#nahanni

The blue plastic canoe barrel, packed to the brim with meat and cheese, pressed on Jon’s hips. The bundle of paddles in his right hand swung and slapped him as he walked. Each step up the boardwalk and away from the river felt like a hard rep at the gym. He started slow and got slower as he climbed. Then, when the trail reached its peak and turned down, down, down into the canyon, his strength failed. Elizabeth trotted around the next switchback and out of sight with their 17-foot Prospecteur canoe on her shoulders like she was carrying a sack of groceries. And the dogs leaped off trail, tearing around their porters and threatening to send them tumbling into the moss.

The Nahanni hadn’t started like this. Five days ago, they had taken off from Whitehorse and flown over the Continental Divide to land at crystal-blue Rabbitkettle Lake in the Northwest Territories. There, they’d camped with a view of towering granite peaks, then snuck their canoes down a narrow channel to the Nahanni River itself.

The Upper Nahanni meandered across a mountain plateau in wide, lazy loops. Her waters were an impenetrable brown, and Jon could hear the silt rustling like soft sandpaper when they stopped to drift.

The land was a marvel. Spruce forests thick with centuries of growth. Mountaintops shrouded in mist. Moose tracks running through their campsite. On their second night, a pack of wolves had howled in the hills above their camp. On their third day, Elizabeth spotted a grizzly swimming the river. He gave the humans a suspicious stare. In this wilderness, humans were trespassers, while the bears were at home.

Going so long without seeing a house, a town, or a road left Jon unsettled, and after dinner he would often sit by the water’s edge and wonder if he had the courage for what lay ahead. After crawling into their little nylon tent, illuminated by the midnight sun, Jon would turn over and watch Elizabeth drift off to sleep, completely at home. Eventually he, too, would fall asleep to the steady rhythm of the river.

But then, they’d reached the Falls. Here, the mirror-flat river suddenly turned into a wild torrent of white horses that ripped and roared through the rock. She sliced into the plateau and then spilled over the edge to reemerge far below.

As Jon stopped to rest his barrel on the ground, he realized he should have—could have—said no to this.

“My parents invited us to canoe the Nahanni after their wedding,” Elizabeth had said one day as Jon booked their latest arrest. She perched on the edge of his desk, with the top two buttons of her tunic undone and her Stetson in her hands. Her long oak braid tumbled over her shoulders.

“That’s called a honeymoon, Elizabeth. People don’t take their kids on their honeymoon,” Jon said.

“I guess Frasers do. My father invited your father and Ray Kowalski. It’s better to have at least three boats on the Nahanni. For rescues.”

“For rescues. Of course.”

Jon, foolish as ever, didn’t ask why a rescue would be needed. He just said yes. He didn’t know where the Nahanni was, but he knew how to canoe. He’d been to camp. In Michigan. And, a part of him thought, maybe if he took this chance, he’d come off the Nahanni a better man.

The Frasers were far ahead now. They’d left Jon behind on this sun-beaten path. Alder and berry bushes grew thick all around him. A slight mist cooled his forehead—from the Falls that he heard but could not see.

“Hey kid! Hurry up or your old man will beat you,” Ray Vecchio shouted.

Jon’s father was huffing and puffing down the trail with a canoe on his shoulders. Other Ray followed close behind, with a barrel of his own and the firebox in his right hand. When Ray Vecchio stopped and tipped the canoe’s stern onto the ground, Ray Kowalski shed his gear and swapped places with him.

“No way!” Jon slung the barrel over his shoulders and fastened the hip belt. Pride was a stronger drug than coffee. He took off down the trail.

As he rounded the next switchback, a gap in the foliage opened, affording Jon his first good view of the Falls. But, instead, he powered on. There would be another load. Another chance to look. But if his father beat him down the trail, he would never get over it.

So, Jon went, knees protesting with each step, until the river’s mist-sprayed shingle beach came into view. Jon picked his way across the sliding rocks to dump the barrel and gear beside Elizabeth’s yellow canoe. Then, he wiped his sweaty brow, and turned back towards the trail.

Virginia Falls grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard. The entire Nahanni tumbled over a towering cliff in two wide, white curtains parted by the pillar of Mason’s Rock. Tendrils of white mist curled and drifted to feed the green moss that grew on the rocks. The Falls pulsed, cresting and dropped, as they tumbled.

Jon wondered if any human being had ever set foot on Mason’s Rock. Who would dare land a helicopter on that narrow point—or dangle above such a roaring boil?

As Jon stared, the Frasers set off for the next load. Jon, however, waited. By his feet, the current raced past, turning to huge standing waves as it rounded the corner and vanished. The steep canyon walls glowed red and orange as though painted. The need for rescues suddenly became clear.

Could a man find his footing, he wondered, in a place that was never still?

Other Ray set down his red canoe by Jon’s feet.

“You know, while I’m all for this whole contemplation, getting one with nature thing you’re trying on here, we’ve got another load. Unless you want to sleep outside for the rest of this trip.”

Jon tore himself from the thundering falls. He turned to his father.

“Ten bucks says I’ll beat you to the top.”

“Please,” Ray Vecchio laughed. “Your money’s no good out here, kid. But I’ll take that Mars bar I know you have stashed in your barrel.”

“And what if I win?” Jon said.

“You keep your dignity,” said Ray Vecchio. “And maybe I help pay off that ring you’ve got stashed in your sock bag. You missed the Falls. You ever gonna pick your moment?”

“How? How did you?” Jon sputtered. “I thought I’d do it at the end. You know, if she doesn’t give up on me after today.”

“Just don’t dump her in the rapids,” Ray Vecchio said.

“Don’t do it at the end,” said Ray Kowalski. “She’ll be flat tired, you’ll be half-dead, and we’ll all be rushing. Pick a clear night when the sun’s low in the sky and you can get away from the kitchen. There’s a nice little camping spot by Lafferty Creek, just above the hot springs, facing the canyon wall. The creek fans out into gravel and there are some secluded tent spots in the trees. To get some, you know, alone time.”

“You sound like you’ve got experience there,” Ray Vecchio said.

“It’s where I asked Maggie,” Ray Kowalski said. “Trust your uncle. Uncles are never wrong.”

“You’re not my uncle,” Jon said.

“Yet.” Ray Kowalski clapped him on the shoulder. “You got what it takes to become a Fraser?”

“That…that’s not how it works,” Jon said.

“Sure,” Ray Vecchio said. “Just keep believing that. You know, he used to be a Chicago cop like you. Until he met a Fraser girl.”

Jon rolled his eyes and grasped his father’s hand.

“l’ll take that bet.”

He took off running.