My Watermark is Qu'Appelle River, Saskatchewan.
During the summer of 2015, my partner and I pursued a dream to travel across the Canadian Prairies by canoe. Our journey began on the outskirts of Lake Louise, near the headwaters of the Bow River, and finished near Brandon, Manitoba.. This journey gave us the chance to witness and experience incredible parts of Canada's landscapes and waterways, and to learn new things about one another. It symbolized the beginning of a commitment to experiencing the world and learning together. The following is an excerpt from my accounts of our journey. The full highlights of this trip are captured on our travel blog, http://creeksandpeaks.com/.
Over the past week, I have begun to wonder if we are being haunted by some kind of mischievous genie of the Qu’Appelle River. We’ve all heard the story of a magical genie who grants wishes. There are variations on the plot but typically, it goes something like this: the genie appears friendly-looking and amiable, and offers to grant some poor, naive soul three wishes. Each wish the genie grants is twisted into some unfortunate and barely-recognizable version of the utopia that the wisher had envisioned. After the first two wishes have gone terribly wrong, the wisher grows wise to the genie’s tricks and uses their third wish to turn everything back the way it originally was. The genie obliges and everyone lives happily ever after.
The Qu’Appelle River Genie, as I’ll call it, made its first appearance shortly after we put our canoe back into the water of the Qu’Appelle, just south of the Buffalo Pound Dam.
“I can’t wait to get back onto a river, with a current,” I remember Harry wishing as we paddled the still waters of Buffalo Pound Lake.
But back on the River, we found that there was far less water below the Dam, resulting in a much slower current that hardly moved us along at all. Harry was noticeably disappointed and frustrated.
There had also been occasions upstream of the Lake when I had wished for trees to give us shade and shelter from the threat of severe thunderstorms. Instead, we were lucky if we could find a small clump of thorny buffalo berry bushes to provide a windbreak in the middle of a cattle pasture. Downstream of the Dam, the river banks were lined with tall ash and maple trees that provided ample shade and protection. Unfortunately, the river bed was similarly endowed with their fallen brethren: we spent much of our first day back on the river dragging our canoe over beaver dams and through debris.
Despite enjoying many incredible wildlife sightings beneath the canopy of the trees, we both looked forward to following the River back into cultivated lands and pastures. Once out of the wetlands, however, we found that the River became wider and shallower, barely deep enough for us to manoeuvre through in our canoe. Cursing and bickering, we zig-zagged back and forth trying to find the deepest parts of the channel, our paddles jamming into the soft sediment with each stroke.
“This would be so much easier if there was even just an inch more water,” Harry muttered. I agreed.
And once again, our wish was granted: I awoke at 5 am one morning to the sound of thunder rolling in the distance. I lay there quietly for a while, listening intently to be sure that the storm was coming our way before waking Harry to help me move the tent to a more sheltered location. When we awoke again at 9 am and the storm still hadn’t passed, we began to worry. A morning thunderstorm is unusual on the Prairies and a parade of storm cells that lasts several hours is a particularly inauspicious sign. We checked the forecast on my phone, discovered a rainfall warning in effect for the area and decided to make a break for nearby Lumsden to wait out the bad weather.
