"The world stands out, on either side
No wider than the heart is wide .. "
There is a sweet drone shot, early in Northern Scavenger's newest YouTube adventure, high above two red canoes as they climb up a tough portage at the edge of the Arctic.
They're tiny pinpoints in an endless expanse.
It's a hint of how wide the world is.
Here begins the Scavengers' month-long, 880 kilometer canoe trip from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Sea. It was shot last July in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
The first of six parts debuted a day ago on YouTube. There is no video crew. It's DIY. Intimate. Spectacular.
A 90-second tease below tops the episode.
Noah Booth and Alex Traynor are Northern Scavenger, talented creators of dozens of YouTube paddling epics. They're joined in this one by Graham and Kyle Ereaux.
Booth and Traynor are, as they once described themselves, "just a couple dudes looking for adventure."
I will spare you superlatives and adjectives in praise of the skills involved. Paddling, portaging, recording, producing. The guys lug 650 pounds of gear, tents, video gizmos.
And as paddle purists, they begin with a tough uphill portage because they wouldn't take a float plane another five kilometers to water.
875 km to go.
It's a video journal of sweat, joy, bugs, budship, bush craft, surprise and beauty. And more bugs. Noah catches "a fish" at 37:00, above.
High hearts and ache-y backs rejoice.
It's rare to capture such intimacy with nature and the gonzo spirit of What's Next.
Share our glory of shared landscape on a chilly, snowy night in urban Canada.
Congrats, dudes.
Beauty, eh?
Image: Northern Scavenger / Noah, Kyle, Graham, Alex
2 comments:
Lavish thanks for this Dunfie. I miss the paddling days - the Dumoine was incredible. I seem to remember sending you a rather rum-soaked fruitcake once. Great for canoe trips - they survive at the bottom of a food pack for weeks, are surprisingly good smothered in custard if you pack custard powder and, with that much rum, when you get storm-bound they can burn for 6 hours and keep hypothermia at bay. Looking forward to watching this!
You'll luv these guys. Retro thought as I watched them: A paddle trip is the only good excuse for chewing on a gas station Smokey.
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