feature story on the Snake River - Fritz Mueller Photography

Feasting on their surroundings,travellers set up campby a creek flowing into theSnake River. The Yukon’s Peelwatershed is home to aclassic tussle between conservationand exploitation.A canoe descent of the Yukon’s turbulent SnakeRiver offers a view of a watershed battle and ameditation on the meaning of wild spacesBY LESLIE ANTHONY WITH PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRITZ MUELLER

With their canoe and gearunloaded, trippers watchon shore as the Otterdeparts Duo Lake in soupyweather on its way toanother rendezvous.A striated outcrop greetspaddlers on the upper SnakeRiver (RIGHT). It is a familiarsight to Blaine Walden(BELOW), a wizened, 20-yearveteran of trips on the Peelwatershed’s six major rivers.Weather perpetually threatens in the Yukon, soit was no surprise that our pilot had to make this secondattempt in two days to drop us off at Duo Lake. In the tinycommunity of Mayo, some five hours southeast of DawsonCity, we had loaded gear into the high-powered Otter,lashed canoes onto pontoon struts, taxied onto the turbidand historic Stewart River and put the hammer down. Aviridescent quilt of forest and moss quickly fell away, rivenby the blue of serpentine rivers, their bends bracketed bysandbars and parenthetic oxbows. On higher ground, geometricpatterns testified to the meta-processes that precededthe forests. Dendrites of former drainages fell like dark veinsbetween muscled ridges. Trees grew in fractal scallops on thehalting deposits of glacial retreat. Arrays of circular lakes tolda <strong>story</strong> of leftover ice chunks buried beneath rubble.Now, as calm plateaus give way to bucking humps andsharp ridges, we encounter the same lowering wall of cloudthat turned us back yesterday. Only this time, we squeezethrough a mountain pass just as the curtain drops anddescend in a slow spiral onto Duo Lake. In no time, ourgroup — a Whitehorse-based crew consisting of photographerFritz Mueller and guides Blaine and Mary Walden ofWalden’s Guiding & Outfitting — plus our tonne of gearand pair of canoes are all on shore. The plane is reducedto a faint whine that tails off like the last note of a song,leaving us to the silence of a huge and dramatic landscape.Before we have time for contemplation, the drone of theplane’s engine is replaced by the buzz of mosquitoes.It is said that the Snake gets its name from a Gwich’in term(literally translated as “large hairy worm”) and refers to amyth about a giant serpent that swallows all the river’s boulders.Like the Wind and Bonnet Plume rivers, the Snakebegins its northward flow in the Wernecke Mountains, anorthern extension of the Rockies and part of the MackenzieMountains Ecoregion. Remote and rugged, the river carvescanyons through sub-range after sub-range, bisectingmassive rock slides and braiding out into long gravel flats.Any doubts about who these waters belong to are put torest when we begin portaging to the river. Twice, we trudgeloads one hour over alpine scrub, ford a creek, beat througha maze of willows, struggle across a hummocky wetland,burrow through another strangle of willows and land onthe flood channels of the Snake. Mountains soar on bothsides as we hump over the abundant tracks and dung of46 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JUNE 2011CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 47

Following a four-hour hikealong animal trails, authorLeslie Anthony (ABOVE) offersa tip of his cap to the bigwallpanorama of the MountMacDonald massif (LEFT).moose, caribou, wolf and grizzly, whose diggings for bearroot, a favourite food, are everywhere.Returning for another load, sweaty and engulfed inmosquitoes, Mary spots something rustling the willowsahead and calls out. We watch as an adolescent grizzlycrashes across the wetland and up the hillside, flatteningwillows as it goes. It stops to look back several times and, onits final turn along a mountain bench, feels safe enough tostand fully erect on its hind legs and aim its ears toward us,like a proverbial sasquatch. It’s a fortuitous and thrilling sightso early in the trip.The next day, we awaken to rain at our sandbar camp onReptile Creek (the joke is that there are no reptiles in theYukon). Once on the river, our heads are down navigatingand lining a canyon full of rapids, but when the river breaksfree of sheer walls and hairpin corners, the wildlife paradecontinues. Standing on shore with a plate of pancakesduring a break in the downpour, I hear a loud splash downstreamand turn to see a large caribou swimming toward usfrom the other side. It’s oblivious until the last second when,sensing our presence, it turns into the current and disappearsaround the corner, its head bobbing in an icy train of waves.The animal holds a special place in arguments to protectthe Peel, whose massive 67,000-square-kilometre borealeco-machine would comprise the largest protected area in theburgeoning Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative torelink wildlife corridors disrupted by continental colonization.“The Bonnet Plume woodland caribou may be theonly herd in North America that doesn’t have a single roadthrough its territory,” says Blaine, a wiry, wizened 20-yearveteran of trips on the Peel’s watercourses — with a baseballcap that looks to have accompanied him throughout — ashe dishes out the last of the flapjacks.That afternoon, the river braids out for the first time, andwe bob below cliffs dotted with dirty white puffballs — Dallsheep munching the succulents they lust for — and crisscrossedby peregrine falcons. There’s bird life aplenty: goldenand bald eagles keep an eye on us as they lurch from log-jamto log-jam, while mew gulls and lesser yellowlegs guardtheir nests. We make camp at aptly named Milk Creek,which funnels finely ground glacial flour from 2,758-metreMount MacDonald, the highest peak in the Bonnet PlumeRange. The alabaster flow pours through three separatechannels into the teal-coloured Snake, yielding an uncannyand alluring parfait.During a layover day, we light out on a four-hour hike toa nearby peak, following an animal trail through dense,spongy spruce up a ridge that plateaus into sparser trees andmossy hummocks. Underfoot is a riot of lichens, bryophytesand small alpine plants: reindeer moss, dead man’s fingersand even fairy parasol (which grows only on moose dung).As we ascend, alpine lupines cradling large, sparkling waterdrops in their axils offer a ready source for a quick drink.Climbing up off the river, we are treated to the truebreadth of the land. By the time we hit the scree of the upperslopes, we can see 100 kilometres in any direction notblocked by a mountain, and it’s impressive to think this entirevista is unmarred and unoccupied, free for any animal towander at will. That’s a working definition for some conservationists.Juri Peepre, co-author of Wild Rivers of theYukon’s Peel Watershed, has said, “A wilderness is really awild landscape where you can still roam free.”Wilderness, though, is not always pleasant. Cresting thesummit ridge, we spy a silhouetted caribou. Suddenly, itlooks up and bolts straight down toward us, zigzaggingmadly through the meadows, furiously shaking its head.“Botflies,” says Mueller, a trained wildlife biologist whospent years studying caribou.48 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JUNE 2011CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 49

Shoreline willows and soaringpeaks bracket the headwaters ofthe Snake River near Duo Lake.

From a gravel bar, Anthony and theWaldens take the measure of 2,758-metre Mount MacDonald, highestpeak in the Bonnet Plume Range.One of nature’s nastier pieces of engineering, the botflyhovers in front of a caribou’s snout, blowing eggs up the animal’snostrils. These hatch, and the larvae (bots) migrate intothe nasal cavities, where they grow all winter; a big infestationmakes it difficult to breathe. In spring, the caribousneezes the larvae out, and they metamorphose into flies. Thisone looks to be trying to elude another round of egg laying.After this Darwinian drama, we hike the final ridgeto an overlook of MacDonald, a stunning big-wallpanorama of Himalayan proportions. Its remoteness andlow elevation mean it is rarely visited by climbers, despitespectacular 1,600-metre walls. Following animal trailsback to camp, we wade through swaths of bear flower, aplant characteristic of the unglaciated areas of Siberia,Alaska and the Yukon, yet another of the Peel’s dimensions:though much of it was heavily glaciated, a good chunk ofthe watershed missed out on the most recent Pleistoceneparty. This long-standing, unperturbed ecosystem holdssignificance for the future.“One of the best ways that we can manage natural systemsto ensure resilience to climate change is through protectinglarge habitat areas and ecosystems,” explained KarenBaltgailis, executive director of the Yukon ConservationSociety, when I spoke with her after the trip. “The Peel isexactly such a place — large, unimpacted, with linkagesbetween different elevations, habitat types and latitudes.”From the perspective of a canoeist, hiker or climber, it’sjust plain cool. There are few places left on Earth to observesuch large-scale diversity.Except for encountering the occasional rock garden,our days on the river are braids and eddies, braids andeddies. And now, a week into the descent, a particularlystrong example of the latter rips in from the right. We bracehard across it. “That’s Iron Creek,” says Blaine, directing usto pull over.Iron Creek holds particular interest for outfitters such asthe Waldens. Like many Yukoners, Mary and Blaine arrivedfrom other parts of Canada to fall in love with this wild land.Growing up in Calgary, Blaine, 54, had wanted to go intothe woods and build a cabin since reading Farley Mowat’sLost in the Barrens. In 1982, he answered an ad for a raftingguide and has led river trips ever since. One of few peopleto have descended all the Peel’s rivers on the Yukon side,Blaine runs sled dogs during winter. Mary, 50, is a journalistwho left Saskatchewan in 1988 to be a reporter at theYukon News and later the CBC. She now focuses most of herwriting on protection of the Peel.On this trip, one of their goals is to visit a site where,50 years ago, the Snake dodged a bullet. In 1963, CaliforniabasedStandard Oil (now Chevron) cleared an airstrip on aforested plateau and erected a camp to conduct oil andgas exploration. It didn’t find any, but 14 kilometres upClimbing up off the river,we are treated to the truebreadth of the land.52 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JUNE 2011

Weighed down by supplies, guide MaryWalden is undaunted as she crosses analpine meadow (ABOVE RIGHT). Burstingfrom the rocky shoreline, river beauties(ABOVE) add a purplish-pink exclamationmark to a rugged landscape.this formerly unnamed creek, geologists did stake leases onwhat, according to Chevron, was believed to be the secondlargest iron ore deposit in the world. Chevron currentlyholds 525 leases on this so named Crest deposit, totalling27,827 hectares (an adjacent lease in the NorthwestTerritories adds another 3,915 hectares). Remoteness haskept the find in the ground; the long-abandoned staging site,however, is rumoured to be contaminated. The Waldenswant to see for themselves.The gravel bar we pull out on is peppered with hematitejasperore, blood-red and alien amid the light-colouredcobble. It is strangely beautiful, but a potential disaster forthe Snake. Iron extraction is a messy, disruptive business.In spitting rain, we hike far up the creek before turninginto the bush. It’s difficult going as we struggle throughmosquito-swarmed spruce hummocks and then outrightswamp toward an unmapped destination. Suddenly, I comeacross old cut trees clad in thick moss. Almost immediately,we find oil cans, aviation fuel barrels, an airplanepontoon and other big-ticket garbage near the overgrownairstrip, as well as several dilapidated plywood shelters usedas a fall hunting camp by outfitters.Chevron’s leftover trash encourages hunters to treat the siteas their own modern-day dump. We discover suppuratingbatteries and rusted-out fuel drums whose contents havepercolated into the soil. Here, grizzlies, attracted to oil,have created mud baths. We also find an old fuel towerleaking oily water into a large, well-trodden puddle. Thetower is now a rub, with wisps of grizzly hair attached to boltsand the jagged edges of rusted metal. As small and removedas the site may be, it not only is clearly contaminated but isaffecting local wildlife. If this is the cost of but one tiny,unfulfilled wilderness transgression, what would an entiremine complex and network of roadways beget?After remaining mute for half a century, Chevron, as ofthis writing, has committed to a two-phase cleanup that willcomply with all government regulations. The first phase, tobegin this summer, will involve the removal of debris and soiltesting. In 2012, the company will undertake any necessarysoil remediation. The cleanup might be a double-edgedsword: although belated and welcome, it is also necessary ifChevron holds any hope of acting on its stakes in the area.“Once mining activities are completed, we have to restorethe land to a level where it conforms to the surroundinglandscape and allows for other uses,” said Claire Derome,president of the Yukon Chamber of Mines, when we spokelater. “I’m not saying that happened 30 years ago, but thesedays, that’s how we conduct our business. Mining is one waywhere people living in the community can earn a living.Without that, there’s little else that’s taking place here.”Day 10, our last day on the river, is sunny but gruelling.Wind and squalls fill the air with fluffy cottonwood seedsthat, like the snowflakes they resemble, stick to everything.The water is rising, growing browner and nastier, adding thehazard of new channels roaring through gravel bars crowdedwith old log-jams.Steadily rising water means it is still raining somewhere,and the dangerous flood conditions demand careful corneringmanoeuvres. For 50 kilometres, we skirt threateningsweepers, islands of collapsed riverbank and enormous floatingtrees that only hours before had stood tall on ground theyhad occupied for hundreds of years. It’s tenser than pickingthrough rapids and a stark lesson in the dialectic of wild rivers— their eternal tearing down and building up.Eventually, the water slows and grows bigger, workingthrough soaring cutbanks peppered with mineralizednodules from much further back in time. The nodulescontain the fossils Mary has read about in the journal ofCharles Camsell.Camsell was born in the North and travelled extensivelythroughout the Yukon and Northwest Territories as ageologist for the Geological Survey of Canada. Typical of theold-school explorer/bureaucrat, Camsell felt the only way toappreciate Canada was to see its North, with an eye to theriches of both experience and development. His travels in theregion led to the first comprehensive report, in 1906, on the54 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JUNE 2011

A relic from Chevron’s oilexplorations, a rusted-out fueltower is now a rub for grizzlies.Nearby, a found fossil is a relicfrom a different era (BOTTOM).Peel and its tributaries. In 1929, Camsell’s journeys inspiredhim to start The Royal Canadian Geographical Society(which gave birth to this magazine).Mary hopes to find the deposit Camsell described onthis section of river: a small stream mouth stacked highwith oxidized, iron-rich nodules. Pulling over at a likelylookingalluvial cone on an outside wall, we are greeted bywhat seems to be the fossil trove heralded by Camsell:brachiopods, ammonites and other molluscs; trilobites,coral fans, worms and their tracks. A scattered brilliance oforganic art. “Wow, look at these things,” laughs Mary,turning the sharp, ochre impressions in her hands. Hikingthe creek, we discover more fossils, gaining an understandingof how the nodules have washed down over time to crackopen and accumulate in such an improbable pile.Back at the canoes, the omnipresent wind howls into thecorner, lifting sandstorms from the towering walls andencouraging us to depart before theseslap us in the face with contact-lensfindingaccuracy. Behind, we leave oneof the watershed’s many paleontologicaltreasures. Perhaps not as impressiveas the mammoth tusks Blaine famouslyplucked from the banks of the upperPeel, but of enduring scientific interestnonetheless.By the end of the day, the canyon isin shadows. When the Snake finally debouches into thePeel, it is with little fanfare other than a strong eddy line toChevron’s leftover trashencourages hunters totreat the site as their ownmodern-day dump.be ridden carefully north. Having already received five majorrivers, the Peel here is already huge. A few kilometres farther,along a sweeping wall of sediment towering 100 metresabove the water, we arrive at Taco Bar.Marked by a protected eddy channel that’s easy for aplane to taxi on, Taco Bar (so named for one pilot’s revereddinner creations) is the pickup point for those with nodesire to tack on the extra four-day paddle to FortMcPherson. It’s also the terminus of Canadian Parks andWilderness Society’s 2003 Three Rivers Journey, duringwhich 18 artists, writers, journalistsand photographers made three simultaneousjourneys down the Wind,Bonnet Plume and Snake rivers. Afterweeks on the water, they were met onTaco Bar by members of the Gwich’inFirst Nation, who welcomed thepaddlers with a feast. Creative worksgenerated from this journey wereassembled into a touring show thatattracted international attention due to the unique culturaland ecological values of the watershed.56 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JUNE 2011

Avoiding a rough patch,Anthony and Walden line therapids of the Snake (LEFT).From their Otter aerie, theyview the Stewart Rivermeandering through theYukon wilds (BOTTOM).Staking a claim for a watershedThe Peel River watershed land-use process grinds as slowlyas Mount MacDonald’s glaciers in northern Yukon.In December 2009, after seven years of consultations,the independent Peel Watershed Planning Commissionrecommended that 80.6 percent of the region be withdrawnfrom staking and protected and that 19.4 percent becomeIntegrated Management Areas, where mineral, gas and oilcould be accessed only if there were no significant environmentaldeterrents. That winter, a round of public consultationrevealed more than 90 percent support for the plan.In February 2010, the commission received a formalresponse to its recommendations from First Nations andYukon governments. There were no surprises. First Nationsfelt the proposal was inadequate, insisting on 100 percentprotection. The government said 80.6 percent protectionwas far too much and sent the commission back to the drawingboard. The mining lobby was equally unimpressed.“The area we’re talking about is huge,” says ClaireDerome, president of the Yukon Chamber of Mines.“It’s 15 percent of the Yukon, which would add to the14 percent that is already protected. You’d jump tohaving close to 30 percent of the Yukon set aside. Thisis way beyond anything that exists in Canada.”This fall, the commission will produce its finalplan, which will go out for yet another round of publicconsultation, then be sent back to governments forfinal approval.The slow pace may prove helpful to conservationists. TheYukon is again experiencing a boom; this summer expects tosee a rash of new claims and increased work on establishedclaims outside the Peel River watershed, mostly due to thestrong price of gold and demand from China.This much activity elsewhere in the Yukon may make itmore widely palatable to set aside a large, intact wilderness.“The Yukon is in the middle of the largest mining boom inhi<strong>story</strong>,” says Mike Dehn, executive director of the CanadianParks and Wilderness Society’s Yukon Chapter. “Given howwell the economy is doing, it’s hard to justify the government’splans for the Peel.”L.A.Today, there are no elders on Taco Bar to greet us, thoughbear, moose and wolf tracks are abundant and insects legion.We spend a last, subdued evening around a driftwood fire,sharing tea and river stories, the melancholy of finalitytempered by accomplishment. We retreat to our tents thinkingwe will have a leisurely morning, time to take one lastsip from this cup of splendid isolation.The plane, however, shows up at 7 a.m., hours early ina bid to beat an approaching front. We haven’t even hadcoffee but pack, load and take off in a time frame that canhappen only in the North. Winging back to Mayo, weskim jackknifed grey waves and colourful troughs on a seaof empty mountains. First glimpses of a cabin or anairstrip elicit flashes of annoyance, as if these tracingsviolate our experience. Misplaced as such zealotry is, it sayseverything about the importance of protecting intactlandscapes and watersheds. We instinctually crave theconnections they offer.In the end, we’re back at the beginning, to the questionasked by those who purport to want to protect watersheds:what is wilderness? Is it no human footprint or very little?Does long use and transient habitation by First Nationsqualify or disqualify?Without consensus, we look to nature, where one thingis clear: whatever theanswer, it cannot contradictfirst principles ofecosystems or involve onlypiecemeal protection. Amine may benefit society,but only as long as theresource or changingeconomics of demandlast. Furthermore, a minecomes with both environmental and economic price tags forthe inevitable cleanup. But true wilderness, the type that theEarth doesn’t make anymore, offers wealth in perpetuity.“The Peel is still raw and wild, unlike anywhere else in thecountry,” wrote James Munson in the Yukon News in August2010. “Development would end that forever. Forever can’tbe mitigated.”Leslie Anthony is a writer based in Whistler, B.C., andthe author of Snakebit: Confessions of a Herpetologist.Photojournalist Fritz Mueller lives in Whitehorse.To comment, e-mail please editor@canadiangeographic.ca orvisit www.canadiangeographic.ca/watersheds.58 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JUNE 2011