Lights on the Bay
As the red and yellow embers of the night sky faded below the western horizon of Hudson Bay, I stood on an ancient volcanic rock outcrop in its crisp wind, waiting for the rhythmic crashing of waves to subside and allow us the opportunity to paddle the last 25 miles of our canoe expedition to a small Inuit town to the south. The hundreds of miles of open water to our west carry a robust and salty mix of wind and waves to the eastern shore we reside on.
Ten days of paddling a much-anticipated Arctic River tributary of Quebec’s Nunavik Region led me and my paddling partner, Peter, to this spot. Leading up to this, our previous ten days were filled with cold days that never spiked above 45 degrees, persistent rain that lasted all day every day, and a lack of sun, which we saw for less than 3 hours. However, that was now all behind us and my dream of paddling to Hudson Bay had been complete — well almost. The last portage of the trip skirted around a 100ft waterfall that overlooked the expanse of the bay and the estuary below. A line of dark clouds cover the “mainland”, while we broke into a vast open blue sky spread out across the bay.
In our conversation with the locals before leaving on our trip, they made sure to let us know about a few things for when we reached Hudson Bay:
- It’s really windy. Especially in the late Summer/early Fall when we were there.
- Keep an eye out for the Beluga Whales and seals in the estuary.
- There was recently a polar bear walking along the coast around the river we finished on.
When we finally reached where the river and Hudson Bay meet, the first thing they told us was true — it is very windy. Cresting over the hill alongside the waterfall, the wind that swept across the bay rode up the hill nearly lifting the canoe up into the air as we approached the final descent of the portage to the bay. It was required to have Peter hold the front of the canoe while I portaged in order to avoid the wind from sending our PakCanoe flying into the air like a kite. Upon reaching the end of the portage and the confluence of the river and Hudson Bay, it was clear that we were not going to make it anywhere for the time being with the large waves and heavy wind. We hunkered down to wait out the wind, a game that tests patience and one that could last for days or weeks this time of year.
The end was close, just a day's paddle south to a small village, but the thought of how long we would be stuck waiting in this wind is a concerning thought for those who paddle in the north. Prior to starting our trip a few weeks earlier, we were stuck in the same small town we needed to paddle back to for a week because of the wind. The delay in our schedule forced us to take a flight further inland where we were able to start our route and be a bit more sheltered from the wind. Weeks later, we were in the same situation, but this time, we had a flight to catch home and if we had to wait a week, we would miss it by several days. We were fortunate to be a little bit ahead of our schedule with some time to spare, but we didn’t want to take any chances.
With the weather out of our control, we did what we could by settling into a small cabin that was laid beside the estuary by the locals as a place to stay when visiting for hunting and fishing. A place they had told us about before leaving on our trip. For the first time in weeks, we were in a dry environment with a small stove for us to heat the cabin and dry our clothes while we waited out the weather. I had finished my book days before, so the idea of re-reading my book already could only sustain my attention for short periods of time. I found myself constantly glancing out of the window at the coast and estuary, keeping an eye out for the stray polar bear roaming the area. Fortunately, during our time, it was never seen, but the thought of it showing up was always lingering in my head. We did however have the pleasure of watching a few seals search for dinner in the estuary and a small herd of Muskox roam the far hillside to entertain us.
Through brief communication with contacts back home via a satellite phone, we were informed of what would likely be our only weather window coming in two days. If we missed the weather window, it didn’t look promising for at least another week. We were okay waiting those two days and embraced the time we needed to wait out the wind hiking along the coast, visiting the waterfall, journaling, and just about anything else to keep us busy.
When the day of our weather window came, we were eager to see what was in store. Getting up early, we packed up our gear so when the weather was right, we would be ready to take off in an instant. However, we were disappointed to see that the wind and waves had still not subsided by mid-day. Maybe the weather predictions had been wrong and an unexpected front of weather had been creeping in. Nevertheless, we continued to wait, reading from our books and writing in our journals, while occasionally peeking out the window at the coast for a break.
“Does it look calmer to you?” I asked Peter. It had been hard to really tell since we were constantly staring at the water, but after some back and forth, it did seem to look calmer, or at least better than it had been and we decided to get moving. It was about 3 pm when we got on the water and we figured that worst case scenario, we could always pull over on the coast and set up camp if it got too bad. As far as we could tell, the coast looked like a long expanse of flat rock and beach, which was perfect if we needed to pull over.
So we began our long paddle south along the Hudson Bay coast. With the rolling up and crashing down with each wave, we were unsure if it had actually calmed down at all once we were in the thick of it. Several times we had the discussion of pulling over because the waves seemed too large, but each time, we rolled with the waves and pressed on. We were forced to slightly angle our boat into the waves to avoid the waves crashing over the gunwales of the canoe and to keep our bearing southward. With the direction of the waves coming from our side, this was no easy task. It was a game of fine-tuning our strokes and keeping the canoe close enough to shore in the case of something happening or needing to pull over quickly, but getting too close to the shore meant that you got caught in a mix of current that pulled you in and away from shore all at once. A constant back-and-forth motion that was unsettling at times.
There was no end to the distant horizons to our north and south. To the east was the coastline we followed, while the west had a long string of islands that helped with our navigation and where along the coast we were. We thought these islands may serve as a wind break for the wind that traveled along the large fetch of the Bay from the west, but they didn’t seem to protect us or slow the wind whatsoever.
We were fortunate enough to have a beautiful day weatherwise, something we hadn’t seen in weeks. We enjoyed the sunshine and watched as the sun slowly crept toward the western horizon. Even with the sun, the air temperature was still hovering around 40 degrees Fahrenheit and with the wind and water splashing, we only got colder as the sun began to fall. We needed to stop every few hours to get out of the boat and stretch our legs, eat a power bar, and add any clothing we needed. We knew that once darkness came, it would be much harder to make frequent stops, so we opted for a big push once it was fully dark with no stops.
Fortunately, as the sun was falling, a beautiful half-moon was beginning to rise and only a handful of clouds were in the sky. We had our headlamps ready, but let our eyes adjust to the darkness and used the silhouettes of the islands and the crashing of waves on the shore to determine our distance away from land. One by one stars began appearing from all areas of the sky. Soon, millions of stars and the luminescence of the moon filled the night sky as we paddled on. I sat in the stern of the canoe staring up at the splendor of stars filling the sky as my hips became accustomed to the rolling of the waves. I would glance down every so often at the direction of the bow, make any corrections and my eyes would return to the sky.
Just before it was totally dark, we suspected we were almost halfway to the small town and there was certainly no way we could miss the community at night if we stayed close to shore as they would have street and houselights on that we had seen prior to leaving on our trip.
While paddling in the dark, the hours seemed to pass by slower than before. It felt as though we were paddling on a continuous treadmill, hoping to see the lights of the town around each bend. All we had to do was keep paddling.
I remember so vividly at one point in the night watching the moon and stars ahead of me when I glanced back behind me to the northeast and saw a green sliver of light lining the sky. I looked ahead again and made the corrections to the direction of the canoe, then immediately looked behind me again. The green light began to move slowly and soon I knew that this light was the northern lights streaking across the sky. “It’s the northern lights behind us!” I told Peter. He too glanced back and with each minute, more and more streaks of green, with touches of reds and purples lined across the sky in all directions.
I had paddled among the northern lights at night several times before, but these were different. I was on the grand stage of Hudson Bay, a place I had heard so many stories about and longed to paddle to for many years. I began to think about the past few weeks and now paddling beneath the northern lights on Hudson Bay thinking to myself about all the stories I would now have of this place to tell for years to come.
This show of lights had put me in awe and my jaw dropped watching them dance across the sky. At one point, the density of the bright green streaks ranging across the sky was so bright that the reflection of the water turned green and the coastline and islands lit up in a green haze, outshining the moon and stars.
I knew it would be hard, but I wanted to try to capture this moment and take a photo of us paddling among these northern lights before they disappeared. The waves had, fortunately, calmed down slightly, so we stopped paddling for a minute, let the boat drift and all the while I took out my camera, adjusted its settings, and snapped a photo. As I had expected, the long exposure I needed to get the northern lights or stars in it picked up our rhythmic rolling of the waves and turned out blurry. It was good enough for the situation we were in. I think the imperfections of the photo showed what this trip had been about, perseverance and adapting to difficult situations as they arose.
The lights that covered the bay that night will forever be engraved in my memory as we made the last push of our long, difficult journey to the coast and down the bay. Its brilliance of bright colors and dances throughout the sky reminded me of the dream I once had of one day paddling to this magical place and seeing its beauty with my own eyes.
As quickly as the northern lights had appeared in the sky, they disappeared one by one as night turned into early morning. Soon it was about 2 am and we still had not made it to the small town. Discouraged since we had done a hike along the coast from the village before leaving and I distinctly remember looking miles down the coast from the community. There was certainly no way we could pass it at night, could we?
Continuing to push on, we heard a loud bang and pop, something we still don’t know what it was to this day. What could have made that noise so late in the night? Whatever it was, it certainly was not natural.
To our left along the coast, we could hear the rushing of a large waterfall flowing into the bay. We knew from studying the maps that there was one large waterfall flowing into the bay not far from the community. With the noise and the waterfall, we knew we must be close, but there were still no lights, not even a haze of light pollution in the dark sky.
We kept closer to shore as we paddled on and to our amazement, we rounded a slight outcrop as we had done dozens of times throughout the night, and no more than 100 yards away was the small town. For hours we thought we might be seeing the town from miles away and watch as its lights grew closer and closer, with each rocky outcrop we went around, we hoped to see this. To our amazement, a small hill had blocked all lights of the community, and not until we were in town did we see it. The familiar small red and green lights of the town's homemade harbor became clear and we quickly remembered where we were. We beached the canoe on the boat landing we visited weeks before. There was nowhere immediately in town we could stay, but we knew of a canvas tent some locals had allowed us to stay in before and after our trip a few miles outside of town. It was now close to 3 am when we arrived and our only option soon became making two trips with all our gear through town and to the canvas tent. We grabbed our packs and hand gear while putting the canoe to the side to come back for and started our way through the town. Not more than 2 blocks into our “portage”, the police truck from the community pulled up. We immediately began to laugh as I am sure this was not what they had expected to come across in this small community so late at night.
“What are you guys doing?” the female officer asked us. “We just finished paddling down the coast of Hudson Bay. We are carrying our stuff up to the park office and staying in their canvas tent tonight”. “You were just out there paddling?” she looked concerned. “Do you guys want a ride?” she asked. It was a very welcoming gesture as we were exhausted from the hours of paddling. “That would be much appreciated,” we said. We loaded up the back end of the truck with our packs and jumped into the back of the truck. Within minutes we were at the tent and she had saved us what probably would have taken at least an hour. We thanked her multiple times before she was on her way. Peter immediately headed back for the canoe while I brought all our gear into the tent, started to pull out some food, and started a fire in the old wood stove in the tent to take the cool edge off of us before we drifted off to bed.
We spent the next two days in the town waiting for our scheduled flight out. As we sat by the wood stove reminiscing on the past few weeks we had and the difficulty of the long, wet days of rain and cold we faced for weeks, I couldn't help but smile. It had not been an easy trip, probably one of the hardest either of us had been on due largely to the horrible weather and thick terrain. Regardless, the magnificence and beauty of the Nunavik region and Hudson Bay was everything I had dreamt about and more. To finish the trip like this under the glow of the northern lights reminded me of my love for seeking out these far-off places and the ways they challenge us — A passion I hope I never lose.
I knew there were so many vivid moments of this trip and stories to tell that I wanted to remember and cherish, each for its own specific reason. As I lay alongside the amber glow and crackle of the wood stove, I slipped out my journal and pen that lay beside my sleeping bag and moved it closer to the firelight to scratch down the words “Lights on the Bay” before drifting off to sleep. A story I wished to tell and remember for a lifetime.
