B A F F I N I S L A N D , N U N A V U T
Soper River
THE SOPER doesn’t just feel like a northern river. It feels distinctly Arctic. Though there are some scrubby willows in the river valley there is no mis- taking the fact you are far above the treeline. On top of that, you begin and end the trip in Inuit communities, not Dene communities like most rivers in the Northwest Territories. Seeing polar bear hides stretched out on frames in Kimmirut is a good reminder of where you are. Despite the remote feel, the river is easy to get
to. Paddlers in Eastern Canada can leave home in the morning and be putting up their tent beside the river the same afternoon. The Soper’s cold waters have cut a U-shaped
valley through the flattened peaks that gird the river. The park it flows through, Katannilik Terri- torial Park, means “place of many waterfalls” and you never go very long between water spouts cascading off the mountains. The best way to travel the Soper is to allot up
to half of each day for side hikes. It only takes an hour to get on top of the ancient rounded mountains to watch the low midnight sun play- ing on Arctic wildflowers.
Keep an eye out for While hiking downstream of the Livingstone
River confluence, look for small open-pit mines. Semi-precious mica and lapislazuli were mined as recently as the 1970s. Great rock hunting.
Routes Between Mount Joy and Soper Lake the river
PHOTOS: MOE WITSCHARD/HEADSHOT: WENDY GRATER
doesn’t surpass non-technical class II, except for the easily portaged Soper Falls at Soper Lake. A pace that allows for plenty of hiking will get you down the river in seven days. The season runs from July to late-August. First Air flies from Ot- tawa to Iqaluit, where you get on a plane that drops into a glacial valley below Mount Joy and touches its tundra tires down on an esker. Finish at Soper Lake, a 15-minute drive from Kimmirut. You can arrange for a shuttle and perhaps dinner with an Inuit family in Kimmirut from the Hunter and Trapper Association. First Air flies out of Kim- mirut back to Iqaluit.
WENDY GRATER is the owner and director of Black Feather Wilderness Adventures. She has canoed the Tatshenshini, Bonnet Plume, Snake, Firth, Mountain, South Nahanni, Natla-Keele, Coppermine, Hood, Burnside, Seal, Bloodvein and Soper rivers.
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