By CIRCUMNAVIGATE
(cir·cum·nav·i·gate ˌsər-kəm-ˈna-və-ˌgāt)
“To go completely around especially by water”
The Canadian Shield is a land of undulating rock, endless lakes, a stark beauty that is difficult to find elsewhere. And one of the most fabled areas on the Shield is the East Arm of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories.
On Great Slave Lake the far shore is often hidden by the curvature of the earth, and the land is patrolled by black bears, grizzlies, and wolves. And in August 2025 there will be a couple of additional people exploring the lake…
Trip Preparation
Man makes plans and the fire gods laugh…
Here is the core of the food for two people for 18 days. In order the photos are breakfast, dinner, salty, snacks, and sweet snacks. I didn’t include a photo of the bag with the soups, teas, spices, and coffee.
This might be the last time that I try, squeezing working at the fire hall, filming an entire new jiu-jitsu instructional, changing the destination of an expedition, and actually packing for that trip into a single week. It’s been absolute chaos, but I think I have everything that I need packed. Without my packing spreadsheet, I’d be completely screwed…
If everything goes well, it’s going to be about a 2 1/2 day drive from Vancouver to Yellowknife. Fortunately, the scenery of the BC interior is just stunning at times.
Finally at the NWT border. Excited! Only five more hours of driving to Yellowknife and the start of the trip on Great Slave Lake.
Day 1
And we’re off, leaving from the canoe dock in Yellowknife’s Old Town and hoping to do a lap of the East Arm of fabled Great Slave Lake. Hopefully can get this done in two weeks, but I could stretch the food to 21 days if the going is slow or the weather turns bad.
#greatslavelake2025
The East Arm of Great Slave Lake is all on the Canadian Shield, which as every serious paddler knows, is absolutely the best canoeing terrain on the planet. Water and cliffs, coves and islands, loons and bears, it’s all here!
Day 2
Great Slave Lake is at its most beautiful on a sunny day with blue skies. Currently in the island archipelago at the junction of the North and East arms of the lake.
#greatslavelake2025
On a trip when I have a little bit more tolerance for space and weight the first luxury item I’ll add is a tarp with bug mesh sides. This creates a little oasis away from the black flies and mosquitos, which allows you to cook and eat in relative peace.
#greatslavelake2025
Day 3
Over the years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with bannock in the bush. On the one hand, it’s a classic outdoors recipe and is delicious. On the other, it’s hard to make unless you carry a cast iron pan (which is very heavy) or a teflon pan (which is susceptible to getting scratched.) I recently picked up a folding ceramic frying pan (a second luxury if you’re keeping track) and it produced a flawless loaf of bannock today.
Here’s the ingredient list I used to fill a ziplock bag with about 4 servings…
– 4 cups flour
– 1 cup milk powder
– 4 tablespoons baking powder
– 2 tsp salt
– 2 tsp sugar
By midafternoon there were whitecaps on the lake today and we had to wait for the wind to die down. For the past 3 months I’ve been making my way through the Canterbury Tales in Chaucer’s original Middle English, so it was good to use the down time today to fully embrace my inner nerd and study the context and background of what I’ve been reading.
Day 4
Many people think I’m insane to run around in the deep wilderness like I do, but the truth is that out here I’m pretty conservative. For example, I’m very aware that on a large lake, you travel at nature’s pace, not your own. If the wind comes up and the waves get big then you have to pull over and wait. Fortunately there was a quiet bay with a dilapidated cabin that was perfect for waiting until the wind dropped again in the late afternoon.
There are days that I’m very glad I read and re-read every outdoor book I could get my hands on. From the Boy Scouts manual to Calvin Rutstrum, I read them all. And occasionally little gems of knowledge percolate to the surface when you’re trying to figure out how to solve a problem.
Day 5
Everything is packed in waterproof bags, but the real secret to safe travel on a large lake is the spray cover. It keeps the waves and the rain out, and keeps your legs much warmer when its windy. The only trick is taking the right amount of gear so that it will all fit under the cover.
The low level sun and the infinite vistas on Great Slave Lake combine to make for some pretty epic sunsets.
Day 6
The Northern Lights lit up the heavens for about an hour last night, and there was nothing to do but watch them unfold in slow motion.
The only thing better than fresh-baked bannock (see post from a couple of days ago for the recipe) is fresh baked bannock sprinkled in cinnamon sugar. It’s so good it needs its own name: I’m mostly out of internet range up here so I can’t check but is the word “donut” already taken?
Tonight’s campground is a series of bedrock ledges in a small, semicircular bay looking out over 100 km of open water. To me, it resembles nothing so much as a Roman or Greek amphitheater, and is definitely one of the top campsites of my life outdoors.
Day 7
Look who got rescued from the water and put on a branch, and then came for a visit after she dried off and recovered from her swim!
Not all boating adventures on Great Slave Lake end well. I can’t wait to get back to town and find out the full story behind this wrecked freighter in Moose Bay.
We are now closer to the equinox than summer solstice, but the low angle of the sun at this high latitude means that there is still light for a long time well after sunset.
Day 8
On this trip there have been cranberries, blueberries, Saskatoon berries, bear berries, raspberries, strawberries, crowberries, gooseberries and red currants. I tell myself, that each of these berries was once a flower pollinated by a mosquito or blackfly, and if all the mosquitos and black flies disappeared, the berries would go away too, and all the bears would starve. It helps reframe the airborne assault that you’re sometimes susceptible to in the North.
Today was a short day, so there was lots of exploration and bushcrashing around Camp. Such a harsh, stark and incredibly beautiful environment!
Day 9
I looked up and saw two skinny “Emus” wading through the water which can’t be because Emus are native to Australia, not Northern Canada. It took a couple of seconds to realize that they were Sandhill Cranes looking for snails and insects in the shallows.
It’s too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving, but these wild cranberries are tough enough to survive the rest of the journey and I will enjoy making cranberry sauce out of these tough wild berries when I get home.
Day 10
Tucked into the lee of a small island, trying to figure out if it’s safe to do a larger crossing in a strong wind and a following sea. In the end, I decided that the risk was worth the reward, and the crossing was safely achieved, but that doesn’t change the fact that crossings of larger than one to 2 km on a larger lake, are some of the most dangerous parts of any journey. So many people – especially beginners – underestimate this hazard, and end up out on the lake when the wind really picks up, the lightning strikes, or the waves keep building and building as the amount of fetch behind them increases.
Because you can never have enough pictures of spectacular Northern Lights!
Anyway, the plan is to complete the 800-1,000 km trip in about 3 weeks, bears, storms, and forest fires notwithstanding! I’m posting about the trip on instagram @essentialwilderness and this page here will also be updated as I go! Hope you enjoy the vicarious journey.
