Doug--my canoeing partner in the
Thelon River country of Canada--would find us the next morning at 6:30, arriving in time to join us for the final trek to the ceremony site.
Along the
Thelon River they witness a Caribou migration and find themselves surrounded by a place in which the natural and the supernatural intersect.
This homeland spans a great swath of land from the boreal forest around the East Arm of Great Slave Lake to the barrenlands of the upper Thelon River basin.
The halting of uranium exploration in the upper Thelon River basin, the "Place where God Began"; -- Investigating the feasibility of establishing a new National Park in Thaidene Nene ("Land of the Ancestors"), the core of Lutsel K'e's traditional territory; -- The interim protection of approximately 95 000 km2, comprising the largest land withdrawal in Canadian history.
Hall's book is a history, too, but a personal history of one outfitter and guide's thirty years' experiences, primarily on the
Thelon River, "almost dead centre in the Barren Lands.
Sherri Griffith Expeditions (5) Lynn Davis of Alaska cools off in the
Thelon River in Canada's Northwest Territory.
And so begins an 800-kilometre canoe journey from the east arm of Great Slave Lake, following a traditional aboriginal route into caribou migratory lands, then paddling north on the
Thelon River to the site of Hornby's grave.