ROUNDING THE CORNER at the conflu- ence of the Missinaibi and Mattagami riv- ers we turn away from James Bay and head back upstream into the heart of the boreal. Taku is not the only one being meditative. Staring down 450 kilometres of upstream paddling makes you live in the moment, fixating on how each stroke—and all too often each stride—gets you closer to the next height of land. Taku’s head is down as he tracks the ca-


noe and stumbles repeatedly over sharp, slippery rock. The wide, shallow Mattaga- mi River is too low to paddle and seems to stretch endlessly ahead. We are travelling through the industrialized wilderness that exists south of the 51st parallel—still re- mote, mostly unseen and yet bent sharply by our desires. There was little joy yester- day and today is the same. Taku’s haiku tonight will be a sad one. The Mattagami drops and rises based


on the electrical demands of people who have never heard of it. The water is cof- fee-coloured with brown foam lining its


edges—like a bowl of cappuccino. Fish are inedible due to mercury leeched from flooded ground, upstream mines and mills mean drinking water has to be drawn from feeder creeks. On the morning of our third day up the


Mattagami I peer through the mesh of our tent to the other side of Grand Rapids, but the river is gone. All I can see are piles of broken limestone. Wet streaks between rock piles are the only indication that this was a river the day before. Three hours later, galaxies of lights and


computers turn on far to the south as the workday kicks in. Four unseen dams release and water begins to fill the quarry-like riv- erbed. It steadily bubbles back to life. The level rises half a metre—enough for Taku and I to begin our slog for the day, looking around each point for a feeder creek to fill our water bottles. We pull our canoe up the rest of this formerly great rapid, one the voyageurs used to sing songs about as they pushed to James Bay. As the collective demand for more


comes from the south the Mattagami re- sponds and by midday the water is deep enough for us to paddle. The river is run- ning hot now—an alien high tide with the power grid acting as full moon. We paddle hard against the steady


outflow. Hugging the shore, we strain through the current at the tops of ed- dies. Sometimes the paddle strokes seem futile, and I think of the Albany. Sitting in a 16-foot canoe I felt helpless against the current of that great river; on the Mattaga- mi I feel helpless against the current of a society that seems bent on pushing ever deeper into wilderness. But we keep cranking, because if more


people know about what the Albany is like, and what the Mattagami has be- come, there will be hope for the boreal above the 51st. Stroke after stroke we strain against the current. We know eas- ing up means going backward.


FRANK WOLF lives in Vancouver. To see a trailer of Borealis, his film about this canoe trip, go to www. gravywolf.blogspot.com. For more information on the boreal go to www.thebigwild.org.


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