ADVENTURE

A Holiday from Hell in the Headless Valley

Why you should never answer the phone if it's my friend, Gord

When you spend five months of the year living in a tent and working outside in whatever miserable weather a mischievous God decides to throw at you, you really start to appreciate things like sidewalks and flush toilets.

Gord and I worked for a tree-planting company in Northern Canada. He was kind of a roving fixer for the company. He fixed vehicles. He fixed equipment. He fixed problems. He spent a lot of time traveling from camp to camp.

I was an Area Manager and worked out of a place called The Liard in the extreme Northeast corner of British Columbia. There are very few roads up in that part of the world in the summertime. It’s different in the winter. Everything is frozen solid and as long as you can knock down whatever is in your way, you can pretty much put a temporary road anywhere. In the summer, all those roads turn to swamp.

Because of this, most of the logging happened in the winter and most of the planting happened in the summer. The planting was mostly done out of camps that had to be flown in by float plane and helicopter.

At the start of the season, we would drive a crew of about 50 people and their camp from Edmonton, Alberta to Fort Liard in the Northwest Territories — a distance of about 1200km. We would load all the people and equipment into float planes and fly them to a suitable location on the banks of the Liard River. From there, helicopters would fly the people and the equipment to wherever we needed to set up camp.

It takes a lot of float plane and helicopter trips to move a camp that size. And throughout the summer we had to keep the camp supplied with food and fuel and trees. The whole reason we were out there was the trees. A camp would plant as many as 50,000 seedlings in a day.

We were very good clients of the float plane and helicopter companies.

It was interesting and challenging work and I could tell you many stories about life in the camps. But this is not one of them.

You see, aside from supporting people who lived and worked up there, the float plane company had another side to their business. They flew well-heeled tourists and adventurers up to the Nahanni River Valley about 200km Northwest of Fort Liard.

Another name for the Nahanni is the Headless Valley, which is where I got the title for this piece. During the period from 1908 to 1945, a handful of people were found murdered and decapitated along the banks of the river. No one knows who committed the murders or why. There have been no headless bodies found since then and these days the tourist board tends to emphasize the more official name.

Aside from being a graveyard for headless prospectors, the Nahanni is a World Heritage site. At times the valley has sheer canyon walls topped with green grassy mesas. At other times the river widens until it resembles a lake. There are towering mountain ranges with names like the Cirque of the Unclimbables and the Vampire Spires. There are hot-springs and caverns and bizarre geological features known as Tufas. It truly is a unique and magical place.

Virginia Falls are the crown jewels of the Nahanni. They are twice the height of Niagara Falls and 250m wide. They are formed of one central cascade split in two by a soaring granite spire called Mason’s Rock.

They are also extremely challenging to get to. The nearest road to the Falls is more than 120km away. It's twice that distance if you follow the river to the Falls from the nearest settlement at Nahanni Butte. Practically the only way to get to Virginia Falls is to fly or canoe. Canoeists typically get flown into Rabbit Kettle Lake, more than 100km upriver from the Falls, and then spend about a week paddling down to them.

There is another float plane dock just up from the Falls. It is used for day trippers or to pick up canoeists who don’t want to do the more treacherous section of the river from the Falls to Nahanni Butte.

The bush pilots we worked with regularly flew in and out of both locations.

To help manage all the food and fuel and trees getting onto the planes and into the camp, we had someone who lived in town rather than in camp. Ironically, even though they spent more time indoors than anyone in the camp, this person was called the Outside Guy or Outside Gal, depending on their gender. “Outside” referred to the fact they were outside the camp rather than inside it.

One of the perks of being the Outside Guy or Gal in Liard was if you spent enough time hanging out with the pilots, they'd invite you to take up a spare seat on one of the Nahanni flights.

Gord and I had worked in the Liard for seven years, but we’d never been on any of these flights. We had to endure a succession of Outside Guys and Gals telling us how great it was. It rankled at times.

One year at the end of the season we whined about it to Dave, one of the bush pilots. The camp and crew had all been flown out. The trucks were being loaded. Deb, who’d worked as Outside Gal that year, was raving about a flight she'd managed to snag over the Falls a few days ago.

"It was amazing!" she said. "You might think flying around here is pretty special, but up there it's like another world. It's absolutely incredible. You need to go!”

“Jesus! Every year I have to put up with this!” I said. “What the Hell, Dave? How come you never take Gord or me on a Nahanni flight.”

"Yeah," said Gord. "Seven years we’ve been coming up here. And nothing. This is only Deb’s second season up here. It doesn’t seem fair.”

We were joking, of course. Neither of us could have made time for a trip like that during the planting season. Dave said, "Well, if you ever find yourself up here with nothing to do, I’ll fly you in special. No charge."

"You've got a deal," We all shook hands, and Gord, Deb, and I headed South in a convoy of trucks and buses. A couple of days later we were back in Edmonton. The camp was unpacked, the vehicles parked for the season, and I was reveling in all the wonders of modern civilization.

Cold Beer! Flush Toilets! Solid roofs and windproof walls! A complete and utter lack of mosquitos! Pretty girls with bare legs walking by on paved sidewalks while I sat in a chair with an actual back! It was heaven.

A few days later the phone rang. It was Gord.

“Ready for a holiday?” he asked.

“What are you talking about? I am on holiday. The season’s finished.”

“Well, yeah, but have you been anywhere? Done anything?”

“No,” I said. “And that’s what I plan on continuing to do. Absolutely nothing.”

“Two words,” said Gord. “Road Trip.”

“Two words,” I said, “Fuck off.”

“Listen,” he said. “Remember what Dave said to us in Fort Liard?”

I shook my head — a pointless gesture. I doubt Gord could see it on the other end of the phone.

“He said he’d fly us to Nahanni whenever we wanted!” said Gord. “We just have to get up there.”

“But I don’t want to go back. I like it here.” I tried to explain about the flush toilets and the coffee shops and the pretty girls.

Gord waved all that off. Or I guess he did — I couldn’t see him either. “Listen, you and I both know that if we’re working up there, we won’t have time for a flight like that. But right now we’ve got nothing but time. It’ll be nice and relaxed. We’ll take it easy driving up there. Maybe stop in and see a few people along the way. Check out some of the sights we never get a chance to when we’re working. Seriously — what are you going to do instead?”

I slumped in defeat. Gord couldn’t see my slump, but we knew each other well enough he didn’t have to. He knew he had me beat. We arranged to head out in a couple of days. We would take Gord’s truck.

It turns out the first person Gord thought we should “visit” was Ken. Ken was running a site-prep contract near Fox Creek. This involved a couple of big machines called back-hoes making mounds of dirt in a swamp so that trees could be planted come spring. Trees are magnificent water pumps. They can keep a low-lying area dry enough for other things to grow. But if you cut down the trees, there’s nothing to keep pumping the water out and you end up with a swamp.

The rule in Canada at the time was, you cut it, you plant it. It’s hard to plant trees in a swamp. Thus the hoe-mounding work.

One of the backhoes had blown a hydraulic hose and Gord had been asked to bring up a replacement and install it.

It took us four hours to drive out to Ken’s camp. Once there, we hiked out to the swamp where the back-hoe had broken down and climbed underneath it to change the hose. It started snowing while we were working, and by the time we finished, we were in the middle of a full-blown blizzard.

That night we slept in a trailer parked next to the swamp. It was bunk house accommodation and we shared the room with Ken and a couple of extremely foul-mouthed and foul-smelling back-hoe operators.

The next day we drove 800km North to Fort Nelson, B.C. This was the last town with a proper grocery store. The plan was that we’d overnight at the falls. Dave would fly us in and drop us off. We’d explore a bit, spend the night, relax, and get picked up the next day.

Gord and I had brought a tent and a couple of sleeping bags with us, but not really any proper camping gear. No stove, dishes, or cutlery. So we just bought things we could eat with our fingers — hotdogs, ketchup, mustard, some bread, a jug of orange juice, some Oreos, and a big jar of peanut butter.

But before we could go up to Fort Liard where the bush planes were based, we needed to make one more stop along the way.

We didn’t always fly everything into the tree-planting camps. Sometimes we used boats. Over the years we’d become good friends with a trapper named Whit up there who ran one of these boats. Whit had hurt his back recently and wasn’t able to get out of bed, so we thought we should look in on him.

He and his wife, Vi, lived in a cabin they’d built themselves on the banks of the Fort Nelson River. The only way to get there in the summer was by boat. We called them on the radiophone and Vi arranged to meet us where the road crossed the river.

Whit was a tough old bastard but he was in a bad way. He’d popped a disc loading a fuel barrel into a boat and could barely move. Winter was coming and he hadn’t cut enough firewood to last them until Spring.

Gord and I were happy to help out and spent the rest of the day chopping and stacking wood. Vi rewarded us with a delicious meal of some kind of ginger-flavored meat that night.

“This is delicious,” I said. “What kind of meat is it?”

“It’s bear!” she said. “I shot it a couple of days ago. It was going after one of the dogs.”

After dinner, the whiskey came out. We spent the next day chopping and stacking more wood — this time with brutal hangovers.

After another night in the cabin, Vi dropped us off back at Gord’s truck and we drove up to Fort Liard. We had a hearty reunion with Dave but didn’t spend too much time chatting. He was keen to get up in the air.

“The weather report’s a bit iffy for this evening,” he said. “If we head out now, we should be fine.”

It was a gorgeous flight up to the falls. We spotted mountain goats and moose, and even a pack of wolves. And the landscape more than lived up to its billing. We flew along canyons with sheer grey walls. We flew over turquoise lakes, and over pastures so green you’d think you were in Ireland. The falls themselves were awe-inspiring from the air — mother nature at her most majestic and terrible. Gord and I were blown away.

Dave landed the plane a short distance upriver from the falls and tied up at the dock. There were some good camping spots nearby and a decent cache of firewood, but no people. The only building was a small shack a bit like a bus shelter. It contained a large guest book on a lectern.

The weather wasn’t too bad at this point. The sky was a bit overcast, but it didn’t look like anything to worry about. We waved Dave goodbye and set up our tent on a nice, mostly flat spot that looked like it would stay dry if it rained.

It was about a half-hour hike down to the base of the falls. The noise was incredible — like a dozen jet engines hooked up to a stack of Marshall amps. The force of the spray was incredible and threatened to knock us down if we came too close. The sun came out for a bit and lit a huge rainbow that arced over the base of the falls. It was glorious. We explored a bit further down the river, then returned to our camp and lit a fire.

We cooked some hotdogs on wiener sticks. When they were done, we pulled them off with slices of bread and ate them with ketchup and mustard. It started to rain shortly after we finished eating, but by then it was time for bed. It had been a truly fantastic day. We climbed into the tent and were lulled to sleep by the sound of rain.

It was still raining when we woke up the next morning. The rain had been joined by thick fog. We could only see about twenty feet in front of us. There was no way a plane could fly in that kind of weather. Standing out in the rain, it didn’t really feel like rain. It was more like being at the bottom of a lake where the water had been thinned out by having some air pumped into it.

We didn’t worry too much, though. We figured it would clear up in the afternoon. We were mainly disappointed we couldn’t really see anything. We had peanut-butter sandwiches for breakfast and lunch.

Around 4 pm the fog still hadn’t lifted and we realized Dave wasn’t coming back that day. It took a little bit longer to get the fire going, but we managed all right. That night we finished off the hot dogs for supper.

The rain had eased off a bit the next morning, but there was still too much fog to hope that Dave would make it out to us. We had a breakfast of peanut-butter sandwiches made with the last of the bread and finished off the orange juice.

Gord had a clever little water bottle with a pump and a built-in charcoal filter. We kept ourselves entertained pumping river water through the filter until we’d filled the orange juice jug with water.

That afternoon we had visitors! Two canoes paddled by four very wet and tired guys. They were sympathetic about our plight and offered to share some of their food. They made a pot of fettuccine and gave us each a small ziplock bag full of the stuff.

Because of the rain, everyone hunkered down to eat under whatever shelter they could find. Gord and I thanked them for the food and took it back to our campsite. We realized once we got there we didn’t have any utensils to eat it with. Dinner was slightly delayed while we grabbed some firewood and whittled ourselves each a pair of chopsticks.

We picked up a bit of fettuccine in our freshly carved chopsticks and toasted our good luck. After putting it in our mouths, we paused and grimaced at each other. We swallowed the mouthful awkwardly and then, in unspoken agreement, sealed up the ziplock bags. It was absolutely rancid. Completely inedible. Possibly the worst food I’ve ever tasted.

That night we had Oreos with peanut butter on them for dinner. It was far tastier than the fettuccine and much less likely to kill us.

The canoeists left early the next morning. They were a grim bunch and refused our offer to help them portage their canoes below the falls.

The weather continued to be miserable. I filled several pages of the guest book describing it in detail. That grew tiresome after a while, but whittling the chopsticks had inspired me. I got another piece of firewood and spent hours carefully carving a serving spoon out of it. It was a thing of beauty. I still have that spoon and it is one of my most prized possessions.

Gord saw what I was doing, got his own piece of firewood, and carved his own spoon in about ten minutes flat. This was probably the low point of our relationship, at least as far as I was concerned.

Aside from carving spoons, we entertained ourselves by keeping the fire going despite the rain and talking about what we would eat when the peanut butter ran out. We’d already finished almost all the ketchup, but most of the mustard was left. We figured mustard must have some calories.

And Gord was pretty sure we could eat birch sap. I thought that maybe we’d have to cook it or something first. We both agreed that we’d risk the birch sap before we went back to the fettuccine-in-a-bag.

It rained almost constantly that day and we went to bed not in the best of moods.

Breakfast on the fourth day of what was supposed to be an overnight trip was a finger swipe each from the peanut butter jar. We were out of Oreos.

It had mostly stopped raining. There was still a mist drifting over the river, but by noon it was starting to burn off. Gord and I sat at the dock hoping the plane might show up. Suddenly, from across out of the mist we heard the sound of laughter. It was more canoeists — six girls this time.

We liked these canoeists more than the ones from yesterday. For one thing, they were far less grumpy. They whooped when they saw us. We whooped back. We helped them unload. They gave us beef jerky.

It may have been my rosy recollection, but I remember them being the most beautiful women in the entire world. They told us they’d been dropped off about a week ago at Rabbit Kettle Lake and that the Falls was the halfway point for them. They said they had a couple of bottles of red wine they had been saving and they invited us to share some with them over dinner!

Wine! Goddesses had appeared out of the mists to offer us wine! It was unbelievable. Things were really starting to look up. Even the weather started to cooperate! The clouds broke apart and the sun shone down on us. The Goddesses of the River looked even more beautiful in the sunshine.

And then we heard the plane. The clouds had broken up all right. And Dave had taken advantage of the change in weather to rescue us.

There was to be no red wine that night. No flirtation around the campfire. Gord and I packed our stuff and got on the plane. We were relieved of course, but we couldn’t help wishing the goddesses had arrived yesterday and the grumpy guys who couldn’t cook have shown up today.

Dave was apologetic and tried to make it up to us by doing steep climbs and zero-G dives. The zero-G thing was kind of cool and I was impressed — and slightly terrified — he could pull it off in a forty-year-old bush plane. Gord sat up front. I sat in the back holding the almost empty jar of peanut butter. As the plane dived, I’d let go of the jar and watch it float in front of me for a couple of seconds as we plummeted towards the Earth. It didn’t really make up for the dinner we missed, but it was something.

Once we landed, we got in Gord’s truck and drove back to Fort Nelson. We had a couple of giant burgers at a place called Dan’s Pub, washed them down with some cold beer, and spent the night in a hotel room with real beds and flush toilets and showers. It might not have been as good as a night of wine and flirtation around a campfire with six beautiful women, but somehow it might just have been the best night of the trip.

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