Summary of Canadian Expedition 2002/2003
by Gjermund Rosholt

We are two brothers from Passebekk, a little village in the southern part of Norway.
Our names are Anders and Gjermund Rosholt.

We both like outdoor life a lot. For many years we’ve talked about spending a winter in the Canadian wilderness and finally, the dream came true.

We spent the first part of our Canadian adventure in a little trapper cabin about 300 km east of Inuvik in Northwest Territories, Canada. We had 24 hours of daylight in the summer and polar night in the winter. The average temperature in summertime was about 15 Celsius and as low as -50 Celsius in the winter.

Together, with a native trapper, Anders and I flew out to our cabin in early May 2002. It took us four flights to get all our equipment and some basic food supplies for one year to the cabin. We brought with us some margarine, sugar, coffee, yeast, milk powder, egg powder, flour, canned jam and honey. We also had a lot of soups with us from a Norwegian sponsor called Toro. But we mainly lived by eating fish and some small game.

In May we used most of the time cutting firewood for the coming winter. We used about 10% dry spruce and 90% fresh spruce. We had a cooking stove and a big drum stove in the cabin. All the windows were broken by grizzlies, and one side of the roof was rotten. But we had plenty of time to put in new double Plexiglas windows and replace the rotten logs on the roof. We also made some wooden window covers. When the snow started melting we had about 40 cm of water in the lower part of the cabin. But after making some ditches we got rid of most of it.

The early spring was a really nice time, with nice weather and no bugs. During the spring we did a lot of hiking trips in the area and this time of year snowshoes were a good thing to have. Around May 30 there was a break up on Anderson River and the ice really piled up. This day we also watched and videotaped an incredible scenario: A caribou was out on an island in the Anderson River. One grizzly and several wolves were circling around on the shore. After a drama that lasted for five hours, the caribou tried to swim ashore. The wolves where waiting for it and attacked it. But before the wolves manage to kill it, the grizzly came after it and killed the caribou with one blow. Then the grizzly dragged it in to the woods and disappeared. We also found some other dead animals during the winter, probably taken by wolves.

Tuesday, July 8 we had eight visitors from Norway who where paddling the Anderson River. Our visitors had paddled half the distance of the river when they knocked on our door. These men brought with them a lot of good stuff, like magazines, food and playing cards.

It became lively when the ten of us where joined at the campfire with Norwegian "coffee doctor". We also got some Norwegian chocolate, which was really good. On Wednesday all of us went fishing for Inconnu, and all of us caught plenty. On this evening we all had dinner together. A man named Haavard was our cook. It tasted wonderful. The evening was ended by a few hours of fishing and some story telling.

The next day, Thursday, we did a trip with our cameras to get some good pictures and then our visitors had to continue on to the arctic coast. They had arranged to be picked up on July 10.

July 11, we pointed our boat upstream on the Anderson River to reach several big lakes about 150 km from our cabin. From the river we took a little creek for 7 km to a lake called Luamat Lake. Along this creek the bugs were really bad, so your mouth was full at all times.

We stayed on Luamat Lake for about three weeks fishing for lake trout. Most of the trout was about 2-4 kg but we caught some up to 9 kg. This was a very nice area with a lot of wildlife. We saw eagles, swans, wolves, muskrats, great northern divers and much more.

The weather was cold and we had snow on the ground for several days. We traveled very light on this trip because we had to paddle the boat for 150 km. We ran out of food on our way upstream. However we had plenty of trout and ducks so we didn’t starve.

On our way upstream we met four Danish people that were canoeing the Anderson. They were happy to be able to speak with us in their own language. We gave them some information on different rapids along with some GPS coordinates. They asked us why we were going upstream with a 300 kg heavy boat. They had never seen anything like it. So to brag a bit to our Scandinavian neighbors, we said that after canoeing a whole bunch of rivers downstream, we would like to try one upstream instead. After this statement, they said no more and continued down the river, while we continued making our way up the river. They probably thought we had eaten the wrong mushrooms with our trout.

It took us 14 days to make our way upstream and only two days to get home downstream.

The fishing got better and better until the real peak in mid-August. Then the average sizes of the inconnu’s were 10-18 kg. We ate fish every day, and also dried and smoked a lot of it for food and as bait for the coming winter's trapping. During the summer and beautiful fall we saw a lot of grizzlies, some musk ox, two wolverines, some wolves and a lot of other wildlife around the cabin.

By September 30 most of the lakes were frozen. The day after brought ice on the river too. One of my dreams, since I was a kid, was to be far, far out in the wilderness with no other people around. And during a clear, cold night with the moon shining bright I would hear a great wolf howl. Now I got my dream fulfilled every night. To be able to experience this for real gave me an incredible feeling I can’t describe. I will never forget it and want to make sure it won't be the last time I hear a wolf howling. I could stay awake for hours, just laying still, looking at the beautiful moonlight and listening to these incredible creatures’ voices.

The wolves were howling day and night and their tracks were everywhere. One day we woke up to a couple of wolves howling just outside the cabin.

During the winter the temperature stayed between -35 C and -50 C, so the winter was a great experience. The low temperatures were never a problem and we were often away from our cabin, spending 10-20 days on our trapper line, hunting or ice fishing. In the beginning we used a Skidoo, but after running out of gas, we used snowshoes or skis, depending on the snow conditions. Both the snowshoes from Ben Meadows and skis from Aasnes worked perfectly in the arctic conditions.

We spent a lot of time just under the sky next to a log fire or in a tent or tipi in -45 C weather. We experienced and learned more than we ever thought possible. Spending so much time in real wilderness you realize that this is it; this is were you want to spend as much time as possible: outdoors! Even after being crazy about outdoor life, spending all our spare time outdoors since we were small kids, you realize that you always have a lot to learn from and about nature. You realize that you haven’t been in real untouched wilderness until you have been in Canada’s Yukon or Northwest Territories.

We just enjoyed the winter, going cross country skiing every day, exploring new land and seeing a lot of wildlife. But suddenly it was spring again and time to leave the great Canadian wilderness behind.

We stayed in Whitehorse for some time before we left for Alaska. In Alaska we went to Fairbanks, Anchorage and then to visit a Norwegian friend in Soldotna on Kenai Peninsula. Luckily our car broke down in Soldotna on Kenai Peninsula. Our car broke down in Soldtna and luckily we got help from a very helpful Alaskan family. These wonderful people made our Alaskan visit a great adventure. We spent a lot of time together with this family and got to see a lot of Alaska from “inside” instead of as a tourist. And now we are lucky to have friends in Alaska.

We participated in dip-netting, set-netting, commercial boat fishing with long lines, salmon fishing and much more. We spent 20 days on Talkeetna River fishing for kings, reds and rainbow trout, and caught a lot of good sized fish. We also fished for reds on Russian River and saw a lot of grizzlies. We fished for kings and reds on Kasilof and Kenai River too. Canoeing for a week on Tustnemina Lake was also a great trip.

After 3 months in Alaska we went back to Yukon, Canada which is the place we liked best. A state that has everything, incredible wilderness and great people. In Yukon we were so lucky to meet some great Canadian girls that helped us plan our canoe trip down Snake River. So now we have some friends for life in Yukon too! Not bad for two “shy” Norwegian fellows. Canoeing the Snake River was just great, with beautiful mountains and a lot of wildlife. After spending a month on the river and some nice days together with our friends from Whitehorse we unfortunately had to leave and travel back to Norway.

We have learned a lot during this expedition. We have been lucky to see a lot of great wilderness, a lot of wildlife, meet many nice people and make some really good friends!!!

Some of things we learned on this trip are very important: If people are friendly and open hearted it makes a real difference. And you should always follow your dreams. If you always are optimistic and willing, every dream can become reality. And one thing is for sure, you will never, ever regret that you followed your dream. It’s worth it.

You live only once!!!

The good thing is that you never run out of dreams, so Yukon, we’ll soon be back!!!

----

You can find out more about the brothers Rosholt and their adventures by visiting their Web site at:
http://www.canadaekspedisjonen.no/e-version/main.htm

Back to Ben There