The view from the top [Fort Severn]

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If there is one destination that I'd been looking forward to seeing this whole time, it would be Fort Severn, the northernmost community in Ontario, situated where the Severn River meets Hudson Bay. Not only is Fort Severn much farther north than any of the other communities I've been to, but it has a much richer history.

Fort Severn is also unique in that it is the only community that we service which requires our little planes to fly through what is affectionately termed "The Gap."

The remote communities we visit are for the most part relatively close together (I say 'relatively' here because 'close together' up here still means dozens or even hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest town, which is often only accessible by plane or occasionally boat or winter road) compared to the vast expanses of land that constitute northwestern Ontario. When we fly, our tiny plane is often light enough and at a sufficient altitude that if something were to go wrong, the pilots could likely 'glide' the plane to a nearby airstrip for an emergency landing. Fort Severn, however, is so much farther north than any of the other communities that even with a very light cargo load and at peak altitude, there is a ~15 minute window where we are simply too far from any sort of landing area for the pilots to be able to reach in case of an emergency... if something goes wrong while our plane is in The Gap, we're 100% landing in trees (or a lake I suppose). Needless to say, the pilots (or anyone else for that matter) don't really like to talk about The Gap; I made the mistake of bringing it up while we were taking off once and was promptly told to shut the hell up.

After a relatively long flight, we arrive at our destination- the descent into Fort Severn is just as gorgeous as I'd imagined. We convinced the pilots to circle over Hudson Bay before landing, and the landscape was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Until a few dozen kilometers before the Bay, the ground (or water? I am still nearly convinced there is just as much of the latter) closely resembles the boreal forest and lakes that I've spent so much time flying over the last few months. Close to the Bay, however, things start to change. The chaotic spread of land and lakes becomes ordered, forming abruptly into a striated pattern with long strips of land and water running parallel to the shoreline. I imagine this is due to repeated historical advances and recessions of Hudson Bay, but I'm no geologist so I'll stop the speculation there. Needless to say, it is a surreal transformation to witness.

Closer to the Bay the landscape changes again, becoming a perfectly flat tundra-like plain, dotted with section of trees and pockets of water, and the odd herd of caribou we were able to spot from our little Pilatus. Even from here we can tell that the trees here are small and scraggly- we aren't quite at the tree line, but the short growing season here clearly takes its toll. The actual community of Fort Severn is visible lying on the west bank of the Severn River, which dwarfs the town itself.

We land, and within seconds of opening the hatch we are swarmed by bugs. Horseflies the size of my thumb buzz around the plane and our truck, attracted to the heat and carbon dioxide from the exhaust of each. Part of the area we will be working in is composed of a wetland (a willow bog, to be specific) so once again, we douse ourselves in DEET. We put in another long day but it flies by, partly due to the fact that the sun stays out so long. We aren't far north enough to be in the 24-hours-of-sunlight zone, but even in Thunder Bay some of my friends have remarked how much later it stays light out than in Toronto or Ottawa or wherever they hail from. We stop working at 9 p.m. but it feels like mid-afternoon, and the sun doesn't fully set until almost midnight.

Adrian and I take advantage of the extra daylight by taking a trip to the banks of the Severn River, and particularly the site of one of the original trading posts used by the Hudson Bay Trading Company (in fact, the post at Fort Severn likely contributed to that name). I was expecting a little bit of insight into an interesting facet of Canadian history, but was blown away by what I found.

The banks of the river have eroded, and even though the foundation of the trading post has been covered by a few layers of soil since its heyday, the receding banks have again exposed it, as well as much of what it once contained. The foundation is exposed, and the banks below are littered with debris and artifacts as far as you can see. It's an amazing sight; there's these old historic (and fairly significant) ruins jutting out from an embankment and bits of history cover the beach as far as you can see, just washing away. You literally have to watch your step as you walk alongside the river, as old nails, bricks and other building materials that have been pried loose from the buried trading post are scattered everywhere. there are other artifacts too- hinges, pieces of clay pots and china, decorative nameplates- all hundreds of years old, and all just sitting on the ground being washed into the River and eventually Hudson Bay. Adrian and I both take a souvenir (although I am not sure if we are really supposed to): he keeps a small broken ceramic statuette and I snag an old knife I found, barely discernible beneath hundreds of years worth of rust. I suppose we could have taken more if we'd wanted... you'd never be able to gather these little bits of history nearly as fast as you'd spot them. Most remarkable of all is the fact that this site is not far from the town- in fact, it is right in the middle of it. We brought it up to one of the locals and he told us stories of him and his brother going down and finding old rusted muskets and other things way cooler than Adrian and I found, and they just left them there because they didn't know what to do with them. I wonder what one could find if they had a spade or a shovel... not to mention what is sitting on the bottom of that river.

The community of Fort Severn itself is similar to the others we've seen. There are lots of things that will make you do a quick double-take: piles of waste barrels stacked in a wetland, broken down houses with no windows, ATVs and quads that zoom by with half a dozen children piled on (and driving); nothing out of place here. On a closer inspection though, the houses do seem out of place, as no trees anywhere remotely nearby seem capable of providing any sort of usable lumber other than firewood.

There are more dogs in Fort Severn than in other communities, which leaves me anxious for a number of reasons that I will shortly explain. As you may have come to expect by now, dogs in these northern communities are not treated like the pampered little things that you see being walked through Toronto. To start, most of these dogs are large crossbreeds: huskies are common, as are German Shepherds etc. Little dogs, although present, are very uncommon. The large amount of crossbreeding is not what makes me anxious... in fact, as a biologist I know that crossbreeding is hugely beneficial to dogs as a species, and that mixedbreed dogs are on average much healthier due to their higher genetic variability (in fact, I am of the opinion that breeding pure- or thorough-bred dogs, or supporting the breeding of these dogs, is among the cruelest things that human beings are capable of. I will not go into a large derail on this topic but anyone who remotely cares about dogs should watch the heartbreaking BBC documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed.).

The problems that concern me stem from one fundamental difference between these northern communities and "mainstream" Ontario... namely the difference in the concept of "pets". In the north, dogs are let roam freely, sometimes on purpose, sometimes because the owners can't afford (or can't be bothered) to take care of them. The dogs act as 'communal pets', wandering around following whoever will take care of them (often ending up in the town dump). Sometimes this results in the dogs become feral, and the response is to hold "dog days"- signs are posted directing residents to make sure their dog is inside on a certain day and the ones that aren't... well you get idea. Hopefully this won't be the case in Fort Severn.

We stop by the Northern store, a sort of general store that, much like the MTO office, hydro generator and nursing station, is one of the few sources of steady employment that is constant across all the communities I've visited. Fort Severn, being much farther north than anywhere else in Ontario, has even more obscene pricing than anywhere else. I've attached a few pics for reference, but in summary: be very thankful the next time you go to the grocery store. Also be thankful for your gas prices... Fort Severners regularly pay $2 per litre and, when the fuel supply is scarce due to weather or some other factor, gas prices can approach $4.

We got to take a break and drive along the river, up to Hudson Bay. The road to the coast is in danger of being washed away by year after year of piling ice floes and spring melt runoff- our big diesel F250 hardly makes it across some sections of the path, and there are times we have to drive through water that reaches up to the sidebar. We pass more families that have piled onto ATVs, including some who have decided to take their children for a swim in the river. This is surprising to me because not only is the current visibly quite fast in some areas, but it is also fairly chilly out (again despite it being the middle of July), cold enough that I don't spend any more time outside of the truck than I have to. I have a theory that I've come to in my time in Fort Severn... I firmly believe that every man, old woman, and small child is ten times tougher than anyone from Toronto, myself included.

We reach the coast, with the last few kilometers or so composed of perfectly flat, tree-less plain: the southern edge of the Arctic Tundra. again it is a very surreal sight- the odd piece of driftwood litters the open plain, but the only trees are small scraggly softwoods in the distance to the south. Upon closer inspection, the tufts of grasses and flowers are littered with small seashells. I walk into the water and see why the children were able to swim- it's much warmer than it appears, far warmer than the water in any of the small lakes we'd been to so far, or the water in Lake Superior or the Cascades in Thunder Bay. Still, points go to those little kids because although the water was tolerable, the air was still frigid.

Our arrival also coincides with the change of the tide, and once again I get to see something unexpected. The mouth of the Severn river, at least a kilometer wide as it reaches the coast, does a complete 180. The quick-flowing river slows down, and as the tide comes in, reverses direction, right in front of our eyes. The water that just an hour before was flowing quickly out into Hudson Bay is now moving backwards, flowing from the Bay back up the river.

We get one last surprise before heading back to the town. One of the local guys who'd happened to be near the coast flags down our truck as we head back to the road. "Did you guys see the bear across the river?" he asks, and hands us a pair of binoculars. He points out a small white object moving along the opposite riverbank, and a glance through the binoculars confirms our hopes: a polar bear strolls lazily around the plain, stopping here and there to sniff for food. That's right, I saw a wild polar bear in his natural habitat in the middle of July.

Of course, this wouldn't have been possible without the help of the local man who'd stopped us (and chatted us up for a bit afterwards) which brings me to another point that is worth ending on: Despite all the negative aspects of life in the north that I've pointed out in the last couple months, I have yet to meet a single unfriendly person in any of these remote communities. The people that live here may be shy, or quiet, or wary that we are only up here to collect for the electric bill, but once you stop and talk for a few minutes you will be on the receiving end of directions, fishing advice, phone numbers or anything else you happen to ask for, usually with some stories in there to boot. There may be a lot of shitty things that go on up here, but for these guys it's just life as usual.

The trip to Fort Severn, along with midnight sunsets and Arctic Tundra and polar bears, also brings my first experience at being "stranded" in a remote community, when fog from the Bay clouds the town and no plane can come to pick us up. The cloud ceiling remains low, so low that if the plane came in to land and was off course by any small degree, the pilots wouldn't have enough time to pull up and try again. Luckily we have all that extra food I'd raved about before, so after a 5 day stretch in the northernmost town in Ontario, we get to head back home.

To give you an idea of what my life is like up here, I am writing this blog entry less than a week (about 5 days to be exact) after my return from Fort Severn. Since then, I have flown out again to visit three more communities and am currently gearing up for another week-long excursion in a few days. The crazy pace is also kind of fun though- I haven't yet gotten tired of flying all over and there are always new places to see and new things to do. My next destination is known as Big Trout Lake, looks like I'll be bringing my fishing rod.

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Photos

The Coast 1
The southern edge of Hudson Bay

The Coast 2
Hudson Bay and the Tundra behind

The Mouth of the Severn
Where the Severn River meets Hudson Bay

Fort Severn
The northernmost community in Ontario

The Airstrip
Like so many others I've flown to

The town: first view.
My first glimpse into the actual community of Fort Severn.

Not much to do
I guess it gets boring here?

Work time
Getting our feet wet in an arctic bog

The edge of town
This bog surrounds the community

Antiques, they are everywhere
One of Adrian's finds near the site of the original Hudson Bay Trading Co. outpost

More stuff that is quite old
More remnants of the trading post; collecting these together took seconds.

Sunset 1
All of these pics were taken after 11:30 pm

Arctic Tundra
The plains of the southern edge of the tundra

The Bay!
The shore of Hudson Bay

Standing in Hudson Bay
The northernmost body of water I've set foot in.

The price of northern life
One example of how prices climb when stuff has to be flown in