The Canada expedition

Into the Canadian wilderness – 1,500 km by canoe

Håvard Hasund paddled 1,500 kilometres through northern Canada in 47 days. A conversation about the planning, the safety, the bear encounters and what actually happened out there.

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What this covers

Where the idea came from, and why it had to be Canada
The planning – the date first, everything else after
The route, from Yellowknife to Baker Lake
Why they travelled as two groups
The biggest risk, and why it is not bears
The safety kit, and the insurance that does not cover it
Food, weight and the calorie budget

What this covers (cont.)

The fishing, which is nothing like Norway
The pace – headwind, good days and the hardest leg
The five-kilometre portage, solved two ways
When they lost each other, and what they learned
The watershed, and the rapids
Day 40, with a wolf, moose and four bears
Baker Lake, and the cold burger

Why Canada

Planning starts with a date

You have to set a date, and then build from that date.

How it happened: at Christmas 2023 the group sat over a beer and the decision was made – summer 2025, whatever happens. That left a year and a half to save money, plan the route and gather kit.
Why then: this was something they wanted to do before children and family made it harder.
How: everything lived in a single spreadsheet, with separate tabs for budget, menu and equipment. Planning happened in fits and starts across the whole period, not in intense sessions. Much of the kit they already had – you take essentially what you would take on a two-week trip in the Norwegian mountains.

The route

Yellowknife to Baker Lake

Great Slave LakeThe start. Described as paddling among islands and skerries – but so large that it runs a real swell.
Pike's PortageThe carry. Also the meeting point where the last three were flown in by float plane.
Artillery LakeFurther inland.
Hanbury RiverThis is where the rapids start.
Thelon RiverThe last river, down towards the finish.
Baker LakeCivilisation, after 47 days.

Somewhere around day 20–25 they crossed the watershed. Everything they had paddled on until then drains into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River; everything after drains into Hudson Bay. They had been looking forward to that point because it was supposed to mean paddling with the current. It did not – the landscape is flat, and it stayed mostly flat water.

Two groups in one party

This is the most important structural detail of the trip, and it comes back more than once.

The biggest risk

Håvard is a paramedic, and got the question many people wonder about: how do you think about risk when help is hours away? The answer is sober – you cannot know that it will be fine.

The dangerous thing is not the animals. It is capsizing into four-degree water.

The arithmetic: in a capsize, hypothermia is the real threat, and Håvard's estimate is that you have around ten minutes.
Where it came closest: in several places they crossed 3–4 kilometres of open water to avoid paddling in and out of long bays. They assessed the wind and waited when it blew too hard, but paddling around was never an option. One crossing they had postponed until evening because of wind – and ended up crossing in the middle of the night when it suddenly picked up.

The safety kit

What they carried, and what it was for

Item	Role
Bear spray on every person	the most important thing you carry
One rifle and two shotguns	handguns are not permitted in Canada
Garmin inReach	satellite, emergency button, and texts between the groups
Dedicated expedition insurance	ordinary travel insurance does not cover this
Dressings and a splint	bleeding and fractures
Painkillers and antibiotics	prescription, issued in advance

Two things are worth noting. Ordinary Norwegian travel policies explicitly exclude expeditions in the northern Canadian wilderness, alongside Greenland and altitudes above 4,000 metres – without separate cover, a helicopter evacuation would have been extremely expensive. And carrying the medication is not enough in itself: you have to know when to use which.

Food to the gram

Two days in Yellowknife went on logistics: food, lures and ammunition. They spent a whole evening with a scale and a calorie budget, packing breakfast and nut rations to the gram for about 40 days.

The fishing

This is what Håvard gets most animated about in the whole episode.

Freshwater fishing, two places

Norway

What you hope for

A fish over a kilo makes it a good day
Ordinary freshwater tackle is fine

Northern Canada

What happens

A fish under a kilo counts as a poor effort
Håvard landed one of eight kilos, and lost a bigger one
One of the others landed fourteen kilos, almost rounder than it was long
You need a rod rated for salmon – ordinary tackle snaps

The fish is lake trout, and they trolled while paddling, catching something almost daily. Håvard adds that the very largest – around 25 kilos – are probably 40–50 years old with coarse meat, and that the fish is at its best up to around eight kilos.

The pace

What a day on the water comes to

Conditions	Result
Hard headwind	2.5 km/h
Normal	5–6 km/h
Good day, after 8–9 days of conditioning	40–45 km
Hardest single day	85 km of flat water, 16–17 hours

The headwind was the enemy, not the distance. The gap between a hard day and a good one is almost larger than the gap between paddling and resting – which is why a trip like this is planned with margin rather than with averages.

The portage, solved two ways

The first job once the party came together was to move all the equipment five kilometres and 200 metres of ascent. The two groups solved it differently, without having agreed on anything.

One carry, two methods

The three

The whole distance in one go

Carried everything to the end and put it down
Walked all the way back for the next load

The two

Short stages, repeated

Carried for 10–15 minutes at a time
Walked back for the next load
Carried it past where they had left the last one

The advantage of the method on the right is that the walk back becomes an active rest rather than an empty return. It is the same principle that makes intervals easier to sustain than one long effort – the work is the same, but the recovery is built into it.

When they lost each other

Shortly after joining up came the episode that led to the only real conversation within the group.

We have to wait for each other.

Why this is not a courtesy rule: two canoes are the safety margin. If one capsizes, the other is the only rescue. A kilometre's lead is enough for that rescue not to exist – and in four-degree water the margin is ten minutes. The conclusion was raised directly within the group, and is the most important safety lesson in the episode.

The shotgun that disappeared

On the fourth day after joining up, one of the three shot at a hare from the canoe. During a hurried reload the shotgun slid over the gunwale and vanished into the water. They marked the position on GPS immediately.

The rapids

Asked what the single best thing about the trip was, the answer is rapids.

Day 40

From splitting up to the evening of day 40

Straight afterwards: a wolfFifteen metres away on the riverbank. It came straight at them, spotted them, spun round and bolted – wolves are hunted in the area, and are terrified of people.
Half a minute later: two mooseAnd ten minutes after that, a large bull moose.
Day 40: a sow with two cubs300–400 metres away. The wind was against them, so the bears did not get their scent.
A little further down: caribouA whole herd at full gallop.
Five minutes later: a grizzly sow with three cubsThirty metres away. She spotted them, came down to the bank and stood up on two legs while they filmed from the water.
And an "odd rock"They had seen so many rocks that turned out to be bears – and the reverse – that they paddled on. When they turned round, the rock was standing on two legs.

They were not exactly stressed, but did check where the bear spray was. They also decided against camping there: camp means smell, and smell attracts bears. Håvard sums the day up as the most powerful wildlife experience he has had.

Baker Lake

After 47 days in the wilderness they went straight to the shopping centre. There was a Pizza Hut and a Tim Hortons – three counters, but the same people serving all three. The Pizza Hut was closed, so it was a burger.

Key points

Set a date first, and build the plan backwards from it. The decision was made at Christmas 2023 for the summer of 2025.
Capsizing into four-degree water is the real risk – not bears. His estimate is about ten minutes.
Bear spray matters more than firearms, and plenty of people are out there without any firearm at all.
Ordinary Norwegian travel insurance excludes expeditions in the northern Canadian wilderness, alongside Greenland.

Key points (cont.)

An emergency beacon does not save you. Help takes hours, and you have to manage until it arrives.
Two canoes are the safety margin. If one capsizes, the other is the only rescue – which is why the group has to wait for each other.
Breakfast was porridge with powdered milk, sugar and rapeseed oil, every single day for 47 days.
A lake trout under a kilo counts as a poor effort. He landed one of eight kilos himself.

Key points (cont.)

On the worst days they made 2.5 km/h. The hardest day was 85 kilometres in sixteen to seventeen hours.

Questions this answers

What was the Canada expedition actually about?
How do you plan a 1,500 km canoe trip?
What is the biggest risk on a trip like this?
What first aid and safety equipment should you bring?
Does ordinary travel insurance cover an expedition?
How do you handle an encounter with a bear?

Questions this answers (cont.)

How do you plan food for nearly fifty days?
What would he do differently next time?

Spørretimen

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