Soper River by PakCanoe

Canoeing Soper River, Baffin Island, NWT  1997

Dear Alv,

A remote destination with challenging shipping options, what better place to try out a new foldable canoe. We headed north last August with a party of 12 to the Soper River on Baffin Island. Flying along as baggage in the belly of the First Air Jet were six Escapes, three 16 foot and three 17 foot boats.

 We chose the Escapes for several reasons, includ ing unreliable rental canoes on Baffin. When we decided to do this trip it was already too late to ship canoes to Baffin, we would have had to ship our own hardshell canoes more than a year in advance to make sure that they arrived in Iqaluit in time for our trip. Flying hard shell boats from the south was financially out of the question and there were many questions about storage of boats in Iqaluit. We landed in Iqaluit and later that afternoon flew by Charter Twin Otter into the upper Soper River valley. We landed on a gravel shelf beside the river. The upper Soper was running at a low level and the first 1/2 mile included a good amount of dragging loaded boats over rocks covered by only a few inches of water. the boats showed no signs of wear after a rough first day of travel.

I was impressed with all aspects of the boats. We loaded them with several hundred pounds of gear each and although we did have several scrapes and a puncture, the boats were easily repaired even in 40 degree weather. The Soper River has a good current for most of its length and several class II rapids at the level it was flowing. The Escapes handled all conditions well and seem to run dryer than hard shell boats as they tend to sit higher in the water and flex slightly up and over waves.

Because we anticipated the possibility of some lining the boats were outfitted with painter lines bow and stern. A patch and D-ring was affixed just above the water line on bow and stern, and lines were coiled and stowed under a Velcro strip sewed on the decks of each canoe.

The Escapes were well suited for this type of an adventure, we are planning to head back to Baffin Island during the summer of 1999 and again look forward to using the Escape canoes.

Greg Shute
The Chewonki Foundation