Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada from Newfoundland to the Rockies (8 page)

Back from his recce, Cam pointed out the various rock pools that had been formed by millions of years of small stones being
swirled around by the rushing water. Some of them were quite large and others tiny; some were kidney-shaped and others perfectly
circular. One of them reminded me of my testicles: after a brush with cancer I’ve got only one; the other is an implant that
is a little bigger than the real one. I made this point to anyone who was listening, and I think by now Cam was more than
a little pissed off with me. As a punishment he told me he was going to show me how to solo portage. That’s
what Dave did earlier, swinging the heavy boat up and over his head.

Sixteen feet of unwieldy canoe weighs seventy-five pounds. They are designed for solo portage, though, with a central carrying
yoke that sits on your shoulders. Tipping out the water, Cam told me to use my leg muscles rather than my back if I wanted
to make it home. With the boat on its side and the hull against your legs, you lift and at the same time snap it over so that
it’s resting on your thighs. That was what Cam referred to as the intermediate position. The second move is to kick with your
knee and roll the yoke across your shoulders while gripping the seat slat ahead of it. To my guide’s consternation, I managed
it without any trouble and carried it around the rapids, although there was no need to carry it at all, given that Cam had
decided that we
could
risk the rapids with no gear in the canoes. I ended up having to carry it all back again, and I was beginning to wonder if
this wasn’t all part of some sadistic plan. I’d been watching the manic movement of water around the hole and all at once
I forgot about my bites and the nerves began to kick in. Russ and I discussed the various permutations of leaving the boat
unexpectedly and falling into the hole. We wondered whether you’d hit the bottom and get pinned there, or whether you’d pop
out the other side. None of that made me feel any better, but I’m not one to turn my back on a challenge, and there was nothing
for it but to have a go.

Thinking about it now, it was a bit like riding a motorbike on a race track. In discussion with Cam, I realised that there
was only one line, and if you deviated from it, the chances were you’d capsize. My mouth was even drier now as I planned the
route mentally from my vantage point on the shore. What would it look like head on? I wondered. Cam was confident. He
reckoned that with the right kind of scouting from above, we ought to be able to pick our way through. I still wasn’t sure,
but this whole expedition was about testing ourselves and there was no way we were going to wimp out now.

The hole was obvious; the point where the currents literally reversed, with a wave coming back to smash into the one heading
downstream. It was a mirror image of the tidal bore we’d experienced earlier in the trip, only it was static and fixed between
this shoreline and the rocks on the other side. And that was weird too. I’d stare at the hole, then look at the rocks and
I swear to God they were moving. I thought my eyes were giving up on me or something, but when I mentioned it, it was the
same for all the guys.

Cam told me we needed to have the nose of the boat facing each obstacle, and I would control that by back-paddling while he
steered us through. The nerves were beginning to turn into excitement now and I was ready to rock. Russ wasn’t prepared for
me to leave the safety of the shore just yet, though; I bet he was thinking of the rest of the show, and how he was going
to swing it if Boorman died tragically there on the Bloodvein River. ‘Cam,’ he said. ‘God forbid, but if Charley does flip
out and get caught in that hole, what should he do?’

Cam just looked at him deadpan, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, his helmet strapped low. ‘There’s nothing he can do,’ he
said. ‘If that happens, you’re finished. Game over.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence before he smiled. ‘No,’ he added, ‘if you do fall out, then take a breath before the
water sucks you down. It’s going to rag-doll you for a while but it will kick you out. The main thing to do is not panic,
and each time you come up, grab a breath. Panic and you’ll suck water – if that happens you
will
be finished, that’s for sure.’

Paddling out, my heart was thumping and my hands were clammy. At the far bank we turned for the rapids to make sure we were
coming at them from the right angle. It all hit us in a rush; from slack water we were suddenly into the first waves. The
bows were pitching, water rushing over the side; we were hunkered left, avoiding the big rock, though the boat was almost
on its side. I’d let go of the paddle with one hand and was gripping the gunwale; an absolute no-no in a canoe. Somehow we
stayed upright, though Cam was yelling at me to let go. We were moving incredibly fast and now I was back-paddling, my gaze
fixed on the rushing water that barrelled over the hole. It was on our left as it had to be, so that was a good thing, though
only just, and all I could hear was the sound of millions of gallons of water churning over and over like some vast washing
machine left on repeat spin. We brushed it at one point and I thought it would catch the bows, but we were off to the right
and though the stern came round we made it unscathed.

‘Yeah, baby!’ The exhilaration was incredible. I was punching the air and yelling out at the top of my voice as we came about
and paddled back to the others on the shore.

Cam had done a brilliant job, keeping calm and instructing me every step of the way. We had taken on a lot of water and it
was sloshing around our knees, but he knew what he was doing and the scouting process had ensured we had a plan. (He did describe
having me up front as some kind of beautiful chaos, though.) It was Russ and Dave’s turn next. From where I was watching they
seemed almost broadside, and for a moment I thought they were going to head right into the hole, but with the back-paddling
and the way Dave was steering they kept their shape and just about shaved the lip.

Wow, what a morning. We’d gone from the serenity of flat
water to dangerous, exhilarating rapids, and the day continued in that vein. That was the last really difficult set of rapids,
mind you, and from then on we made it with our boats full of gear.

We camped for a second night with our gear strung on a line, and I bathed in the river and washed the surf out of my hair.
Tents pitched properly this time, we ate dinner and I stood by the water and watched the sun go down.

Early the next morning we were on our way again. I was getting good at the rapids now, back-paddling and when we became stuck
on rocks managing to get off again without grabbing the sides of the boat. There were a lot of rapids; every time another
tributary entered the main flow, the junction was broken up by rocks. The last section before we reached the lodge where we
were staying the night was pretty strenuous; a serious descent at a place called Four Battle Rapids. The still air from yesterday
had been replaced by a stiff wind, and for most of the way it was right in our faces. By the time we steered the canoes to
the jetty at Bloodvein River Lodge, I was feeling a little beaten up.

I slept really well – although water dominated my dreams – and the following morning we were back in the boats to travel a little
further downstream to meet with the First Nations people. We were going to share a meal with a lady called Martina Fisher,
and there was talk of us taking part in a sweat lodge ritual, part of the ancient purification traditions going back thousands
of years. The construction of the sweat lodge was under way – a framework of reeds and tree branches that would be covered
by lengths of tarpaulin, and next to it a great pile of stones. It was pitched in a grassy knoll close to Martina’s clapboard
house. We would have to get a serious fire going in
order to heat the stones, but with my limbs a little weary, the idea of the sweat lodge was very appealing indeed.

The village was made up of single-storey wooden houses, all built fairly close to the water. Quite a few of the villagers
were going to take part in the ceremony, and one young guy, wearing a baseball hat and wraparound sunglasses, was waiting
for me to help him complete the lodge. He told me his name was Mari and he was the fire-keeper; his job was to pass what he
called ‘the grandfathers’ into the lodge. These are the stones which symbolise the souls of tribal members who have passed
on.

While the last preparations were being made, Cam took me across to meet Martina. She was a lovely woman, very welcoming, and
sitting in her kitchen I asked her what the sweat lodge meant to her and to the community. Her answer surprised me. She told
me that most people no longer practised any of the old ways. Prior to 1992 she hadn’t either, but then she rediscovered her
heritage and since then has taken part in the sun dance, been to various ceremonies and received teaching from the elders
so she could perform some of the rites herself. She told me that not only did she have to learn the ancient rites, she had
to earn the right to partake in them. Many of the old ways had been lost. It was hard to retain traditions when native language
was banned and children were separated from their parents in order to assimilate them into European society, but there had
been something of a resurgence of interest in the old ways recently, and Martina was hopeful about that.

Inside the sweat lodge, a person purifies their whole being – meaning the spiritual, the emotional and the mental as well as
their actual body. In the old days, women did not go into the lodge; it was only for the men. Things were different now, though,
because according to Martina it was the women who
were teaching the men and bringing them back to the old ways.

I had no real idea of the old ways she was talking about, so I asked what I could expect. She told me that before we went
in, we would purify ourselves with smoke from three of the four sacred medicines – sage, cedar and tobacco (the fourth is
sweetgrass). Once we had been purified, we would enter the lodge on our hands and knees in order to humble ourselves. We would
sit in a circle, with the strongest people to the west. There would be four doors, which we would open at intervals, starting
in the east, then the south and west, and finally the north. The four doors represented the four directions, the four winds,
the four races and the four stages of life: baby, child, adult and elder.

Martina went on to explain that the sweat lodge faces east in all Native American cultures, because east represents new life
or new beginning; it’s where the sun rises every morning. At the east door they pray for all children up to the age of twelve,
even the ones yet to be born. At the south door, they think of the young people, the teenage years, when so many lives go
wrong. At the west door, the prayers are for the adults – people like Martina herself and her friends. Finally, at the north
door, they pray for the elders, the old people whose journey in this world is almost over.

She went on to talk about the spirits of their ancestors. Once a person has died, they normally go to the spirit world, but
sometimes they wander. She said that spirits still need the help of the living, and in the sweat lodge they pray for them
all.

Lunch was a wonderful meal of meat, vegetables and rice, along with home-made bread, and after we had finished we went outside.
The lodge was almost prepared and the stones
were heating. Martina carried a ceremonial drum she had spoken about earlier. She had a selection of chimes and rattles; she
told me that they weren’t just for this ceremony, but were also used in traditional medicine rites if a person was ill. She
was convinced that the old ways were best, telling me how a few months previously she had been in a lot of abdominal pain.
A visit to the hospital in Winnipeg confirmed that the problem was gallstones. That was all she needed to know. Back home,
she went to see a medicine woman, who gave her some traditional remedies to dissolve the stones. She never took anything from
the doctors at the hospital, had no treatment to remove the stones; just the herbs from the medicine woman, which got rid
of the pain completely.

It was time for the ceremony. The only problem was the fact that we were not allowed to film inside. The sweat lodge is sacred,
and entry is permitted only to those participating in the ritual. Martina said that we would be calling up the spirits of
their ancestors, who would not want their images to show up in the film. Some things are just meant to be private, I suppose,
so that was the way it would be.

Martina heated a clump of sage over some hot coals that she plucked straight from the fire, and we palmed the smoke over our
faces. I took it very seriously, having a word with my sister Telsche as I performed the rite. Then I walked in a circle around
the fire pit, clockwise as was the custom. Taking a garden fork, Cam shifted ten heated stones into the lodge, and with Nat
the last to purify himself, we closed the eastern door.

It was a real experience. Martina spoke about the varying stages of life while we sat there in a circle, cross-legged with
sweat pouring off our bodies. It was pitch black, the only light the glow from the red-hot rocks. I stared at those rocks
almost
all the time we were in there, and at one point I could make out the most beautiful face. I felt completely relaxed, listening
to Martina’s voice, the beat of the drum. She broke the ceremony up into several sessions, and as each door was opened we
took a moment to catch some fresh air. It was just as well, because it was incredibly hot in there and to remain inside without
a break would’ve been unbearable. I really got involved, thinking about my children, my family and friends, people I’ve lost;
at times it was very emotional.

Afterwards I sat outside with one of the local guys, Norman, who had only recently revisited his traditional heritage. He
told me that when their traditions were forcibly taken away from them, each successive generation of elders spoke about how
they would return, and little by little they had. What struck me was that when we were remembering the children, teenagers,
adults and elders, our thoughts weren’t confined just to those in the community. There was, as Norman put it, no discrimination;
the ceremony had been held for every member of every race, young and old, right across the world. Maybe that’s something the
government and the churches in the nineteenth century didn’t appreciate.