Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
With the holidays approaching, most of us would
0:02
give powder days if the weather would cooperate.
0:05
Instead, we're trying to figure out what our belay
0:07
partner could possibly need. This year, you
0:10
can give the gift of the diaries by sending
0:12
a Diaries Plus membership to someone who needs a
0:14
little inspiration in their life. Your
0:17
friend, your loved one, your ski buddy, they
0:19
get a subscription to Diaries Plus. That's
0:22
Gift One. Now, here's
0:25
Gift Two. You're also giving
0:27
something to the community. For
0:29
the last year, listeners have been doing
0:31
the heavy lifting. We weren't even
0:33
sure if we were going to make it through this year,
0:35
but y'all have stepped up. A lot
0:37
of you have said that this project matters, that
0:40
this project maybe even helped nudge you in
0:42
a different direction in life, and that you
0:44
hope others might have the same chance. There's
0:47
a lot of dark stuff out there, and you've
0:49
told us that the diaries is a bright spot,
0:52
so now you can give it. Diaries
0:54
Plus, the gift that gives twice.
0:57
Once for a friend, once for the community.
1:00
So, check it out. It's super easy to do.
1:02
We've put a link in the show notes. Happy
1:05
gifting. Cordelia, welcome.
1:08
I feel like people are going to think this is
1:10
a rerun, but it's not. It's
1:13
not a rerun. I'm here in the flesh. You're
1:15
back for a hot second. It's
1:18
good to be back. We were texting
1:20
last week, the week of the election. I
1:22
just appreciated you reaching out so
1:24
much, and we were
1:26
talking about how we miss sometimes these
1:29
opportunities to debrief and start the
1:31
show. And
1:33
I think you said, well, let's just do it again. There's
1:35
nothing stopping us. Well, I
1:37
realized you and Becca
1:39
and the diaries was really
1:41
my bedrock for
1:44
so many significant events that happened during my time at
1:46
the Dripag Diaries. Yeah. Like, we
1:48
went through COVID together, the Black Lives Matter
1:50
protests in George Floyd, the 2020 election, January
1:52
6th. Like,
1:55
all these things happened while
1:57
I was a producer at the Dripag Diaries. And
2:00
we just had these moments
2:02
because of our production schedule
2:05
to check in and reflect and
2:07
process how we were feeling
2:09
and what was going on in the world in
2:11
the context of the stories that we were telling. And
2:14
yeah, it was just these beautiful opportunities for
2:16
us to connect and talk to
2:18
people, to make music and
2:21
to process these things together as a community
2:24
because it's actually really hard
2:26
to process alone. It's
2:28
funny how those years, I feel like we
2:30
were all on this little tiny boat in
2:32
this big ocean together, all pulling
2:35
in the same direction, just being like, we're
2:37
on a little tiny dinghy, we're going for
2:39
it. And it was like, those were very
2:41
memorable, powerful years, I felt like. They
2:43
were, yeah. I feel like last week,
2:46
just with all the turmoil that was happening
2:48
in our country, all I wanted to hear
2:50
was the Dirtbag Diaries theme music and Yurin
2:52
Becca's voice on the phone. It just like
2:54
that sense of familiarity. It
2:56
was like a homesick feeling, which made me realize,
2:59
even though I haven't been on the team for
3:01
a couple of years, how much
3:03
duct tape and beer is still home
3:05
for me. You
3:07
have left the diaries to embark
3:09
on your own incredible
3:12
community building endeavor, the Empathy
3:14
Theater Project. You're
3:17
two years in, how is it
3:19
going? It's going great.
3:21
We are in the middle of producing
3:23
a musical right now that
3:25
we workshopped last year.
3:27
It's called We're Still Here. And it's
3:30
actually the whole inspiration for the musical,
3:32
which we talked about on the diaries a couple of years ago,
3:35
was the story that I reported about Oak
3:37
Flat on an Endangered Spaces
3:39
episode, I think in 2021. And
3:43
it's a musical that has evolved
3:45
over several years and has
3:47
been co-authored in community with indigenous
3:50
people out here in Colorado. And
3:53
it's about a indigenous family
3:55
fighting to save their sacred
3:57
river against a proposed copper mine.
4:00
mine that's threatening to destroy their
4:02
sacred ceremonial grounds. And
4:04
then it's also about a rural mining
4:06
family who is really struggling economically and
4:08
is viewing this mine
4:11
as their lifeline. And so it's
4:13
kind of an Oak Flat meets
4:15
Romeo and Juliet type of story
4:18
that we've put on stage with a lot of
4:20
music and we're doing our second production of it
4:23
now. So we ran it last year in Boulder. We
4:26
actually sold out every show. We ran it
4:28
eight shows. That's incredible. Yeah. Had
4:30
a great run and then we workshopped it all
4:32
year. So it's been edited for
4:35
another year, like gone through a huge revision
4:37
on the script, all of the music. And
4:40
now it's in an even more solid place than it
4:42
was last year. And we have a brand new cast
4:44
this year and we just were in week three of
4:46
rehearsals. So it's pretty exciting. It's busy
4:48
around here, but really fun.
4:50
You know, I think the
4:53
one thing I've admired watching you go
4:55
through this process is that you
4:58
as a creative, as somebody who's
5:00
creating art and trying to bring
5:02
people together through that, is
5:05
that you're not creating something that that's simply
5:07
black and white. With your sort
5:09
of storytelling, with your music,
5:12
you're sort of prepared to kind of be like
5:14
the world is a complex place and
5:17
many things can be true at once. And
5:20
I really appreciate that. Well,
5:23
I think it's hard to
5:26
do, but it's needed to build
5:28
empathy for people and
5:30
perspectives that you don't consider
5:32
to be your own. And I
5:36
think that we as artists, I know my
5:38
whole team really perceives this painful
5:41
rift in our democracy right now and
5:44
that it's getting more and more
5:46
and more polarized. And that's
5:48
putting all of our features at risk
5:50
in certain ways. We
5:52
started Empathy Theater Project to try
5:55
to counterbalance that with the
5:57
arts and that we
5:59
create original art. productions that try
6:01
to tell multiple perspectives of
6:03
a single story. So we look
6:05
at polarizing issues, we look at divisive
6:08
issues, and then we, I mean it's
6:10
very like journalistic based, just given my
6:12
background, and we do a lot of
6:14
research to try to understand where everybody
6:16
is coming on this issue and where
6:19
every stakeholder has humanity
6:22
in certain fights and certain issues, and then
6:24
we bring those stories to the stage through
6:27
spoken word and through music
6:29
in a way that hits you just totally differently
6:31
on a different emotional level than like
6:33
seeing someone's irate Facebook post or reading
6:35
a newspaper article from
6:37
your whatever source of
6:39
media is swung towards your bias,
6:43
you know, and so we
6:45
try at least, we strive to equally represent
6:47
multiple sides of the story. It's not always
6:49
easy, but I do think that our audiences
6:52
have really resonated with the
6:54
work that we're doing and found it to be
6:56
a breath of fresh air in
6:58
this like hostile polarized environment that we're in.
7:00
And I think our world needs it because,
7:03
you know, issues are never black and white, and
7:06
we all have to work on our capacity to
7:08
empathize, regardless of who is elected president, you know,
7:10
we all have to play the long game here
7:13
for our country. Yeah. And
7:15
for the sake of just
7:17
being humans. Yeah. Well,
7:19
and I think the dirtbag diaries is similar
7:22
in the way that we sort of share missions to
7:25
tell stories and to create bonds to
7:28
important people in places that we want to
7:30
protect into the future because we
7:33
all want to get outside. We all want to be
7:35
around people that we love, and it's
7:38
going to take work to be able to do that. Yeah,
7:40
I saw this this quote pop up in
7:42
a couple of different places in the last
7:44
few weeks. It's from E.B. White, the famed
7:47
author who wrote Charlotte's Web
7:49
and Stuart Little and he was also an
7:51
incredible essayist. Basically is this,
7:53
it's every morning I wake up torn
7:55
between the desire to save the world
7:58
and the to
8:00
savor it. This makes it hard to
8:02
plan the day, but if we forget
8:04
to savor the world, what
8:06
possible reason do we have for saving it?
8:09
In a way, the savoring must come
8:11
first. And that's
8:14
what I wanted to do today. I wanted
8:16
to take a moment to savor
8:19
difficult things, to try
8:21
hard things, whether that's building a theater
8:24
project that's designed to create more empathy in
8:26
our world, whether it's putting
8:28
on the show for 18 years,
8:30
right? Or taking
8:33
an incredible journey through
8:36
wild wild landscapes. Because
8:38
I think audacious projects, being
8:41
in the toil of hard work, some
8:43
risk, maybe some fear, that makes
8:46
you savor your world and
8:49
your people even more. When you're
8:51
building something, in my experience, whether that's a mega
8:54
outdoor adventure or a theater production,
8:56
somehow gets you closer to the
8:58
heartbeat of the natural world and
9:00
the heartbeat of humanity. Today, producer
9:03
Laura Azaza brings us a
9:05
story about an audacious vision. It
9:07
begins with a red canoe at the
9:09
Pacific Ocean in Hanes, Alaska, and a
9:11
simple question with a complex answer. How
9:14
do you connect rivers and portages
9:16
over the continental divide, all
9:18
the way to the Arctic Ocean 1000
9:21
miles away, looking at maps and connecting
9:23
a web of waterways. Jared Gents and
9:25
Nikki Chu thought that they had found
9:27
a solution. The three and
9:29
a half month journey that followed can
9:31
only be described as
9:33
completely freaking epic. I've
9:36
never thought of canoeing as an extreme sport until
9:38
now. So go dream up an audacious
9:40
idea, do the work to make it happen
9:43
and savor that process, savor
9:45
the friendships in the world around us. And
9:48
then learn from that experience. And I imagine
9:50
there will be a moment in the
9:53
future when challenge finds you and
9:55
those learnings earned in the midst of
9:57
that effort, maybe even fear. will
10:00
come in handy. I'm Cordelia Zars. I'm
10:03
Fitzcahol. Do you want to say it?
10:05
And you're listening to the Dirtbag Diaries. Thanks
10:09
for being here. I'm
10:31
Jared Gents. I
10:41
live in South Lake Tahoe, California. And
10:45
I grew up in Michigan. I'm
10:47
Nikki Chu. I live in South Lake Tahoe as
10:49
well. And I
10:51
grew up in Ottawa, Canada. In the summer
10:53
of 2022, Nikki and Jared
10:55
set off on a big adventure.
10:57
I had always wanted to do
11:00
a big canoe trip in
11:03
the west or in the north part of Canada. Nikki
11:06
had grown up hearing stories about
11:08
people paddling on the Nahanni River
11:10
in the northwestern territories. It
11:13
flows through the Nahanni National Park, which
11:15
in 1978 became
11:17
one of the first UNESCO World Heritage
11:19
sites. And that's
11:22
where the idea started from, was just like,
11:25
how can we link different rivers
11:28
together to join the
11:30
Pacific and the Arctic Ocean?
11:32
So Nikki and Jared started gathering
11:34
a bunch of maps and scoping out rivers. We
11:36
started with looking at the Blackstone River, which is
11:39
kind of like an iconic river in the Yukon.
11:42
And I was like, all right, like what
11:44
flows into the Blackstone and out of the
11:46
Blackstone? And we realized that it
11:49
could join with the Pacific Ocean. When
11:52
they started dreaming up this trip, the
11:54
pandemic was in full swing. And there
11:56
was really nothing to do but research and draw
11:58
lines on maps and... We kind of
12:00
had our little war room with pictures and
12:03
maps and all of our ideas spread
12:05
out on the wall and on the floor. And
12:07
it was kind of this perfect storm of creativity
12:10
and having this trip grow into something
12:12
bigger and bigger. And as soon
12:14
as we thought like, oh man, this could be possible,
12:16
that ended up being the flagstone
12:19
idea that we sort of like ran
12:21
with. So we started just tracing all
12:23
the lines and connecting the dots and seeing how we
12:26
could maybe make it happen. Why
12:28
not just try it if we fail? It's
12:30
like no sweat off our backs. It'll be
12:32
a cool adventure no matter what. So
12:35
they moved beyond the maps, researching
12:37
the specifics of each river. And
12:39
then it was like a bit of
12:41
breaking each river down and each section
12:43
down to see like, okay, what are
12:45
you getting ourselves into here? What
12:48
they were getting themselves into was this. They'd
12:51
set off on their big red canoe, paddling
12:53
downstream for about 930 miles and upstream for
12:55
about 53. With additional travel
13:00
on land, they were looking at a 1,145 mile
13:02
journey over the course of three months to get
13:08
from Hanes, Alaska to
13:10
Tuk-Tuk-Tuk in Canada's Northwest
13:12
Territories. They'd put aside three
13:14
and a half months to have some
13:16
buffer. Every hurdle that we
13:18
came to were like, oh, there's like a
13:21
reasonable solution to that hurdle. So it just
13:23
felt like at every step it was like, oh, this
13:26
is still possible. Once they'd scoured the
13:28
maps for a path and chosen which
13:30
rivers would lead them from Hanes to
13:33
Tuk-Tuk-Tuk, they had to figure out what the
13:35
conditions were going to be like. They
13:37
read the trip reports by other paddlers,
13:40
but in a lot of cases, information
13:42
about the rivers was scarce. Sometimes
13:44
the available reports were a few years
13:46
old. Plus, they typically covered
13:48
only a portion of the rivers that people
13:50
tend to paddle on. Like the
13:53
Blackstone River, for example, is a
13:55
popular paddle spot, but people
13:57
tend to only paddle on half of it.
14:00
So there was zero beta for the
14:02
first 20 miles of their paddle. And
14:05
for some rivers, they found no trip reports
14:07
at all. So they
14:09
took the information that was available and
14:12
got friends and mentors involved. So
14:15
I had like flown over this
14:17
particular river and we got to see
14:19
like photos and little video
14:21
clips and we're like, okay, like
14:23
from what we can tell, this
14:25
looks possible. He's a pretty experienced whitewater
14:28
kayaker and rafter, but she hadn't
14:30
done many long canoe trips. As
14:32
for Jared, this would be his first
14:35
multi-day canoe trip, aside from a few
14:37
prep trips they'd made beforehand. The
14:39
longest canoe trip I'd probably done to that point was
14:42
two weeks. And so to
14:44
me, as soon as you
14:46
go beyond like that two week mark, it's
14:49
kind of like the same year. It's a bit
14:51
of extra logistics, but the
14:54
whole process is like not that different. This
14:57
was going to be a whole lot longer
14:59
than two weeks. For the
15:01
downstream portion, they plan to paddle 15
15:03
to 30 miles a day, depending on
15:05
the day, wind and water conditions. For
15:09
upstream paddle, they calculated they'd
15:11
go between four and seven
15:13
miles daily, depending on conditions.
15:16
They had to be prepared for anything. I
15:18
think we have the tendency to like weigh
15:20
over prepare for things, which I think served
15:22
us well. It just maybe meant that our bags were
15:25
a little too heavy with gear sometimes. On
15:27
any given portion of the trip, depending
15:29
on how much food they were taking,
15:32
they were carrying between 250 and 450 pounds. Along
15:37
the way, they'd planned four food
15:39
drops. We had planned
15:42
the trip for 2021 and
15:44
COVID was still like really an unknown
15:47
and we didn't want to be irresponsible
15:50
and like travel and communities up
15:52
there are much more isolated. Like
15:54
it just wasn't the right time to do it. So
15:56
I think like that was the first kind of big
15:58
hurdle to decide, okay. I think we are going
16:01
to push this year and we'll still try and do it
16:03
in 2022. Over
16:09
the span of that extra year, they
16:11
took the time to continue practicing using
16:13
their gear and spending time paddling whitewater
16:16
whenever they could. They
16:18
did several prep paddles in
16:20
Lake Tahoe and practiced portaging,
16:23
burying the boat and lining the boat.
16:26
They also got their wilderness first
16:28
response training and Jared
16:30
took two swiftwater rescue
16:32
courses. Then before
16:35
they knew it, their start date
16:37
June 1st was right around the
16:39
corner. Nikki, Jared, and
16:41
their dog Benson, who would be joining
16:43
them for the trip took about
16:46
a week and a half to drive north to
16:48
Canada. They stayed with
16:50
a friend in Whitehorse as they finished
16:52
organizing the food drop logistics. But
16:55
two days before we were supposed to leave, we were walking
16:58
him and a couple dogs and he was
17:00
getting chased by these like
17:03
three dogs and he turned around and
17:06
just slammed into a tree and he
17:08
ended up breaking
17:10
both his like dog
17:12
ACLs. And at first
17:14
we thought it was a spine and because
17:17
there's no surgeons in Whitehorse, we had to
17:19
fly him to Calgary to get double TPLO
17:21
surgery. And we
17:25
didn't really know if we should leave him or do the
17:27
trip without him or like
17:31
stay with him and forgo the trip altogether.
17:33
Nikki had a really tough time with
17:36
the decision because just two years before
17:38
when the trip planning started, she'd
17:40
been recovering from a torn ACL. Benson
17:44
was there through my knee surgery
17:46
and he was like the most
17:48
steadfast buddy. And then to
17:50
think about like leaving him with someone
17:52
else to rehab felt really
17:55
painful. At the
17:58
same time, they'd already postponed the their
18:00
trip once, and they'd
18:02
already set a bunch of logistics in
18:04
motion. We had, at this
18:06
point, already shipped all
18:09
of our drops off to further down the
18:11
river. We had things that were perishable that
18:13
we would have to replace, so financially it
18:15
would be difficult and in terms
18:18
of our day jobs, organizing the
18:20
time off work. They
18:22
found a facility that could provide
18:24
hands-on daily care for Benson with
18:27
PT, a water treadmill, and laser
18:29
therapy. So after about
18:31
two weeks of coordinating and making
18:33
sure Benson would be in good
18:35
hands, they decided to go ahead with
18:37
the trip. They set off on June
18:39
14. Starting
18:45
in the ocean was really important to us. From
18:48
Hidden Cove in Haines, they paddled
18:50
upstream towards the Chilkat River, which
18:52
makes its way under the towering
18:55
mountains of the Chilkat Range, teeming
18:57
with evergreens. Five
18:59
miles up the Chilkat River, they hopped
19:01
out of the boat and onto bikes.
19:06
The Chilkat doesn't connect to Kloony Lake,
19:08
so they pedaled their way to their
19:10
next stop, on bikes they'd carried in
19:12
the canoe. About a
19:14
week in, they got their first food drop and
19:16
had their bikes picked up. From
19:19
now on, they'd be traveling by canoe or
19:21
on foot. They got
19:23
ready to paddle and ready to
19:25
confront any conditions. On
19:27
Kloony Lake, there's a whole town that got wiped
19:29
out from a windstorm, and
19:32
so we just knew that
19:34
our timelines could shift because of delays
19:36
in weather or various different things. On
19:39
the lake, winds were mild and the water
19:41
was glassy. They paddled north,
19:44
towards the Chlouani River, spotting
19:46
lupin, eagles, and bear paw prints
19:49
along the way. Then,
19:52
they paddled down the Chlouani River,
19:54
towards the Donjek. Where
19:56
the Donjek River met the Chlouani, the
19:58
water started getting rougher. and
20:00
they felt the impacts of a big snow
20:02
year. On the rivers, the
20:05
Yukon had 200% of the snowfall that winter, and
20:09
so they were in flood for longer
20:12
than we had expected or anticipated. The
20:14
water levels didn't drop till like the
20:17
beginning of August, and so that changed
20:19
the nature of the trip. As
20:22
they paddled on the Donjek, which they connected to
20:24
the White River, they managed strong
20:26
rapids and above average water levels.
20:28
When they reached the Yukon River,
20:31
they found calmer waters on a
20:33
swift, silty river as they
20:36
paddled on towards Dawson City. That
20:38
was also where they encountered their first
20:41
bout of bad bugs. From
20:45
their tent, handfuls of
20:47
mosquitoes accumulated between the tent
20:49
and the rainfly. They
20:51
were about 530 miles into the
20:54
trip, close to halfway. North
20:57
of Dawson City, the cities and
20:59
towns are fewer and farther between.
21:02
In Dawson City, they'd post up in a
21:04
hotel to rest before setting
21:06
out upstream towards the Continental Divide
21:09
on the river that would prove to
21:11
be their biggest challenge yet, the
21:14
Chandin do. We've been in tricky
21:16
situations before, like having to suffer
21:19
sometimes over like, you know, a couple days, maybe
21:21
a week, but never to like,
21:24
I think the extent that we
21:26
actually did endure suffering. Several
21:28
of the rivers they'd traveled on
21:30
had gauges to measure water levels,
21:32
but not the Chandin do. So
21:35
they relied on scouting missions, photos,
21:37
and videos of a flyover taken
21:40
the previous fall. From
21:42
their prep, Nicky and Jared had expected
21:44
to encounter about five or six log
21:46
jams over the course of an 18-mile
21:49
stretch. Instead... I
21:51
think in the first probably four or five miles,
21:53
we passed like maybe 30 log jams.
21:57
It took us like eight hours to move, like six.
21:59
600 feet. These
22:02
log jams are made up of
22:04
a bunch of downed trees piled
22:06
up along different sections of a
22:08
river, creating dam-like obstacles. Branches
22:11
are sticking out in every direction, and
22:14
the water moving through the log jams
22:16
was fast. This
22:18
river looked a lot different, a
22:21
lot less meandering than what they'd seen
22:23
in the footage taken last fall. It
22:26
was really pushing much more straight
22:28
downhill. There wasn't as
22:31
many places to protect
22:33
you from the current or to be
22:35
in shallow water that just made
22:37
the log jams even more dangerous because the
22:40
current is flowing through them. They
22:42
had to carefully make their way around them. Where
22:45
there was an opening, they could ferry across
22:47
the river towards the opening and paddle through
22:49
it, or line the boat
22:51
and pull it upstream from the shore. What
22:54
made the Chande Aunu particularly difficult was
22:56
that there was a lot of overhanging
22:58
trees on the shoreline, so you're either
23:01
having to saw the trees themselves or
23:03
work around them. Often
23:05
they'd end up portaging around the log jams. Each
23:07
of the portages involved making two or
23:10
three trips to carry the boat and
23:12
all of the gear as they bushwacked
23:14
a trail alongside the river. If
23:17
they were in the water, they had to make
23:19
sure the boat angle was just right so they
23:21
wouldn't get swept downstream into the log jams. To
23:24
give you an idea of how strong the current
23:26
is, the water level was maybe up to our
23:28
thighs, and I had misplaced
23:30
my foot and the current swept me off
23:32
my feet. The only thing I
23:34
could hold onto is the canoe. If
23:37
Jared wasn't holding onto the canoe, I would have
23:39
just been swept downstream. I can remember
23:42
having to make a ferry across
23:44
maybe 50 feet
23:46
above a huge log jam where,
23:49
if we didn't make it, we were both ending
23:51
up in that log jam probably. Best
23:54
case scenario, we're able to jump out on top
23:56
and our canoe's getting sucked under and we're calling
23:58
a helicopter for rescue. to
30:00
just hanging out with friends. I just don't think about
30:02
it. I don't think about a change of clothes. It's
30:04
awesome. Dewar is also known
30:06
for integrating organic cotton, beechwood, and
30:08
eucalyptus fibers and recycled materials into
30:10
their products. With a range
30:13
of styles for both men and women,
30:15
Dewar's pants are passing the test of
30:17
owning fewer well-made things. So
30:19
whether you're wanting to upgrade your
30:21
wardrobe or looking for a holiday
30:23
gift, Dewar's sale runs through December
30:25
2nd. But don't doddle because items
30:28
will sell out. Go
30:31
to shopdewar.com backslash diaries.
30:33
That's shopdewar.com/diaries and say
30:36
50% off today. There's
30:39
a link in the show notes. Dewar
30:41
is built for doing. The
30:44
original plan had been to paddle 53 miles
30:47
up the Chandendu and stop at
30:50
Sila Pass, where they'd portage their
30:52
canoe and gear east, cross the
30:55
Continental Divide, and end up
30:57
on the Blackstone River. From
30:59
there, they'd head north, paddling
31:01
downstream towards the Peel River and
31:04
continued towards the Arctic. Instead,
31:06
they shuttled 150 kilometers to a point where the Blackstone
31:11
meets the highway, north
31:13
of Sila Pass, and started
31:15
paddling south. We upstreamed
31:17
again to the Continental
31:20
Divide because that was like one of the
31:22
big milestones of the trip, crossing the two
31:24
watersheds. And so upstreaming
31:26
on the Blackstone is like a completely
31:28
different experience. It's a lot less gray
31:31
to the river. It's a little
31:33
bit shallower. The water is a little bit warmer. It
31:35
was also incredibly blue from
31:38
ice and snowmelt. The
31:40
banks were lined with polished river
31:42
rocks where low-lying, hardy flowers
31:45
found places to grow. When
31:48
they reached Sila Pass, they hiked their
31:50
way to the Continental Divide. It felt
31:52
like redemption. It felt like
31:54
we had salvaged the trip. It felt like,
31:57
in our minds, we are still completing the route. as
32:02
much as we could. And Celapas was
32:04
just this magical place where
32:06
it didn't seem like anyone had been, and who
32:09
knows how long, and just
32:11
absolutely stunning terrain. There's mountains on
32:13
either side. It's
32:15
got tundra area, and there's amazing wildflowers
32:17
everywhere. And
32:21
we decided to swim in the river, and you
32:23
can see the glacier that's feeding the river, and
32:25
it's freezing cold, but just the idea that we're
32:27
choosing to be in freezing
32:29
cold water, and not being forced to be in
32:31
freezing cold water every day, to me
32:34
felt like the mood of the trip had
32:36
flipped. It rained a little
32:38
bit, and then there was
32:41
this gorgeous rainbow that formed, and
32:43
it was just so magical.
32:45
There's caribou, which is
32:48
cool to be that
32:50
in touch with nature, and the
32:52
surrounding, and like the earth, and all
32:55
of the seasons that get to occur in
32:57
that area. Once they'd
32:59
crossed the continental divide, they made their way
33:01
back towards the canoe on the banks of
33:04
the Blackstone River. At this point,
33:06
they downstreamed what they'd paddled up, and
33:09
continued on towards the Peel River. With
33:11
560 miles to go, they'd
33:14
continued downstream to the Arctic.
33:17
They still expected to have one and a half
33:19
to two months left to go. Though
33:21
the challenge of the Chandendu was
33:23
over, there were still some tricky
33:26
sections ahead. The next
33:28
was Aberdeen Canyon, along the Peel
33:30
River. There, the
33:32
river narrows, going from over 200
33:34
feet wide to about 15 feet. It's
33:39
squeezed between the canyon's sheer
33:41
rock faces, accelerating and
33:43
forming rapids that have been
33:45
described as unrunnable. As
33:48
they were approaching the spot where they'd
33:50
start their portage, they got a
33:52
puncture in their boat, running some Class
33:55
III rapids. But
34:01
it also forced us to like take a rest day
34:03
and that rest day was just a gorgeous sunny day.
34:06
They rested on a gravel bar
34:08
scattered with smooth river rocks and low
34:10
lying plants. We're on the Peel River
34:13
and we decided to make pizza on
34:15
a peel on the peel. And it
34:17
was just like really
34:20
wonderful to like have a good meal like
34:22
and to be forced to just sit and
34:24
wait for like I think it was 24
34:26
hours for the boat to dry. And
34:29
it was just like kind
34:32
of magical to think about fixing the
34:34
boat ourselves, being able to
34:36
continue the trip and then also having this
34:38
like really great rest day. It was now
34:40
early August and they had a little over
34:42
300 miles of paddling left
34:45
and one difficult portage around the
34:47
churning rapids of Aberdeen Canyon. But
34:51
they felt ready. We knew with
34:53
the portage it was just gonna be like three days
34:56
of hard work. It wasn't like this infinite like
34:58
how long is this gonna last kind of thing?
35:01
Though Nicky makes it sound
35:03
relatively relaxed compared to the
35:05
Chandendu, they were still
35:08
portaging on a remote trail. Nicky
35:10
and Jared made trips back and
35:12
forth to transport their gear and
35:14
canoe as they bushwacked through dense
35:17
brush and trees to the flat
35:19
top of the canyon and eventually
35:21
back down. Once
35:23
they reconnected with the peel, they set
35:25
out towards the Mackenzie River. After
35:28
Aberdeen Canyon, the waterways widened
35:30
and the water slowed, moving
35:33
between sloped banks. On
35:35
the Mackenzie River, despite being so far
35:38
north, the water was the
35:40
warmest they'd experience yet. Nicky
35:42
took advantage of the warmer waters going
35:44
for some swims. And
35:46
now the end was in sight.
35:49
For the most part, it was fully smooth
35:52
sailing, but we still had
35:54
unexpected challenges. Along
35:57
the way, a big one was as
35:59
you get... towards the Arctic Ocean, the
36:02
rivers really slow down. So you're paddling a
36:04
lot more. And we started
36:06
to encounter pretty bad headwinds, so that's
36:08
impeding your progress. When
36:10
they got to the Delta of the Mackenzie
36:12
River, where it drains into the Arctic Ocean,
36:15
they hit a storm. We had been paddling
36:19
late into the evening, looking
36:21
for a place to camp. It's the
36:23
land of the midnight sun. And so we think it was
36:25
maybe 11 p.m. before we found a campsite
36:28
and set up camp. And we knew that there
36:30
was gonna be a storm the next day. So
36:32
we found this beach that we could get as
36:35
far off the water as we could. And
36:37
the next
36:39
day, we were on the ocean and
36:41
we were just tent bound. We knew it would be about
36:44
24 hours of this storm. And
36:46
so we were just gonna wait it out in the tent. They
36:49
made it through the first high tide
36:51
without getting flooded out of their campsite.
36:53
A huge relief. And what happened
36:55
was the wind switched directions. So then we had
36:58
not just the second high tide, but we had
37:00
a storm surge. And in
37:02
a matter of less than a half
37:04
an hour, we went from our tent
37:07
and our canoe fully out of the water to our canoe
37:10
was floating and starting to flood. And
37:13
water was lapping up against our tent. And
37:16
behind them was a hundred foot cliff.
37:19
We had no choice but just to pack up and
37:22
throw everything in the canoe hastily and try
37:24
to paddle somewhere with higher ground. And
37:27
we had ocean swell coming in from
37:29
one direction and wind swell coming in
37:31
from another direction, creating just
37:34
really unpredictable waves. And we
37:37
kind of accepted that we were probably
37:39
gonna swim and maybe
37:42
be dragging the boat out of the waterfall, maybe be
37:45
losing the boat and all of our gear and calling
37:47
for a rescue at this point, less
37:49
than 20 miles from the end of the trip. They
37:52
spotted a pile of huge logs that had
37:54
pushed up against the shore. They
37:56
paddled to it and used it to get
37:58
the boat back on shore. From
38:01
there, they found what they
38:03
described as a swamp and
38:05
set up their tent, which was sitting
38:07
in a puddle, being blasted by wind
38:10
for hours until the storm subsided the
38:12
next day. I think that was like
38:14
probably one of the scariest points of
38:16
the trip for me because we had
38:18
known that people
38:20
caught in storms
38:22
in that area have died being
38:25
swept out to see. This is like
38:27
really hard to find you in like the
38:29
continental United States if you hit your Garmin
38:31
SOS button, like someone is probably there within
38:34
under 24 hours, almost guaranteed. And
38:37
when you're dealing with the Arctic, you know, expect
38:39
someone maybe to come in 48 hours. And
38:42
so I think like just having that in
38:44
my mind, we learned later that they call
38:46
that section of the river Hurricane Alley because
38:49
the winds can like be so dramatic
38:51
that I think it's a motorboat
38:53
can't like really get up the channel. Using
38:56
their in reach, they'd been messaging someone they'd
38:58
met earlier on the trip to keep him
39:00
up to speed on the storm. He
39:03
let them know that there was a First
39:05
Nations wailing camp close by. He'd
39:07
been in touch with them. He was like, you should
39:09
just go there and like they'll have hot
39:12
food ready for you and coffee and can
39:14
probably put a roof over your head. And
39:16
so we ended up paddling there and they
39:19
did put us up in a little cabin
39:21
with a wood stove and we were able
39:24
to dry all of our stuff out, which
39:26
really just I think was the relief we
39:28
needed and like enabled us to kind
39:30
of like take a deep breath and then
39:33
focus on, OK, how do
39:35
we paddle this last day into tuk-tuk-tuk
39:37
to finish the trip? They
39:40
were finally dry, drinking hot drinks and
39:42
there was a fire to keep them
39:45
warm. And then Jared, he
39:47
was like, you know, we
39:49
haven't really even like touched the Arctic Ocean
39:51
because we weren't technically on the ocean. I
39:53
was like, that's silly. Like we're going to
39:55
be on the ocean tomorrow. Like why why
39:58
are you asking me to do this? But
40:00
finally, Nikki agreed. to walk out to the
40:02
ocean with Jared in the rain. I was
40:04
getting really introspective and asking questions about the
40:07
trip and our lives together. Yeah, he was
40:09
asking like a bunch of introspective questions and
40:12
then, yeah, asked
40:15
me to marry him. ["Ave
40:17
Maria"] ["Ave
40:20
Maria"] And
40:27
had craftily smuggled a
40:30
ring with me the entire time, which was
40:32
terrifying. When they'd started planning this
40:34
trip in 2020, it had
40:36
been an earlier stage of their relationship.
40:39
You're very much dreaming about the future and
40:41
dreaming big and thinking about the potential of
40:44
what you can do together. And now they
40:46
were here, living out those big
40:49
dreams with only a few
40:51
miles of this one left to go.
40:53
Kind of like relief when we kind
40:55
of know we've made it, at least
40:57
we're gonna make it to the end,
40:59
didn't come until we were a couple miles away
41:02
from tuk-tuk-tuk, because
41:05
I knew at any point this, like
41:07
a storm or some wind could come up and
41:09
really derail us. As they finished
41:11
their thousand plus mile journey to
41:14
tuk-tuk-tuk, they paddled by
41:16
ice-cored hills called pingos, which
41:19
have been used as navigational landmarks
41:21
for the Inuvialit people, traveling
41:23
on land and water for centuries.
41:27
As Niki reflected on the vast
41:29
landscapes of the Arctic and
41:31
their vulnerability to climate change, it
41:34
made her think of the relationship between
41:36
people and the environment. I
41:38
think there's probably about like eight or nine
41:40
different First Nations territories
41:42
that we traveled through and
41:45
everybody who was there, like who
41:48
helped us along the way, like very
41:50
much have like a historic attachment
41:53
to the land. Throughout the
41:55
trip, we traveled on First Nations land and
41:57
I want to respectfully acknowledge that we're on
41:59
the traditional land. territory of the
42:01
Champaign, Aishac, the Kalani First
42:03
Nation, the White River First
42:05
Nation, Selkirk First Nation, Trondec
42:08
Guitian, Nacho Dyac, Tetland Guitian,
42:11
Guitian, and Inuvolent First Nations.
42:14
The connection between like human
42:17
land animal is tenuous
42:19
and we should regard that
42:21
as something that is like sacred
42:23
and special. For Jared
42:26
too, after a long and mostly
42:28
isolated journey, a key takeaway was
42:30
that none of it could have
42:32
been possible without community. Even
42:34
though we were alone there was like people looking out for
42:36
us out there and there was people that we were
42:38
able to text on in reach who were there
42:42
and willing to help and there was
42:44
people who were willing to do long
42:46
drives to drop food
42:49
and supplies for us or
42:51
replace gear that broke along
42:53
the way. So I just think that it's
42:56
a trip that wouldn't have happened without all of that
42:58
generosity. Through meandering
43:01
rivers, log jams, aggressive
43:03
rapids, sunny days, and
43:05
storms, they'd emerged onto
43:07
the Arctic Ocean, its
43:10
vastness extending into the horizon.
43:13
After traveling more than a thousand
43:15
miles, their journey had come to
43:18
an end. There was
43:20
just one thing left to do. Reunite
43:23
with their dog Benson. He
43:25
was just like so excited to see us and by
43:27
that point he could run around a little bit and
43:29
like he just like jumped three feet in the air
43:31
when he saw us. Yeah it was the
43:33
ultimate case of the zoomies when he saw
43:36
us. He was
43:38
bouncing off the walls. This
43:41
adventure that they'd been dreaming about
43:43
for years was over. They
43:46
had paddled, walked, struggled, and
43:48
stood awestruck through the rivers
43:50
and places that had
43:52
started as lines on a map. For
43:55
me like looking at maps and
43:57
things like that being kind of plan
44:00
out and see where
44:02
it is you want to travel, and if
44:04
it's possible, and then figure out all the logistics
44:07
of how do you make this happen. But
44:09
I think it doesn't really matter what you're
44:12
solving for as long as it's holding your interest and
44:14
you want to solve the problem. I think
44:16
it just comes down to imagination, where
44:18
your interests are pulling you. How do
44:21
you want to experience the world? What
45:00
is your story? Many
45:06
thanks to Nicky and Jared for sharing their story with us.
45:09
A portion of the funding for their
45:11
trip came from We Got Next, an
45:13
organization that amplifies individual stories of adventure
45:15
and activism from communities that have been
45:17
underrepresented in outdoor spaces. Nicky
45:20
and Jared are scheming on climbing and skiing
45:22
around Lake Tahoe. A lot. Our
45:24
stories come from friends, from friends of friends, and
45:27
from you. If you have
45:29
a compelling idea for a guest
45:31
or story lead, please give us
45:33
a shout. You can email us
45:35
at editor at ducktapethembear.com. Music today
45:37
from Marcus Huber, Cindy Skor, Matthew
45:39
D. Morgan, and Lilac Canyon. The
45:41
tracks are courtesy of Track Club. Jacob
45:44
Bain and Niece Cotto composed our theme song. You
45:47
can find links to the artists at
45:49
our website, dirtbagdairies.com. This episode was produced
45:51
by Laura Izzaza, with additional production help
45:53
from me and edited by Skyler Perwins.
45:56
Illustration by Walker Cajal. Fitz
45:58
is our creative director. and in Baja.
46:01
I'm Becca Cahall and you've been listening to
46:03
the Dirtbag Diaries. Thanks for tuning
46:05
in.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More