Far North Friday #45: Up The Creek
Have you ever been up the creek without a paddle? Well, how about across the creek without a wetsuit?
I don’t know about you, but I am not used to thinking about ocean tides and how they may affect what we do. The two times I visited the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Nova Scotia, with a group of curious, time-irreverent geologists, we had official Joggins Fossil Centre shepherds with us to keep us on the clock. At Joggins, on the tidal flats of the Bay of Fundy, not paying attention to the tides is a deadly mistake. I never thought of the tides along the shore of Hudson Bay. That was a mistake - not a deadly mistake, just a cold, wet mistake.
On July 8, 2011, after our meetings with the Chief and Council of Wasaho Cree Nation (Fort Severn First Nation), David Pearson (aka “Dr. Dave”, Laurentian University) and I went to the Hudson Bay coast to look at the landscape, the geology, and the coastal life. There is a creek about 20 feet wide that marks the end of the gravel road. You have to cross the creek to continue, on foot, to the coast. When we arrived, the creek level was low. It was deceptively easy for us to hop across the cobbles to get to the other side. We spent the afternoon walking along the coast. It was wonderful series of “firsts”: a) saw my first Wood Frog and Boreal Chorus frog in the coastal salt marsh; and b) saw my first Velvetbells (Bartsia alpina) wildflower growing on the windswept tundra (https://inaturalist.ca/observations/66329253), in addition to about 25 other flowering Arctic-alpine plant species. Fortunately, or sadly, depending on your perspective, we did not see any polar bears.
I don’t recall how long we spent wandering along the coast, but it had been several hours when we slowly made our way back towards the vehicle.
To our surprise, the dry creek we crossed was no longer a dry creek. It was a dynamic, thriving river, flowing upstream (Photo 1)! Ahhhh, now we remembered. There are tides on Hudson Bay. That’s interesting! And the tide was still rising. Option 1: we could sit beside the creek for the next 12 hours waiting for low tide to return. But maybe polar bears check out the creek looking for seals and fish. Humm, exciting, but the unintended consequences seemed dire. Option 2: we could wait for someone to drive to the end of the road and help us out. But, how could anyone help us? Option 3: we would just forge the creek before the water got much higher. That was the plan.
Photo 1: The swollen creek that was filled by the rising tide. Hudson Bay water is flowing from left to right. Photo composed north of Fort Severn, along the Severn River, in the estuary where the Hudson Bay waters meet the Severn River, July 8/11.
Now, I don’t want to paint the crossing of the swollen tidal creek as a life and death herculean event. It wasn’t. It was wet - very wet. It was refreshing - very cold and refreshing. We were a little embarrassed because we had not paid any attention to the tides or time - rookie mistake!
We did forge the creek safely (Photo 2). Our pants got strategically washed by cold salty water. Neither of us sprained an ankle or slipped into the water as we hobbled across the cobble rock bowling balls on floor of the flooded creek.
Photo 2: Dr. David Pearson forging across the cold tidal creek at the end of the road, Hudson Bay lowland, north of Fort Severn, Ontario, July 8, 2011.
Lessons? Apparently it is good to be familiar with the tides when visiting the Hudson Bay coast. But, would it have made a difference? I think it was better that we were completely oblivious to the tide because we were free to wander and look unencumbered by the specter of a rising tide. And besides, we were across the creek without a wetsuit.
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