Walking the Line

Not only was the work done at an astonishing pace, it was the first such pipeline ever undertaken in the North, and as such, it presented the engineers with entirely new construction challenges. They learned the hard way that scraping away vegetation exposed permafrost to the heat of the sun, causing newly graded paths to melt into a muddy quagmire. Trucks and bulldozers sank irretrievably into the ooze until the builders learned to insulate the ground with a layer of gravel or branches.

The pipe-layers and welders followed the road builders, working out of runner-mounted wooden huts that were pulled forward as the road edged its way into the wilderness. The crude oil at Norman Wells had a wax base and so would flow at extremely low temperatures, making insulation unnecessary. But the pipe was laid on the ground without supports or reinforcement—with predictable results. The pipeline was left vulnerable to frost heaving, snowstorms and flooding, so spills were common. Some 46,000 barrels of crude were lost in the first nine months of operations alone.

The more than 52,000 civilian workers shipped up to build and operate the pipeline were warned of the severity of the job: brutal weather, Spartan living conditions and plagues of mosquitoes. For most, the lure of good pay was difficult to pass up; fewer than half of them completed the nine-month contract. The recruiting posters began with the words “This is no picnic…”. I expected a through hike of the Canol to be the same.

Stan set us down at Mile 222, the beginning of the Canol Heritage Trail and site of a remote N.W.T. wildlife management outpost on the Yukon border. Next to it was a collection of wood huts occupied by several biology students who were finishing up a summer of fieldwork. Colin had met one of them in Toronto and had promised to stop by when we were in the neighbourhood.

Latitude had robbed the late August evening of warmth. As the chill sank into our bones we knocked on a window that radiated the warmth of a wood fire and human companionship. They bundled us inside and set out hot soup, tea and fresh brownies. We were soon joined by wildlife officer Keith Hickling, who regaled us with tales of life in the territory—a place where everyone is seemingly from somewhere else, and where each person has a scarcely believable story to tell.

Secret stashes of whisky emerged and we sat up late into the northern night, eventually unrolling our sleeping bags in an empty bunk shack—the last comfort we expected to have for 22 days.

Morning brought a late start, fuelled by a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and thick slices of meaty back bacon, chased with a pot of paint-stripper coffee supplied by brew master Keith.

On our first day of walking we crossed the Mackenzie Barrens, where the trail was firm and wide. In places like that the soft skin of the earth is easily bruised, and tire tracks that veer off the road are visible for decades. Because of this, it’s conceivable that the landscape has hardly changed in 60 years. But that’s just the nature of the Barrens. Further down the Canol, rivers and foliage are brushing out the traces of man’s grand designs.

The Barrens extended to the horizon, a tangled mass of birch and willow scrub hemmed in by snow-dusted mountain peaks. Sudden clouds and rainsqualls obscured the warm sun, but they passed quickly. The day was ideal for hiking, hovering around 14 C. The going was tough but the weather was fine, and the air was cool, pure and bug-free.

We made our first river crossing in early afternoon. A shallow one, but that didn’t ease the pain. The stones were slippery and the current swift. After the first couple steps the icy water chills your feet to the bone. You’d think numbness would bring relief, but instead the aching throb spreads up your legs and begins to burn. It takes an effort of will to make slow, deliberate steps.

At days end, grey veils of rain drifted in to smudge the horizon. We pitched a hasty camp on the hard-packed roadbed as cold drops splattered towards us across the hummocks. Squeezed into the tiny tent, I plunged quickly into an exhausted sleep.

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