Paddling into the walled-in abyss of the Hobson Gorge of British Columbia’s Clearwater River under other circumstances would have been the opposite of a good idea. And even now, with this record low flow and this veteran crew, P my extreme kayaker brain is timid and quiet while my now overly developed survival instinct keeps looking for the way out and around this conundrum. We are 60 km and four and a half days downstream of the most remote heli-drop possible in the 6000 square km of rugged Wells Gray wilderness. A steep tributary and 2000-meter-tall mountains block our passage on river left, and a sheer volcanic wall to vertical forest guards river right. Our team leader, Kenneth McKay, advances downstream to the point of no return. Returning from the scout all he says is, “It feels like a dream.” It is unreal that any kayaker, especially one that grew up here, would make the first full descent of a river that nearly disappeared long ago.
Kenneth’s roots go deep into this wilderness. His mother’s ancestors from the Simpcw First Nation followed the now endangered caribou herds for millennia before the arrival of the Overlanders expedition to the Cariboo goldfields that aptly named this big, crystal clear river in 1862. “There aren’t many other rivers that are aquamarine in spring with the volume of the Stikine,” Kenneth marvels. When I ask him about the war that erupted between his mother’s people and the gold-fevered newcomers, instead he
