July 14th, 2019
Athabasca River
I am terribly dehydrated right now, as I drank less than 3 liters of water all day. I succeeded in not drinking any unfiltered water from the voluminous, silty river we have paddled on the past two days. So at least that is a small victory. The river water is muddy brown, and it is impossible to fill an even somewhat clear nalgene. If it was only the sediment, that would not be a problem. It is the stories and advice from our magnanimous hosts last night that swayed my decision to avoid any unfiltered water.
James and I fell asleep in the “Man Cave” – a sparsely furnished cabin with two beds, a desk, and a furnace. I fell asleep quickly but James woke me up at 8:30 PM to inform me that some people had just arrived at the cabin by boat. We heard Zach talking to them, so we didn’t get too worried. At around 11:00 PM James and I awoke to mosquitos feasting upon us, as there must have been some broken seals in the woodwork. We fled to the tents and slept soundly the rest of the night. We woke at 4:45 AM and were greeted by Norm, the owner of the land, before we finished eating. We got some info about the rest of the Athabasca and the Slave River. It is apparently supposed to run faster than the Athabasca, which I can hardly believe. Dora, Norm’s wife, told us the river was 6 to 10 feet higher than normal! The hosts gave us 6 water bottles and let us fill our nalgenes from their clean drinking water.
-Bram