Alone Against the North by Adam Shoalts

Author:Adam Shoalts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Canada

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BACK TO THE COAST

Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest.

—Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1899

IT TOOK only half the time—two days—to paddle the nameless river back to the Aquatuk. It was with a feeling of immense relief that I was able to sit in my canoe and paddle with the flow of the river rather than laboriously drag it behind me all day. The rain, however, continued unabated. My lonely progress downriver was sped along by an encounter with a northern goshawk. The powerful raptor had been perched high above the river in a spruce. When it spotted me, it instantly swooped down, shrieking angrily at me as I paddled along. Presumably, it had a nest somewhere in the trees. Renowned for its fierceness, this impressive bird of prey will fearlessly defend its nest from fishers, wolverines, bears, and any human that should happen to stray into its territory. It was no accident that Attila the Hun had an image of a goshawk engraved on his battle helmet.

I was amazed by how far the goshawk insisted on following me down the snaking course of the river, shrieking and circling high above the whole way. Its shrill cry piercing the silence of the wilderness was unnerving—as if the forest itself was warning me to leave. With the goshawk trailing me, I felt a bit like a trespasser fleeing a forbidden realm. The message seemed to be that my presence had been tolerated long enough and I was now overstaying my welcome.

In total, I had found some half-dozen islands along the river, including a nicely forested one, dozens of small rapids, various tributaries, picturesque pebble beaches, and plenty of wildlife, but no wendigos. However, I still had to come up with a name for the river. To be honest, I liked the romantic appeal of a river with no name, and I felt some reluctance to be the person who stripped that bit of mystery from the world. But once it was explored, it had to be named. If someone had to name it, it might as well be me.

An idea for a name presented itself when I saw a dark silhouette—an owl—flying against the grey sky at noon on my last day on the river. I managed to snap a photograph of the owl before it disappeared from view. Magnifying the picture on my digital camera, I saw that it was a northern hawk owl, which unlike most owls, hunts during the day. It had made such an auspicious appearance above the river that calling the waterway the “Owl River” seemed fitting. But since I knew an Owl River already existed, and that the Geographical Names Board discouraged name duplication, I figured “Little Owl River”—it was a small river, after all—was a better name. Henceforth, in my notes the “nameless river” became the “Little Owl River.

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