by Joey Abreu, of Northland College
photos by Adam Spencer, Round River Instructor
Water flows freely
Bears roam the open landscape
This is the Taku
The Taku River watershed in Northwestern British Columbia is a beautiful flowing landscape, home of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation (TRTFN), bears, salmon, and an unfathomable amount of other life. Though all of these beings are very different, they share the land and resources that are provided by this magical place. Five of my peers, three instructors and myself had the honor of being invited to experience the Taku in an extremely intimate way. The TRTFN have allowed students and members of the Round River Conservation Studies to walk an ancient trail of significant cultural importance for the Tlingit people. We started by crossing the O’Donnell River, walked to a Tlingit salmon monitoring station at Kuthai Lake, then hiked through the Taku’s valleys, mountain saddles, and marshes, to the confluence of the Sloko and Nakina rivers. Through brush, bogs, Devil’s Club thorns, mosquitos, aggravated ground hornets and grizzly bear country, we were experienced a tradition of the Tlingit people that we will never forget.
We read Aldo Leopold’s “The Round River” at Kuthai Lake, on our first evening of the backpacking trip.
A piece of me will always remain in the Taku. It provided me a powerful experience and an intimate relationship that I will always treasure. I’ve struggled coming up with a way to paint an accurate picture of what my peers and I experienced during our time in this special place. If I were to write down all of the wonderful experiences, feelings, epiphanies and learnings we experienced I could probably write a novel. Though I would love to be able to provide such an account, it is not realistic. Instead I decided to compose three short essays highlighting important pieces of my experience from our trip.
Ten ashen faces
Trudging through shoulder-high fern
The Taku protects
We spent three days hiking to the confluence of the Nakina and Sloko Rivers, just upstream of where the Taku River begins. Of the three days we spent hiking the 30 miles to our bluff over the Nakina River, the third days stands out. It was our longest day, and the most impactful for personal growth and learning from the forests valleys mountain and streams we traversed. We woke up and rose from our tents at a camp established by John Ward, a vital member of the Tlingit community and the Chairman of Round River’s Board of Directors. John is a driving force in the reopening of the Tlingits’ ancient trail, after years of government-sanctioned oppression attempted to separate the Tlingit people from their lands and traditions. This section of “The Walk,” from John’s Camp all the way down to the Nakina River, is full of uphill climbs, dense patches of Devil’s Club taller than us, clouds of mosquitos, and hives of ground-nesting hornets.
We packed up camp and started off through the large, open meadow that makes John’s Camp a welcoming home.
John’s Camp
Blue Mountain Monkshoods flowers nod to our passing through the meadow at John’s Camp.
After walking through the knee-high grass over the rolling hills we came to the forest’s edge, up a sharp incline, the path leading us through the mountain saddles. We made our way up the steep path for an hour, swatting the occasional mosquito, and conversing with anyone nearby. At our first stopping point we participated in a Tglingit tradition for first-time walkers on the trail. A fire pit in a small clearing marks the place. Other small camps we had walked through prior and throughout the rest of the day also had fire pits, but not like this one, this pit was special. We filtered into the clearing, sweaty, and feeling in our legs the steepness of the terrain we had just traversed. We made a semi-circle in front of the fire circle and Doug Milek, the Round River Student Program Director – who’s walked the trail over a dozen times with Tlingit First Nation Members –explained that in Tlingit tradition, the first time an individual walks to the Taku, they should smear charcoal on their faces, to let others know it’s their first time so they could offer assistance if they were in need. Doug explained that it was not only a message to others on the trail, but a mark to the Taku itself to go easy on them in their first journey through its wildernesses. We each reached into the fire pit to pick out pieces of charcoal and smear our cheeks with them.
Joey marks himself a first-timer for the Taku’s protection
After completing the ceremony we put our packs on and continued along the trail. We began to descend, leaving the dense forest of Spruce and Lodgepole pine as we entered an area that simultaneously seemed to open up as well as densely close in upon us. “The Walk” straddles the transition from the boreal forest ecosystem of the inland Stikine Mountains and the rainforests of the British Columbia coast. As we continued down the trail, we suddenly entered another world. The trees began to thin and a sea of ferns and devils club engulfed us. We walked into a sort of gorge, with tall rocky walls on either side of us, with a tall tree canopy above us and a thick sea of shoulder-high plants consuming all the space around us. It felt like a scene from Jurassic park, like at any point a dinosaur could lumber from around a corner, and seem completely natural. While the scene was beautiful, it was also treacherous. The only bare ground one could see was directly behind the feet of the person in front of them, and the Devil’s Club would quickly spring back to swallow it up, ready to defend its patch with its spike-covered, plate-sized leaves and spiny stems. Devil’s Club spines do not simply prick their prey, but they embed themselves into skin, and the thorns have a toxic, painful resin, and are so tiny that removing them is impossible. The Taku has a formidable defense.
Throughout the trail we saw numerous signs of bears. From large piles of berry-filled scat lying in the middle of the trail, to bits of fur brushed off onto tress as bears lumbered down the narrow trail. One tree had a set of claw marks raked into the bark. Putting your hand up to scar on the tree, gave you sense of how large and powerful these beings are, the mark wide and long enough I could probably have fit my face into the area of bark that had been removed. We didn’t see any bears on the trail, which was both disappointing as well as a relief due to the dense brush that surrounded us. We made sure to make plenty of noise so that we would not surprise any unsuspecting bears.
Doug leads us to our final descent to the Nakina River
For eight hours we hiked through the rugged trail, stopping only to rest, refuel, and hydrate. Finally, we arrived to a ridge where we could see the confluence of the Nakina and Sloko Rivers. It was sure a sight to take in. Our bodies were sore and felt the many miles of up and downs, but looking out from the ridge felt like a strong cup of coffee. We sat for a few minutes looking out over the confluence and the rest of the watershed before continuing for our final hour-long push to the bluff above the Nakina River.
Re-energized for the final push of our hike. Photo by Doug Milek
On our last descent through thick willows and Saskatoon berry bushes, Doug motioned for us to stop. He had his bear spray out and we quickly fell silent. We heard a bear huffing at Doug, from somewhere nearby in the brush. Doug said, “Hey bear, it’s ok bear,” and calmly rejoined the group as we heard a crashing through the bushes – away from us. We stayed still for a moment, then walked the last 50 meters to set up camp. The bears live here too! Later, we learned the sow had two cubs. She had them run up a tree while she huffed at Doug. After we set up camp, the mother grizzly watched us from below in a little gully while the cubs climbed down, and the family ran off into the forest.
It was our hardest day on “The Walk.” Though it was arduous, sweaty, spiny and wearing on our shoulders, legs, and mental toughness, the reward of experiencing the Nakina in the days to follow made it worth every challenging moment.
The Nakina River