Canoeing through the oil sands filled me with sadness. I wasn't alone. For two days, our flotilla of seventeen boats paddled past massive industrial landscapes: Clear-cut forests, barren landscapes, lakes of wastewater, smokestacks, and the constant grumbling of trucks. How can we allow this to happen to the land around us?

Town of Athabasca to Fort McMurray, July 31

After a successful gathering of concerned locals in the Town of Athabasca organized by the Crooked Creek Conservancy Society, I was joined on the water for the second time by our support person - Laura Griffin. Laura has been an outstanding assistant who has made our lives a whole lot easier and we are thankful for having her aboard.

July 19th - As I write, I sit at my parents' house in the town of Athabasca. I am now at the halfway point of this journey and already it feels as though Jasper was a memory. I am struck by how the characteristic of this river changes so dramatically almost on a daily basis. I've certainly been fortunate with the weather - although it could be cooler.

July 8th, 2007

As we left Hinton, I felt rejuvenated from our time at Entrance Ranch, the First Nations blessing and from the support of the West Athabasca Watershed Bioregional Society and community members.

We have now left the protected waters of the Athabasca in Jasper National Park and have moved into the foothills of Alberta. I sit writing this installment under a clear blue sky at a place called Entrance Ranch operated by a fabulous man of Norwegian descent named Rocky Notnes to which we owe a great deal of thanks.

Jasper is beautiful. It has timelessness to it and is a well-deserved protected part of the Athabasca River Basin. Jasper is still as it was when my family used to visit for summer holidays.

The Athabasca is so beautiful here; I am glad it is remote and sees little human traffic. How fortunate we are to have such places and how much more fortunate I am to possess the skills and health to be able to travel to such places. The mountains here are very impressive: Some of the highest peaks in the Rockies can be seen from this valley.

On June 20, my new mountaineering and backcountry partner Haimish and I attempted the summit of Snow Dome in Jasper National Park. Long ago, we knew it wasn't enough to begin this expedition putting our canoe in the water. We wanted to climb up the true source of the Athabasca River where snow and ice collect, which meant ascending to the icefield.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

It is 8:00 am — in less than two days time, weather permitting, I will be walking on a glacier that feeds the Athabasca River.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Greetings from the expedition team!

It's exciting to see all the preparation and organizing coming to a head with a little under four weeks before the launch of the expedition. Our "to-do" list is still long — we have events to organize, food to dry, gear-gathering trips to Mountain Equipment Co-op and other logistics to finalize!