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< July / August 2000
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Expedition News

Mackenzie Mimic

It took three long years, but Canada's Max Finkelstein finally realized a dream by completing a 7,000-kilometer canoe expedition that retraced the route of Alexander Mackenzie, from Ottawa to Bella Coola. To do the route—named in 1997 by the Canadian Government as the official "Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route"—required six months of solid paddling, picking up where he left off on the previous segment. As with Mackenzie, it also required struggling through 135 portages.

When traveling solo—which he did for the majority of the trip—Finkelstein paddled a covered canoe, a precursor to the Verlen Kruger Sea Wind. When joined by others (and on one 400-mile solo stretch), he paddled a 17.5-foot Hellman Prospector. Two newscasts of Finkelstein's expedition were broadcast internationally by the Canadian Broadcasting Network. "It certainly gave me an appreciation of what Mackenzie went through and how fast he traveled," says Finkelstein, who works for a non-profit group called Canadian Heritage Rivers. "I paddled the whole thing with his journals in hand, seeing the land through his eyes as well as mine."

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2000 Polartec Challenge Expedition

Team leader Matt Terry recently returned from Ecuador where he and fellow paddlers made five first descents on the Enchanted Rivers Expedition, funded by Polartec. The Indanza, Yungantza and Aquacate rivers in the first part of the trip, and the Huataracu and Llushin in the latter part of the trip, were all added to the known paddling map in Ecuador. "The Huatarcu was one of our primary goals for the expedition," Terry says, "and is likely the last ground-accessible run in Sumaco-Galeras National Park."

The first three rivers opened up a new area of boating in the Morona-Santiago Province of southern Ecuador, and could make potential commercial day trips, according to Terry. These are in contrast to the Llushin River (aka "Luscious"), which Terry referred to as an "all out expedition river."

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Morocco Whitewater Adventure

Ahhh, there's nothing like springtime in... Africa? March and April saw Dunbar Hardy, Brennan Guth, Dustin Knapp, Brad Ludden, Land Heflin, and Steven Byrd traveling to the deserts of Morocco in search of whitewater. The team explored several rivers of the High Atlas Mountains (with peaks over 14,000 feet). On the north side of the range the team paddled sections of the Oum er Rbia River—a beautiful spring-fed river flowing directly out of a cliff wall. The south side offered the Dades River Gorge—a sheer-walled canyon towering 2,000 feet above the river. Also, as if paddling in Morocco isn't unconventional enough, camels were rented and boats were strapped on, as the gang “surfed” the local Sahara sand dunes—a Moroccan first descent, we're told. The expedition finished with a few days of surf kayaking some large, thumping Atlantic waves.

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Editor's note: Looking to fund that next expedition? The Dagger Endurance Grant awards $5,000 in cash and product to qualified expedition applicants with the "experience, knowledge and determination to reach and explore unknown waters." This is the world's first paddling-specific expedition grant. Info: (865) 882-0404, www.dagger.com