View topic - Encountering a logjam on the North Saskatchewan River

Links to these videos were forwarded to me and I thought that some members of this forum might find them interesting. FYI, the Bighorn Dam is located on the North Saskatchewan River in western Alberta. It is not too far from where the river exits the mountains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqG1bnBB5cw&t=7s&pbjreload=10


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y6aduAjrZg

Too bad to hear about the log jams. Their survival training pays off.

Hi, norm4n,
Most of Alberta's mountain and foothills rivers are quite braided in places and most have lots of wood in them so sweepers and logjams are the norm.
It is not possible for me to know exactly what the conditions were like in a situation like that, but it seemed to me that they were not anticipating the possibility of a logjam even though the river had so much wood in it. I'm so glad it turned out well. I thought that they were very fortunate.

Thanks for the links. As clear as the maps indicate, it's hard to imagine the river over here comes out of such a landscape.

Looks like they got into a scary situation. I know it's a 'swiftly flowing river' so I can understand if your timing was at all off you could get sucked into a situation like that. Hearing that they seemed fine next to the jam for a bit until the pressure lifted the logs and the canoe tilted under demonstrates a valuable lesson to the viewer of the video. It's good to know and something I hadn't considered. Thankfully it's only at the cost of a few personal items and no one was hurt.

_________________
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GRS,
I've paddled lower down on the north Saskatchewan and it is indeed a much different river down your way. As I said, what you saw on the video was what most of our mountain and foothill streams are like. It is not a place for paddlers who can't recognize potentially dangerous situations and who can't get off the water quickly.
You should come out and paddle here sometime.

A very scary situation indeed. And they being fit really helped them I think. In general, if i do not know a river well, and its through forested land, I make a very big effort to stay on the inside of river turns. There are always monsters on the outside.....Canoed the Big Salmon River with the family abut 10 years ago and there were dangerous sweepers there as well.

Here are two links to videos about paddling on the Wildhay River (between Hinton and Grande Cache, Alberta). They show typical logjams and sweepers present on most Alberta mountain and foothills streams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q4c-15wg-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXzKK5eQIVY&t=78s

Thank you for posting. Watched both segments right through. Excellent examples of potentially dangerous sweepers and log jams of rivers going through forests.