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Sandland (page 3)
ONE EVENING Wintoniw and I are dining on rehydrated apricot and cashew curry when a movement
in the underbrush catches my eye. A black bear is prowling around our campsite. Wintoniw
walks calmly in the bear’s direction, making a racket. The bear retreats. But when we get
up the next morning, fresh tracks indicate it has paid a second visit. We load our backpacks
and move to another site. The mosquitoes are ferocious but the bear is absent.
Our last campsite is farther east, near a small lake inland from Lake Athabasca, a short
hike through a burnt-out forest. In case of poor weather, Wilson could bring down the Cessna
here even if waves on the big lake made a landing impossible. As Wintoniw and I hike to the
final campsite, three canoes pass us. The six people in them — visitors from Lethbridge,
Alta. — have reached the area in a float plane big enough to carry their boats, and have
canoed down the William River to Lake Athabasca. Except for a few fishermen in a distant
motorboat, they are the only humans we see during our four days in the park.
FLY ME TO THE DUNES
Getting there
Fly Transwest or Pronto airlines from Saskatoon to the towns of Points North
Landing or Missinipe, then let Osprey Wings take you to Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Wilderness
Park. Or sign up for a package tour with Churchill River Canoe Outfitters (877-511-2726;
www.churchillrivercanoe.com).
Staying there
Bring some gear, a few friends and a healthy appetite and let Churchill River
Canoe Outfitters take care of the rest. After a dune-filled day, enjoy a feast cooked on
a wood stove, crawl into one of the company’s three-season tents and slumber on comfy mattresses
in cozy sleeping bags.
Playing there
Paddle the William River toward Lake Athabasca in the company of your guide,
hike across and through the undulating dunes and venture where few have gone before. Catch
a glimpse of the area’s native loons, eagles, mergansers and plovers. You may even see a
lynx or hear its distant screech.
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Setting up the final camp, we notice a bald eagle keeping watch on us from atop a nearby
spruce. It takes a while before we realize why: a dozen trees over from the sentinel bird
is a large nest with two scraggly, black-feathered eaglets inside.
Southerners can’t reach the park without flying part or all of the way. Could the eagles,
ospreys, wolves and endemic plants continue to flourish if it were easier to visit? “It’s
trying to find the right balance,” Wintoniw responds when I ask his opinion. “We’re lucky
to have had the chance to see nature acting on its own here, without human influence. If
you open the park up to lots more visitors, that sense would disappear.”
But even on a shore so apparently pristine, we’ve noticed plastic bottles, broken glass,
styrofoam, fish hooks, sheets of plywood and chunks of metal. More worrying, the lake is
fed by the Athabasca River — which means it lies downstream from the massive oil-sands projects
in northern Alberta. Since 1970, the amount of water flowing through the river has dropped
considerably. What impact all this will have on the wildlife in and around Lake Athabasca
remains unclear.
For the moment, the park remains a place of tranquil grandeur. It’s a calm morning and we
are still sipping coffee, listening to a loon’s distant cries, when a low hum in the sky
alerts us to Wilson’s return. He lands on Lake Athabasca and taxis to shore. When we’ve loaded
the plane, I jump aboard with a full heart. Our footprints will soon be gone. As the Cessna
regains the sky, I peer down and see an eagle keeping vigil in its spruce.
Mark Abley is a Montréal-based writer who grew up in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Robin
and Arlene Karpan live in Saskatoon.
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