October 11th, 2007
Sleepy Outposts: Cruising Canada’s Mackenzie River reveals
GREAT SLAVE LAKE, Canada — If the good ship Norweta, cruising on the Mackenzie River in Canada’s Northwest Territories, had arrived earlier, we wouldn’t have missed the wedding.
But it was nine o’clock on a July evening when we disembarked at Fort Good Hope, 25 miles south of the Arctic Circle. By that time, the bride and groom, dressed in their best beaded moccasins, had left the church and walked to the park.
In southern climes, the celebration would have been half over. But here in the western Arctic, where the summer sun shines 22/7, the party was just beginning. The guests, gathered at picnic tables, stared in surprise at the strangers suddenly in their midst. A bonfire crackled and strips of moose sizzled on a dozen barbecues. On the dance floor, a low wooden deck, the musicians had started to play.
“C’mon, let’s dance,” whispered Adele Clilli, the Norweta’s cabin stewardess, a member of the Dene (Athabascan Indian) people. She smiled shyly and tapped her foot as nine wiry men, each holding a large, flat hand-held drum, began to pound out an insistent rhythm.
“I have a second cousin here, and they’ve invited us,” she said, tugging on my sleeve. In a minute, we had met the newlyweds and were circling with two dozen other dancers to the thundering beat of a traditional dance.
A wedding was the last thing we’d expected when we booked a cruise on the 103-foot Norweta, sailing from mid-June through July on the Mackenzie River, or Deh Cho, “Big River,” as the Dene people call it. But surprise is what makes this cruise so unusual.
“These are communities, not tourist destinations,” said Margaret Whitlock, 68, the Norweta’s co-owner and a fourth-generation resident of Hay River, on the south shore of Great Slave Lake. “We’re never sure what we’ll find until we get there, but it’s always interesting, and definitely historic.”
The ship’s eight- and 10-day cruises, between Great Slave Lake and Inuvik, an Inuit town on the Mackenzie River Delta, follow the historic route pioneered in 1789 by explorer Alexander Mackenzie.
Along the 1,000-mile journey, the ship docks at a half-dozen sleepy outposts — Dene and Gwich’in villages, historic forts and towns built around former fur trading posts — where we and the other 18 passengers disembark to explore.
In Norman Wells, we found a small but attractively designed museum with detailed exhibits and a shop selling beaded moosehide moccasins, hand-knitted hats, jewelry and baskets. In Fort Good Hope, we visited the church, decorated with classic folk art designs, and recently restored. In Tsiigehtchic (TZIG-eh-chik), where the Arctic Red River flows into the Mackenzie, we arrived just in time to watch a local hunter pull up to the shore with a moose — just shot — stuffed into his motorboat.
The Mackenzie River, North America’s second-longest river system (after the Mississippi,) is a mammoth body of water, draining one- fifth of Canada. Flowing from southeast to northwest, it bisects the Northwest Territories, a region twice the size of Texas but with a population of just 45,000.
In an odd twist of fate, the river was busier in the 19th century than it is now. Travelers heading downstream wrote of seeing Indians fishing from their canoes, trappers laden with furs for the trading posts and riverboats ferrying cargo and passengers. But as the fur trade vanished, so did the traffic. The advent of the airplane put the riverboats out of business.
Today the trip is a wilderness adventure, past mountains, cliffs, islands and forests. There are so many trees, in fact, that each summer, 30 or 40 lightning-started forest fires burn at any one time, fated to smolder until winter snows put them out.
“No one pays any attention to them, not unless they’re threatening a town,” said George Whitlock, 73, the Norweta’s co- owner, and Margaret’s husband, as he scanned the smoke on the horizon. “It’s part of the natural cycle. But there isn’t much else out there, you know. Just a few hunters.”
The Norweta, with four decks, is a small but functional ship, built for deep water but maneuverable on the river. The engines and crew cabins are on Deck 1, below the water line. The 10 guest cabins, on Deck 2, have large private bathrooms with showers, built- in furniture and drawers for clothes. Screens on the portholes keep out mosquitoes. You can close the inside hatch to block out the midnight sun, or pull the curtains.
The combination lounge and dining room are on Deck 3, with a narrow promenade deck around the perimeter. The sun deck, behind the bridge on Deck 4, is surfaced with artificial turf and equipped with deck furniture. Because of the ship’s small size, the cabins near the engines can be noisy. We were prepared, however, since earplugs and noise-cancelling earphones are now part of our standard travel kit.
The meals, mostly American cuisine, are delicious but not fussy, prepared with first-class ingredients. Late evening snacks, of cookies, cake and fruit are also laid out. You can purchase wine, beer or mixed drinks.