Stikine S t i k i n e ’ s c a r g o o f s i l t T e wildness of this valley is etched on every sand
and gravel bank we visit. Wolves, grizzly, black bear and moose have all scribbled their stories here. In Little Can- yon—a notorious challenge both to modern canoeists and the sternwheelers that ferried 19th century opti- mists inland to the Cassiar and Klondike gold rushes— we spot what looks like a bear swimming the confused waters of the 100-metre-deep rock cleft. Instead we real- ize that in this boiling, whirlpool-fi lled canyon, 170 kilo- metres from the sea, we are seeing our fi rst seal.
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Like its scenery, the Stikine has a rich and storied past. An artery of trade and travel for millennia, local legend tells of a vast ice wall that once blocked the val- ley, under which the entire Stikine fl owed through a gap- ing ice tunnel. To test whether their canoes could safely pass, travelling groups of the indigenous Tahltan would send an old woman through in a canoe. If she emerged unscathed, they knew the tunnel would off er safe pas- sage downstream to trade with, or raid, the Tlingit vil- lages on the coast. Today a remnant of this ice wall lies in a pool of its
own meltblood—a large iceberg-choked lake separated from the river by a thin, treed moraine. Resisting the forward push of the river, we portage to this hidden lake and pass a day of contrasts playing chess and read- ing in the warm white sand beside grounded icebergs. Ten-thousand-year-old ice commands us to break out our supposedly well-aged scotch, and we toast the Tahl- tan, the gold rushers and the spirit of adventure that brought us here. T e First Nations presence on the Stikine is strong.
Fading pictograms dot the shore, while sandy eddies bristle with well-tended salmon nets hung from long pine poles. Five salmon species return each year to the Stikine and have been a source of confl ict for decades. Alaskan, Canadian and First Nations fi shers have all angled for the grizzly’s share of the catch. Although the so-called Salmon Wars ended with a 1999 treaty, it is an uneasy truce and tensions are still palpable on both sides of the border, each country blaming the other for declining salmon stocks.
T e Stikine salmon squabble was nearly rendered
moot in the late 1970s when B.C. Hydro unveiled a plan to build fi ve immense dams along the Grand Canyon of the Stikine and the Stikine’s main tributary, the Iskut River. T e hubris required to build suffi cient dams along this river is hard to conceive of, and I’m happy it didn’t prevail. After nearly a decade of opposition by conserva- tionists and First Nations, the dam plans were scrapped, and Stikine River Provincial Park was created.
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After another diversionary side trip upstream through Shakes Slough to the granite-girded and ice- berg-laden Shakes Lake, we relent to the last leg of our journey and enter Alaska. Here the river meets its match and fi nally slows as it
runs into Pacifi c tidewater. And with the tides comes fog. We feel our way by compass through nomadic sandbars and fi nally across fi ve kilometres of Pacifi c swells from the mouth of the Stikine to the barnacle-caked dock at Wrangell where we trade the wilderness of the Stikine for the rough-and-ready, deep-fried town full of bumper stickers reminding us of the driver’s constitutional right to bear arms. T e estuary at the mouth of the Stikine is im-
mense—the accumulated energy of this river has cre- ated a sprawling fi nale that encompasses a 27-kilome- tre-wide delta. T e Stikine here seems pristine and permanent; unbreakable. It has persevered through glacial assault, First Nations battles, two gold rushes, the Salmon Wars, and B.C.’s plans to shackle it with hydro projects.
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