By CHRIS PASCONE
On Lake Superior, the spirit of adventure comes easily. Take Canada’s remote Slate Islands, for example. Located dead center at the very top of Lake Superior in Ontario, these eight islands exude freedom, isolation and primeval wilderness — all essential adventure characteristics. If you study the Slate Islands’ circular shape on the map, you’ll see that the archipelago takes on a further cosmic twist: the Slates may have resulted from the impact of a huge (19-mile wide) asteroid smashing into earth 450 million years ago. NASA has even studied the Slates’ hypervelocity impact crater in comparative research to determine possible rock composition on other planets. Camping on asteroid-induced islands ramps up the sense of adventure quite a bit!
Ever the dreamer, I’ve been wanting to see this place in person for years. But with all adventures, you’ve got to get there first. And this is where I started to feel a little uneasy (OK, terrified). Doing my homework, I read in the excellent Paddler’s Guide to the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area that “many locals are uncomfortable venturing out to the islands.” Hmm … The Slates are close enough to the mainland that you can see them easily from shore. But they’re also a world away, considering what’s in between: 7 miles of the Jackfish Channel, which has some of the longest southeast and southwest fetches of any place on Superior — about 200 miles of open water. The channel acts as a funnel between the islands and the mainland, creating extreme currents.
The boat I was aiming to bring to the Slates is a Wenonah Saranac canoe. Could a Saranac handle Superior? Impossible. Yet once I was there, the islands promised seclusion, wind protection and big fish — a canoeist’s dream scenario.
So when my buddy John told me this August that he would be leaving for the Slates in a week with his hand-built deep-hulled wooden Viking ship and suggested I tag along, my decision was made instantly: an impulsive “Aye, aye, Captain!” This was my chance to get a tow from a Viking færing (Norwegian for “four oars”) if the lake lived up to its billing as a “death wish.”
We launched from the Parks Canada docks at the mouth of the Aguasabon River in Terrace Bay on a sunny Saturday morning. The south winds had switched to gentler north breezes (tailwinds for us) overnight, and our captain seized his opportunity: Ælfinna can sail downwind. Thus, we pointed straight for Mortimer Island, I rowing my Saranac, and Ælfinna clipping along under sail.
Need I even bother telling what happened next? I quickly got overwhelmed as the winds mounted, even when using two oars on rowing outriggers to try to steady my course. The canoe was getting harder to maneuver, ascending each wave, then getting spun around in the trough. Predictably, the currents were having their way with me. I felt like the children’s book character Paddle-to-the-Sea getting tossed around by Superior. I gave a yell to Ælfinna — “help!” John’s crew of four quickly tied my canoe up to the bulwarks. I was a parasite attached to a host, hitching a free ride to freedom.
My fishing sonar showed depths of 800 feet as we crossed, and even as we approached Mortimer Island, the channel was still 200 feet deep just a stone’s throw from shore. This trough surrounding the Slates seems like a moat protecting it from underwater intruders, and again suggests the possibility of an asteroid strike. Imagine the force with which that asteroid penetrated the earth to make these depths …
The fearful crossing complete, we entered a foreign world of turquoise waters, terraced cobble beaches and nary a soul around, besides woodland caribou and otters. This is the farthest southern place in the world with woodland caribou, attesting to the Slates’ anomalous nature. There are Arctic alpine disjunct plants as well, which thrive on the Slates’ perpetual cold. The spruces and firs that dominate the islands are stunted by the harsh climate, and they are covered in thick beard lichens. It’s near impossible to walk through the forest here, with all the scraggly spruce creating a dense defense of the inland terrain.
Maybe there are hiking trails somewhere on the Slates — we never found any. Just game trails made by the ever-present, but very elusive, caribou. We saw their scat everywhere, but never the animals themselves. To stretch your legs here, you’re basically relegated to the cobble beaches, of which there are plenty, as well as some exquisite sand beaches, such as in Lambton Cove. Not far from the roofed, screened-in camping shelter in Lambton is an old mining shaft that extends 50 feet into the rocky hillside. How did people have the wherewithal to excavate solid rock in a place as remote as the Slates?
Today, Slate Islands Provincial Park (formed in 1985) is part of Canada’s Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area — the largest freshwater conservation area in the world. The Canadians are doing it right — this mystical place is worth conserving.
There are many questions to be asked when visiting the Slate Islands. How did they actually form? How did the caribou, extirpated so frivolously from the surrounding mainland, manage to find their way out to the Slates in the early 1900s and continue their survival? There’s a circle of life in the circular Slates that differs from the mainland. It’s the archipelago’s natural isolation, protected by currents and troughs, that makes the Slates a mystical place. The caribou have found a place without predators here — and humans, too, feel like they’ve left the “predators” behind. This lonely utopia is hard to reach, but more fulfilling. If you’re looking for a sense of freedom, to absorb Lake Superior’s energy and see a pristine wilderness, the Slate Islands are for you. It’s life in the round out there.
And when you’ve had enough remote isolation, may the current bring you straight back to the mainland, like it did for us. I got another tow on the way back from Ælfinna — no way could I have done it alone.