I climb a silent hilltop, pausing to take in 360-degree views of the lonely green Arctic Coastal Plain. A spectral ptarmigan strutting through the fog is the only sign of life. Called Engigstciak (“new mountain” in the Inuvialuktun language), this is an ancient hunting lookout and one of the most important archeological sites in Canada. The bones of butchered bison and stone artifacts unearthed nearby have dated human occupancy here to 11,000 years ago and into the Thule, or ancestral Inuit, period. Below me, I watch the silver-blue Firth River snake its way north through the tundra, the route I’ll raft to reach the Arctic Ocean.
This is Ivvavik National Park in Canada’s Yukon territory, bordering northern Alaska. Ivvavik means “place of giving birth” in Inuvialuktun, a fitting name since the region’s Porcupine caribou herd travels through the park to its calving grounds on the coast—one of the planet’s great migrations. This part of Beringia, the land bridge that once connected Asia and North America, was unscathed by Ice Age glaciers, retaining ancient landscapes and waterways. Rounded mountains are studded with weather-whittled, rocky tors that thrust their gnarled fists into the sky along ridgelines spray-painted with orange lichen.
With no roads leading into the national park, the 6,000 square miles of Western Arctic wilderness receives about 100 visitors annually. A bush plane dropped me on the shores of the Firth near the river’s headwaters at Margaret Lake. Over 13 days, I raft 80 miles—sometimes upwards of 15 miles in one day—under the midnight sun with Canadian River Expeditions, ending at the Beaufort Sea. The trip combines hiking and rafting; my group of 12 disembarks to tie up the rafts for short lunch hikes or full-day treks.
Left: Green and turquoise waters and rocks make up the Firth Canyon. Right: After pulling up on shore, visitors trek up peaks like the Wolf Thor hike.
Photos by Tyler Garnham
Every evening, we each pitch our own tent under looming canyon walls and on the edge of shadowy black spruce taiga, or boreal forest. We don’t cook for ourselves—far from it. Instead, our four guides prepare hot dinners of freshly caught Arctic char and sizzling steak grilled over an open fire, and for breakfast, we feast on aromatic cinnamon buns cooked in a Dutch oven—all from ingredients mystifyingly proffered from a Mary Poppins–like crate.
We’ll navigate the most intense rapids halfway through the journey. Until then, we make our way up the river, floating through deep, clear pools and swirling eddies. We stop to scramble up mountainsides, past centuries-old Inuit summer camps, now abandoned, marked by stone tent rings. Far from notification pings and the onslaught of daily news, I find deep peace. With only my basic needs to attend to, I let the rhythm of river life take over: setting up and dismantling my tent, being carried by the current for hours, waking to the hiss of water boiling for coffee. I happily dive headfirst into the river after sun-baked hikes. In its silken, chilling embrace, I listen to the underwater sound of river rocks turning like giant marbles in the shifting, turquoise light.
“An Inuvialuit elder once said that after two weeks on the river, bathing in it, drinking from it, and sleeping next to it, you become the river,” says our lead guide, Rich Swanson, who has been guiding here for three decades.
Indeed, I feel I’ve begun to know the spirit of this river, and I find myself increasingly protective of it. There aren’t many waterways in the world clean enough to bathe in and drink from. The Firth’s isolated location within Ivvavik National Park—created as part of a 1984 land claim agreement and comanaged by Parks Canada and the Inuvialuit—has kept this wild waterway pristine. But the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe, which means coastal erosion and warming water and air temperature are threats. That’s why there are two Parks Canada employees on my trip, one a heritage interpreter and the other a scientist: to study the changing climate.
Since the Firth Valley escaped glaciation, the limestone and sandstone range was never scoured by ice, which left the region with a unique geological history.
Photo by Tyler Garnham
In addition to advocating for the protection of Canada’s northern rivers since its founding in 1972, Canadian River Expeditions also supports Parks Canada scientists on an annual trip. “Without traveler interest in these trips, we wouldn’t be able to continue our work,” Kelsey GahnSmith, a Parks Canada heritage presenter, tells me. GahnSmith is joined by Jay Frandsen, a Parks ecosystem scientist conducting water surveys and checking camera traps along the journey. The data informs an Ecological Integrity Monitoring Program that shapes management decisions and conservation practices in the face of climate change and industrial development in areas bordering the park.
This work could have a significant impact on the wildlife in Ivvavik. The national park is an ark for animals, and we spot a few throughout the trip: a hulking honey-blonde grizzly across the river, a shaggy muskox rubbing its enormous horned head on a dwarf willow tree, peregrine falcons crying plaintively above their cliffside nests, and a lone white wolf moving swiftly up the mountainside. There’s also the chance to see thousands of those Porcupine caribou thundering along crossings that have been used for nearly 30,000 years.
Witnessing rare moments like these is what Parks Canada and the Inuvialuit are working to protect. “We’ve been using this land for thousands of years, and it has so many key resources for our people that we still use today, including caribou,” says Doug Keevik, an Inuvialuit community member who, as an asset support technician for Parks Canada, manages the park’s only fly-in basecamp. “The river has also long been used as transport and for fishing and drinking water.”
Left: In July, even 4 a.m. still has sunlight at the Firth Delta. Right: Rafters are able to spot several animals in the park, including muskox.
Photos by Tyler Garnham
The journey has been enlightening and exhilarating—but the most thrilling part is still to come. On the sixth morning, I unzip my tent fly to reveal gunmetal clouds racing across a bruised sky. The river fizzes with a surface like hammered silver—a preview of the rapids ahead.
After a breakfast of eggs Benedict, we gear up in our rubber waders, warm waterproof jackets, and helmets, and we clamber into the rafts. The mountains on either side of the water give way to towering canyon walls, spruce and pine thin out, and only stout dwarf willow and spindly alder remain. Ahead of us, the river picks up speed, roaring through narrow chutes that funnel a strong headwind, and we paddle hard, my shoulders fiery with the effort. Gaunt, bone-white Dall sheep greet us from the riverbank as we prepare to enter the churning white water, a series of Class IV rapids aptly named Sheep’s Slot.
“Grading rapids isn’t just about water levels and volatility,” bellows my sinewy, shaggy-haired guide, Dave Prothero, over the frothing water as he explains how he reads the rapids ahead. “It’s also about safety; we’re a long way from help out here.” The river boils and bucks beneath us, and the raft’s left side smashes belly up against a rocky outcropping. The collision hurls Keevik toward me, nearly tossing me into the water. As nerve-racking as this is, I can’t help but thrust my paddle above me afterward, whooping triumphantly.
I’m tired that evening, but it’s the kind of gratifying physical exhaustion that stills the mind and buoys the spirit. It’s a mindset that carries me through the rest of the journey that, much like the river, has moments of exhilaration, sometimes discomfort, and humbling awe. My bones ache with the cold as we near the ocean; the guides tell of 60 mph winds that vacuum gear into the sky; and biblical swarms of mosquitoes make me grateful for my head net. I wake in the middle of the night to wan sunlight, marvel at swirling arches and glittering quartz that decorate canyon walls, and spot jubilant yellow Arctic poppies blooming on hiking trails of red shale.
The river slows to a crawl on our last day of paddling, its shallow fingers reaching longingly for the Beaufort Sea. We reach the desolate and dreamlike Nunaluk Spit below storied Herschel Island, a historic whaling station. Driftwood tent shelters appear marooned like shipwrecks, and the beach is scattered with the bones of the giant whales.
Our guides make a towering bonfire as Arctic terns waltz above the cold, blue ocean. To celebrate our arrival, my fellow travelers and I run into the sea, hooting and hollering at the pins-and-needles cold. I plunge headfirst into the icy shock of it, submerged in the flow.
