Arctic Men Lean on Skills Learned at Camp
By Kier Malloy
Often, experiences that seem particularly difficult are those that we learn and grow from the most. At Kooch-i-ching, a young man’s first portage trail is one such experience: the drone of mosquitoes, the sweat on your brow, the mud beneath your boots.
On the afternoon of August 13, Zach Schiller was several hours into the Height-of-Land portage, a grueling weeklong trek through the Barren Lands of Canada’s Northwest Territories.
The expedition members look at maps on Mountain Lake. (Zach Schiller)
As he struggled beneath the weight of his load, Zach remembered his first-ever portage. On the Turtle River trip, a 12-year-old Schiller had confronted what seemed like an impossible task. “I had never faced adversity like that before,” Zach says. “I remember crying and having a terrible time on portage trails.”
”On the Height-of-Land, I found myself in that same headspace. But this time, it was different. I had been there before. I knew that I was capable of getting through it.”
Zach was not alone on the portage. He was accompanied by five fellow Kooch-i-ching men: Paul Beach, Jimmy Knoll, Axel Lloyd, Bram Lloyd and Quinn Pinaire. The Height- of-Land connects the Yellowknife and Coppermine river watersheds, and it was the last overland obstacle of their 2,800-mile expedition to the Arctic Ocean.
The group dubbed their trip The Source Runs North, the “source” being the place where the six of them had met, and where the six of them had fallen in love with nature, adventure and challenge: Camp Kooch-i-ching.
They began their expedition at the literal source: Deer Island’s sailing beach, a stretch of shoreline they had pushed off from many times before. Of course, this departure was different—the men would not return to the island for four months.
The team waits out the ice on Lake Winnipeg. (Paul Beach)
“The hard skills I have that allowed me to do something like this,” says Quinn, “they all came from Kooch. Everything came from the source.”
“Shooting Class 3 rapids on the Coppermine was dangerous, but we had shot difficult stuff before, and so we made it through,” says Paul, noting that Kooch-i-ching had also prepared the team for more routine tasks, from reading weather to assessing risk.
But it wasn’t just hard skills that the men had acquired over their years at Kooch-i-ching.
“The ability to dedicate ourselves to such a mission, it probably all started when we were crying on our first portage trails as Preps and Juniors. It instilled that mentality of not even entertaining the idea of quitting,” says Zach, insisting that he did not cry while portaging in the Arctic.
Although it was the longest Arctic trip in Kooch-i-ching history, the Source Runs North was inspired by those that had preceded it, including Kooch-i-ching expeditions in 2007, 2013 and 2015, as well as the 2017 6 North of 60 expedition led by six women from Ogichi Daa Kwe.
“I just figured that if my close friends could make it to the ocean, why couldn’t I?” Zach says. “Joining the ‘League of Arctic Trippers’ felt similar to how we at Kooch bond over our respect for adversity.”
“We are excellent trippers at Kooch and Ogichi,” says Quinn. “We push ourselves. We do hard routes. We go places no one else goes. And that's the mentality we took into this trip.”
“We are excellent trippers at Kooch and Ogichi. We push ourselves. We do hard routes. We go places no one else goes. And that’s the mentality we took into this trip.”
On August 25, the six men took their final paddle strokes and arrived in Kugluktuk, a village at the mouth of the Coppermine in Nunavut. As they gazed out over the ocean, they remembered the trials behind them and considered what their accomplishment would mean for those who would follow.
“All people are capable of accomplishing just about anything,” says Beach. “What we do on Kooch trips forces you to be the person you need to be to get the job done.”
“Anybody can do these things,” agrees Jimmy. “I want people to know that these aren't challenges to be scared of, but to be embraced.”
While Arctic expeditions may be in a class of their own, all Kooch-i-ching trips require bravery, hard work and a sense of adventure.
“We have no shortage of courage at camp,” says Quinn. “We are brave men. We go and do things that frighten other people without batting an eyelid. Everyone finds home and solace somewhere. Once you find out that place is in the woods, you need to go there. And that’s just what we did.”
This article was originally published in the Fall 2019 issue of the Kooch-i-ching Tumpline.