Northbound & Solo: Paddling 575 Kilometres of Wild Water in the Northwest Territories
After an hour-long flight from Norman Wells, a floatplane deposits me on O’Grady Lake with a canoe and two weeks’ worth of food and gear. I plan to travel 575 kilometres down the Natla and Keele Rivers in the Northwest Territories, and finally down a stretch of the Mackenzie River back to Norman Wells. I’m all alone, and when the plane lifts off, quickly disappearing into the cloudy sky, it leaves behind a profound silence. This kind of solitude is rare. In the Mackenzie Mountains, you can fly for hours over ridge lines and rivers without seeing a single road, building or any other sign of development. It’s a holdout of true wilderness—a place where you need to travel with the rhythms of the land, not against them.
This isn’t my first whitewater rodeo. I’ve been lucky enough to have soloed several demanding northern rivers over the past few years. Beyond the excitement and adventure that these trips bring, for me, they offer a way to return to something elemental where there is nothing but the river, the wind and the sound of your paddle as it moves through the water.
The Natla doesn’t hold back. As I start paddling, the water levels are high and the river is steep, fast and restless. Boulder-strewn rapids come one after another and I need to stay fully dialled in to what’s in front of me.
On day two, I get caught off guard. Foolishly, I careen around a blind corner without scouting and hit an unexpected Class III wave train. It’s a blast to run, but my boat takes in a lot of water. I round the bend immediately down river and find another set of big-water rapids right in front of me. That’s when I almost dump. I slide sideways over a boulder and all the water in my boat sloshes to one side. As I just barely right myself with a prolonged low brace, things have gotten real. I beast-paddle and manage to barely skirt the menacing wave train, catching a safe eddy on river right, and I’m out of danger. A little shaken up, I take a moment to catch my breath and I bail out the canoe. Lesson learned.
What makes these rivers special isn’t just the remoteness, scenery and whitewater thrills—it’s the history that runs through them. These aren’t forgotten routes. They’ve been travelled for generations by the Mountain Dene, who used mooseskin boats to run the same channels and canyons on much of the Natla. At camp on day five, I find intentionally placed rocks and several very old cut poles, preserved by the long subarctic winters at the base of a deep valley carved by a tributary creek where it enters the river.
Later, I learn this area had been used for generations as a place to corral Dall sheep. Mountain Dene hunters, along with their dogs, would travel deep into the range and “push” Dall sheep down into the valley, where they’d funnel into a corral built from the same poles. In the corral, the sheep could be harvested from closer range—calories hard won and heavily needed. The scale and knowledge behind that system blows me away. It reminds me that people here have lived with the land for a long time, and that the old ways existed in the not-so-distant past.
The Natla pours into the Keele River. The Keele is wide, clear and beautiful. It’s much easier than the Natla but still demands my attention. Water levels are still high, and tight bends create challenging currents, but the flow is strong and I make good time. Somewhere on the Keele I cross paths with a guided canoe party. They’re camped at the mouth of a tributary. From the seat of my canoe, I chat with a guide. He looks me over wide-eyed, amazed that I came down the Natla solo—and in high water too. “Horseshoes up your ass,” he says. I’ll take it.
Continuing down the Keele, I see both moose and caribou, and birds of prey soar overhead. I paddle at the base of towering cliffs and watch many beautiful waterfalls pour off high banks into the river, still fed by melting snow in the alpine. I hook into a bull trout that nearly strips my reel bare; about seven or eight pounds I figure, releasing the beauty back into the blue waters.
On day nine, I stumble on a patch of wild strawberries growing along the edge of a sandy landslide and I pick a fair share for lunch. Along the lower Keele, I explore an old burn and wade through vibrant fireweed before finding a natural sulphur spring. This sulphur-rich spring water is traditionally consumed by Mountain Dene people in small amounts for its medicinal benefits.
It’s day 11, and I follow the waters of the Keele into the Mackenzie, Canada’s longest river. It’s a different kind of beast. The terrain has flattened, but the challenges increase. I’d been warned about winds and large whitecaps on the Mackenzie, and soon, I find out why. Just past the mouth of the Great Bear River, I’m pinned down by 55 km/h wind gusts that whip the Mackenzie into large whitecaps. It’s 7 p.m. by the time the wind breaks. When the waves die down, I jump in the canoe and paddle past midnight on glass-like water underneath an endless northern sky. It doesn’t get dark here in the summer, so when the moment’s right, you can just go.
On day 14, I paddle up to Norman Wells. I completed 575 kilometres, with no portages and no dumps. The trip was a balance of challenges and smooth sailing. I covered a lot of water, yet it left me feeling sharpened, not worn down. The kind of solitude I experience on trips like these grounds me in a quiet, practical way. I grow, and I come back a little different.
Marcus Aurelius said, “You don’t need to go to a fancy villa or a distant place to find peace. Your mind can be your retreat. Wherever you are, you carry the possibility of tranquility inside yourself.”
I agree—true mental clarity and peace come from within, not from a location. But a solo journey through true wilderness isn’t just a location. It’s a journey, an everchanging place where the mind’s noise fades naturally, stripped away by the raw simplicity of the environment and the demands of the journey itself. You don’t have to consciously retreat from a restless mindset to find contentment here, it finds you.
This article was initially published in Explore Magazine’s Fall 2025 issue.
