above the 60th parallel, remains a largely undiscovered jewel: the Nahanni National Park Reserve. A pristine 8.6 million acre reserve protects over 200 miles of the South Nahanni River, bisected by the 300 foot Virginia Falls booming down from almost twice the height of our shared Niagara. After Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau rafted the river, the Canadian government established the national park in 1971. Noted for its spectacular canyons and wildlife, and further recognized in 1978 as the first natural UNESCO World Heritage Site, the South Nahanni is now under threat from rejuvenated mining interests in the watershed just outside the park boundaries. For now, the wilderness experience is intact. Visitation is tightly controlled by a system of mandatory campsite reservations at the portage trail above the falls. Canoeists have the option to fly further upstream; commercial raft trips begin with a landing just above and a daylong portage around the falls.

The Twin Otter pilot flew us in a figure eight pattern in front of Virginia Falls for photographs, then skimmed the lip of the froth, just threading through the upper canyon, before touching down in the flatwater where the Nahanni pools up before its torrential descent. Tumbling out onto the boardwalks that protect the fragile wetlands of the basin, we shouldered the straps of our high-density, high-volume dry-bag packs the few hundred yards to the tent area, contemplating the undeniable truth that it was too late to lighten the load we would be carrying around the falls.

Actually, our guides made it clear that, if needed, they would portage our gear for us, along with the rafts, tents, coolers and barrels of food, cooking and emergency gear, field guide library and other essentials for our comfort.

We camp two nights at the head of the falls, spotting orchids in the bogs and posing for photos with the falls as a backdrop, while the guides cache load after load. Another boardwalk protects most of portage trail's mile and quarter length, but the final descent must be negotiated along a steep muddy path. Launch day begins with a full breakfast to fuel the labor ahead. By various strategies of fitness, determination, and pride, the mound of river bags grows at the base of the falls.

The group quickly develops a rhythm to establishing camp: the guides first scout for recent bear sign and declare the kitchen zone; everyone forms a bucket brigade to unload the river bags, food boxes, fishing gear, and lost water bottles. We disperse to select flattish spots with minimum sized rocks and desired proximity to neighbors for the night. Soon the camp rings with the clangs of rock against tent stakes, and fragile nylon shelters bloom across the field.

Laughter and snatches of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" pulse out of the kitchen area as the guides prepare dinner. They know only two lines, and favor it above the longer songs in their repertoire. For its guided trips, where meals can elevate (or deflate) the entire experience, Nahanni River Adventures has developed a guide's cookbook that transforms twenty-something year-old boatmen into chefs. Key to the enterprise are custom rectangular Dutch ovens sized to fit the camp stoves as well as to bake under charcoal. The frozen food locker gives up its treasures one by one. We expect a traditional cobbler, but day after day our folding table buffet is burdened by pot roast, lasagna, and genuine trifle.

The 12 days flow by as swiftly as a leaf in the current. River guide Ian delights in leading a fossil viewing expedition up Marengo Creek, whose canyon walls are layered with ancient echinoderms, corals and perhaps even sponges. Later, we float silently past a salt lick, hoping to see snowy Dall sheep contrasted against the rocky slope. Instead, an ebony bear trundles up a narrow trail.

One rainy afternoon in Deadmen Valley, the guides ties the rafts against a forested, muddy bank to divulge a secret NRA guide find - a trash cache of rusty cans. Is it possible evidence of the mysterious McLeod brothers' camp, two marginally equipped gold miners who failed to return from prospecting a second season on the river? Their headless skeletons were found and buried by their brother in 1909. A missing third man and rumors of gold provided a font for tales of murder and betrayal, undeterred by the police reports attributing the deaths to simple starvation and the beheadings to scavengers.

We also learn from guide Mike, who has studied medicinal botany with a First Nations teacher, about edible plants and the traditional descriptive name for the abundant wild rose hips: itchy-bum fruit. The guides show us canyons where mythical Goh-Dene giants terrorized the local Dene people. The boatmen are also called to interpret modern Canadian for their southern neighbors. What we at home call a gray jay is really a whiskey jack. We tease them about pronouncing "about" as "a boot" and we laugh when Ian concedes that maybe those "newfies", or Newfoundlanders, might speak with an accent. All three ponder when one of the Americans asks about the proper usage of the Canadian term "eh?" After considerable discussion among themselves, Ian says that the speaker means, "You are invited to comment." It seems a national form of politeness, just like the boatmen's willingness to entertain silly questions.

Our trip leader Mike decides we will lay over on the broad alluvial fan in Deadmen Valley and hike to the mouth of Prairie Creek. We head over a trail-less braided streambed, route-finding around a scree slope abutting the creek. Reluctantly shedding notions of a sub-Arctic experience along with our jackets, we sweat. The canyon walls are shady and studded with more fossils. After lunch, three of the men opt to climb up to the rim, but hours later return to camp defeated, in part, by a strutting, apparently deadly roughed grouse that aggressively defended his territory. After dinner Bob fishes the main channel while his son Matthew practices harmonica in the everlasting twilight.

A tandem canoe rips past our rafts the next morning; we catch up to them that evening at Lafferty Creek, the base camp for hiking the "Chasm of Chills." Cousins Dave and Ted are the only people we meet between Virginia Falls and the village of Nahanni Butte; Mike worries about intruding on their wilderness experience and invites them to dinner. Despite having paddled for a week on freeze-dried provisions, they are shy about joining the group for hamburgers, but the offer of cheesecake is too much to resist.

Our hike begins under the long morning shadow of limestone cliffs that form the river basin. We trek up Lafferty Creek's dry channels until the walls converge into a slot canyon jeweled with pools. We swim three heart-wrenchingly icy stretches to discover a sunny boulder-strewn pocket. The creek glissades a natural slide that plunges back into the pools. We imagine the ferociousness of spring-runoff churning through the four-foot gap in the cliffs; the creek appears so mellow in July as it sinks underground just below the pools. The canoeists are long gone when we return from our hike.

Carolyn, from Sherrard Illinois, prepared for her first rafting adventure by getting a pedicure. Nearing the end of our trip, we admire it while basking in hot springs at the river's edge, drinking hot mochas in the fine, cool drizzle. Beginning in the 1940s, Gus and Mary Kraus homesteaded here, until the national government created the national reserve in 1971 and the family relocated outside the park. Paddlers now commemorate their passage by hanging carved and signed driftwood paddles inside the Kraus cabin. Later that day, we will pass the park boundary and engage the ferocious War of Mosquitoes in the Splits, a much-braided nest of slow channels. Last Camp and its evening meal remain in the distant future - now we are content to snack on oranges and cinnamon rolls for breakfast-in-spring.

Once outside the boundary, we collect rock souvenirs that the guides sternly forbade us to keep while in the park. Tumbled green pebbles, fragments of sparkling granites, chunks of black limestone shot with white streaks like the traces of fireworks find their way into river bags. We didn't have fireworks when we celebrated the 4th of July at Lafferty Creek, with Dave and Ted and the all-American barbeque. We even sang, but we portaged around the Star-Spangled Banner. With pride of country and unwilling to embarrass it, or ourselves, with our tuneless skills, we instead ran a true line down "America the Beautiful" under a glorious Canadian sky.