View topic - Canoe, sledge used and cheap in NWT?

Hi everyone,

I am traveling to NWT August 2012, and is looking to stay 1-2 years. To be able to stay that long in the wilderness, I am looking to save some money on the gear. (Clothing, survival gear etc will offcorse be top quality though..). I heard rumors that there is alot of used canoes youst laying arround the villages in nwt, that people dont want and youst have left. Is this right? If not, is it easy to find cheap used canoes? And also a snow sledge. Not sure on the english translation there, but what Im looking for is a used one like this:

Perhaps contacting people who work at the Northern Stores in the communities you hope to visit.

http://www.northwest.ca/

Certainly this is true for a few Nunavut communities, Baker Lake comes to mind. I did not see very many paddling canoes in other Nunavut communities.

Kinguq.

A cast off / scrap sledge should be easy to find a canoe on the hand not so easy.

Most of the canoes that are "lying around" will be found at communities at the "very end of the road" or more accurately the end of the river. Only useful if you are doing upstream travel or venturing out into the coastal ocean waters.

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"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

Just to enlarge on what the last few posters have said.
Paddlers abandon canoes at Baker lake because it is too expensive to fly them out.

Yellowknife might be a better bet - an outfitter may be looking to sell a used one. But better not buy it sight-unseen.

You might check out the Kasba Lake Lodge people. I was very impressed with them when we paddled the Kazan in 2003. They go well out of their way to assist paddlers. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a used boat from them.

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If it's not worth doing to excess, it's not worth doing at all. (AJ)

Anyone living in NWT? It would be great to have someone local to ask and to have a adress to fill in the forms etc. Maybe get some of my luggage sent a couple of weeks before my arrival.

Exactly from where will you need a canoe? Narrow it down so that some here can supply you with more precise information.

GG

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A smart man learns from his mistakes,
A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
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email: geraldguay@hotmail.com
http://www.geraldguay.ca

Well, the plan is Yellowknife, and go north-northwest from there. so, yellowknife

When we flew with Air Tindi (Yellowknife) last summer (2010) they had a pile of abandoned boats behind their office. I believe periodically they take them to the dump. We had a momentary hesitation about the canoe we were paddling and they offered to just lend / give us one.

Thank you very much for that information!
I will fly to Canada in May 2012, and will contact Air Tindi when I arrive, and try get a canoe:)