Me and my cousin are considering padling the Snowdrift river, or another good alternative near Yellowknife, in july-august 2005.
We are not experienced padlers so we don`t want a river with a lot of rapids and fast water. Will the Snowdrift be something for us?
It isn`t easy to find good information on the Snowdrift, but what we have found out so far sounds very interesting.

What river we end up with isn`t that important, but we are hoping for a river with little human activity, quite remote, with good fishing, nice sceenery and hopefully rich wildlife. We have about three-four weeks time to spend on this trip.

We hope someone can give us some good advise about the Snowdrift or suggestions of another nice river. Info or suggestions of good airplane-company would be nice too .

Sincerely

SteinE, Norway

Snowdrift probably has too many rapids for you. I would suggest Snare River as an alternative (not too dificult and you have lake sections as well)

Hi SteinE,

"Near" Yellowknife covers a lot of area. You may want to first decide if you want Barrenlands (Tundra) or to be within the treeline. The advantage of the Barrens is the wildlife view-ability.

I don't know much about the Snowdrift, but I think it does have many rapids on it as Otter Mel says. I think it is also a spring river (gets quite low in the summer).

For canoe trip planning and expeditiing services, I can highly reccomend Bathurst Arctic Services, which are part of Bathurst Arctic Lodge http://www.bathurstinletlodge.com/.

For float plane companies out of Yellowknife, I highly reccomend Air Tindi http://www.airtindi.com./airtindimain.html

If Yellowknife does not work out for you, I can highly reccomend another town: Forth Smith. In Fort Smith, I have used the services of Big River Air http://www.bigriverair.com/. They provide excellent service. I see from their updated website that they are also servicing Yellowknife.

All my trips in NWT and Nunavut have involved rivers with rapids, so I don't know if I can provide any advice, but try these companies and I bet they can set you up on a nice trip.

Best of luck.

Hi again!
We would prefer to start our trip on the barrenlands, where there are good chances of spotting caribou, musk-owen and maybe wolf.
Great adventurer and explorer from Norway, Helge Ingstad, padled the Snowdrift river in the 1920`s, and it would be great fun to follow his route!!!

On the internet-sight "Great Canadian Ecoventures" the Snowdrift is classified as a class II river with occasional lining and a few portages, suited for all ages in moderate physical condition.
We are in good physical shape and are well experienced in outdoorsmanship, so if the river won`t give us to much trouble we hoped the Snowdrift would be a right choice for us. It would very interesting to read some river-reports, if there are any.

We might want to keep Snare river as "backup-plan", if the Snowdrift turns out to be to much of a challenge for us. Are there barrenlands along the Snare river? Also, it is impotant that there aren`t to much activity along the river - one key factor for our trip to Canada is to experince the wilderness...

If you can get a hold of a book written by Peter Browning (the title escapes me just now), read it.
He travelled down the Talston and crossed into Snowdrift and down to Great Slave Lake in the 60's (Talston was too much at lower end).

I got the title:
The Last Wilderness, 2nd edition 1989
ISBN: 0944220037

SteinE,

If you want to start your trip out on the Barrens, you might want to consider beginning
at Sled Lake, just south of Lynx Lake. Sled Creek runs west from Sled Lake and empties
into Eileen Lake. The Eileen River, in turn, flows from Eileen Lake and eventually
merges with the Snowdrift. I paddled from Sled Lake to some unamed lakes
just north of Eileen Lake a couple of years ago. It's a very beautiful area, lightly
traveled, with plenty of wildlife.

Enjoy your trip.

Dan

Hi dkelsey, and thank`s for your reply!

How would you describe the difficulty of the route from Sled lake? This sounds really interesting!
What`s the fishing like on the lakes and in the rivers you mentioned?

Would it be best to padle the route early in the summer, or will there be enough water to padle late in july also?

Otter Mel: I will try to get that book. Thanks!

Regards

SteinE

SteinE,

The book that Otter Mel is referring to is "The Last Wilderness".
It's an excellent read, especially for anyone contemplating a
trip down the Snowdrift.

The route from Sled Lake is quite easy. I traveled the route in
late August/early September of 2002, and I didn't have any
problems with water levels being too low. There are two spots
along Sled Creek where you will need to portage, but the portage
trails in both cases are short and easy.

I'm not much of a fisherman myself. I usually travel solo and
have a bit of paranoia about having fish smells around me in
grizzly country. However, others I have talked to say that the
fishing is great, particularly for trout and grayling.

Dan

How many days do we need to padle the Sled lake route in good weather conditions? Did you padle all the way to Lutselk`e or were you picked up somewhere else along the way?


SteinE

SteinE,

Sled Lake to Eileen Lake can be done easily in a week if the
weather is cooperative. When I was in the area, I left the Eileen
River just upstream of Tent Lake and was picked up on an unnamed
lake to the north. Although I have not been on the Snowdrift
myself, I would guess that you could reach Siltaza Lake from
Eileen Lake easily in another week.

I think most people who paddle the Snowdrift choose to be picked
up at Siltaza Lake rather than continue on to Lutsel K'e because
of all the portaging necessary on the lower Snowdrift. "The Last
Wilderness" book will give you a good idea of what that section
of the river is like. If you have trouble locating a copy of the
book, I have an extra copy that I can let you have for a small
price. E-mail me if you're interested in it.

Dan

You might be interested in my book "Daughter Father Canoe" it describes a 27 day canoe trip I made ten years ago with my then 14 year old daughter down the Snowdrift and over to Nonacho Lake. The river is a jewel but I recommend an early start as the upper Snowdrift can get boney by July 1. I've never seen enough water in the Eileen River for good paddling but patterns change and most of my experience in the region was 25 years ago. Most of your route will be in open boreal forest with moose, black bear and wolves fairly common. The caribou are usually absent until late summer. My daughter was back in the area last summer and saw lots of Musk Ox all the way to Nonacho even though you don't normally think of Musk Ox as forest animals. I have a complete set of 1/ 50,000 maps if you are interested.

_________________
Rob Kesselring

Comment about Helge Ingstad: Helge Ingstad did only padled only the lower part of Snowdrift River. However, he did different routes. One winter he spent with denes at Nonacho Lake, one winter at a lake he called "Moose Lake" (not very far from Lutselke) and the last winter he went Pike Portage and spent a winter a lone in a tent not far from Ingstad Creek. It is difficult to follow his trail, but not impossible. Moose lake is found, and the place i spent the last winter (Called Helges Tundracamp) is found and some other places he visited is also found, so it is not possible. Next summer i am going to revisit his Tundracamp. It is a beautiful place.