View topic - Anderson river route maps and trip logs

Hello,

Does anyone have detailed maps of the start of the Anderson river. Specifically showing the route from Colville lake to till you join up with the Anderson. It is hard for me to see exactly where you go after what I believe (from McCreadie) is frozen fish lake but none of the lakes are named on my maps.

I am also looking for a more detailed route description and maps from when you enter the eskimo lakes till the highway.

I would also appreciate it if anyone had or knew of trip logs for the Anderson other than the one posted here.

Thanks

Please consult both the Anderson and the Wolverine entries at
http://www.myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtop ... 23&t=42069

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A literal mind is a little mind. If it's not worth doing to excess, it's not worth doing at all. Good enough isn't.  None are so blind as those who choose not to see. (AJ)

Just posting the link below. Ted and Freda Mellenthin flew into Colville Lake and paddled the Anderson.

Their trip report is here:

http://www.myccr.com/canoeroutes/anders ... aufort-sea

Hi –

Haven’t been there myself, just a couple of ideas.

I was wondering if you have tried to contact Carsten (northof60.de) who posted in the following thread:

http://www.myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtop ... 23&t=42488

He appears to have done the Anderson trip (to the Dempster) that interests you.

If you zoom in on the area between Sitidgi Lake and the Dempster in Google Earth, a series of photo icons appear (see above attachment). The icons trace the route quite clearly, and the photos themselves give a good idea of the terrain involved. Just over 20 straight-line km in 9 days, a challenging section to say the least. The photo uploader is identified as “John Jeremiah Johnston”: my suspicion is that this may be a pseudonym for Carsten.

I am not sure what maps you are using if you are having trouble tracing the route above the junction of the Colville Lake drainage with the Anderson. If you use the gmap4 site

http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php

select t2 – mytopo map type, and zoom in on the area, you will arrive at the 1:50000 topos for the area. The route seems quite clear there, although the maps do not apply all the lake names used by McCreadie. Nor do they refer to the lower part of this Colville outflow as “Ross River”: I don’t know the source of that name, as it is not in the NWT Gazetteer for that location.

Clayton Klein, in his book “Cold Summer Wind II” provides a rather chatty description of his trip from Colville Lake to the Anderson and down to the Beaufort Sea in Chapters 6-9. His map appears based on that of McCreadie, and he too uses the name “Ross River”.

http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Summer-Wind- ... yton+klein

Good luck.

jmc

JMC,
Thank you for posting. the map link was great and I can clearly see the route now. I sent Carsten a pm a while ago but it doesn't appear he has been active on the site since he made that post. I will also look into cold summer wind II.

Thanks

at JMC

Probably someone else may only need a week or even less depending on his stamina. 9 days included a full rest day half way. And I was also not really fine tuned for extensive portaging aka carrying too much stuff. The worst things from remembrance were a few fairly thick willow patches to ramble through with the canoe on my shoulders and one full day with several very unpleasant log jams. On the later - without my dry suit and a great share of good luck I could have been in serious trouble. I slipped twice on a wet log and all the broken off twigs protruding from everywhere were quite forbidding.

yours

PS: Thanks for the mappingsupport-link which I did not know and consider quite helpful.

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www.northof60.de

Hello GreatTurtle:

I see that you have your question answered, but thought I would add my comments. In 1999, my wife and I wintered in the cabin at the north end of Colville Lake, from January 31 until we paddled out at spring break up on June 20. I am an old guy, and have always travelled with topo maps and compass. I found that the 1:250,000 maps did not provide enough detail to travel down the "Ross River" to its confluence with the Anderson. We carried eight 1:50,000 maps for this section, which made the route fairly obvious, I thought. Sometimes we "backtracked" on the map from where we wanted to be to were we were at the time.

At our high water levels, Falcon Canyon proved more challenging than McCreadie's book implied. Before the Anderson River itself, good camping sites were difficult to find. Even so, this section was scenic, and worthwhile.