Many Canadians regard this song, “Northwest Passage,” as an unofficial anthem of Canada.  Its lyrics rang through my mind about every day this July and August, 2014 that we paddled and motored down the Coppermine, a wild and savage river, to the Coronation Gulf of the Arctic Ocean.  Although the Dene and Inuit used this river as a passageway into the northern edges of the North American continent for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years, Samuel Hearne was the first European to make this journey in 1771 with a party of Dene guides led by the renowned Matonnobee. The second European to travel the Coppermine River was Sir John Franklin in 1821 with a large party of Englishmen, Canadians and local Dene led by Akaitcho.  To give a fuller sense of the character and challenges of this amazing river, their journals of 243 and 193 years earlier are added to the accounts of our adventure.  Except for the odd abandoned cabin of some unknown trapper or prospector along the way (I believe we spotted about five over 230 miles above Bloody Falls), it is safe to say this land is almost identical to what was seen and experienced by the famed Hearne and Franklin parties.  Our voyage covered a distance of approximately 240 miles (380 kilometers). 

The quest for a western passageway to the Orient led to the (re)discovery of North America by Europeans in the late 1500s.  It was this quest for a northwest passage that brought about the explorations of Hearne and Franklin and many others.  The search for the lost Franklin expedition of 1845 and 1846 expanded considerably the mapping of this territory known only to the small Dene tribes and bands of Inuit west and north of Hudson’s Bay. 

The news was indeed remarkable and historic that broke the morning of September 8th, 2014, by Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada who announced that one of the two ships of Franklin, either the Terror of the Erebus, was discovered off the shores of King William Island.  This island is approximately 300 miles east of the mouth of the Coppermine River. It was announced on October 1st, 2014, in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister that the ship found was the Erebus, believed to be the one on which Franklin died in June of 1847.      

So, as things would have it, we traced the principal waterway of the first expedition of Franklin within but a few weeks of the discovery of a ship from his final tragic expedition. This account will introduce you to an amazing land that few have traversed and that still forms the wild and savage landscape immortalized in song by Stan Rogers. 

All 129 men of Franklin’s expedition perished in the land just to the east of the Coppermine River, either on the sea ice or in their struggles overland into the barrens in an effort to reach civilization. Others too have perished in their quests, including the paddlers David and Carol Jones who drowned in Rocky Defile Rapids of the Coppermine, August 14th, 1972.  A memorial stands above the canyon that took their lives in honor and tribute.