02-Jul-2006 -- This started out as an idea by Chris Cameron to visit confluence point 61N 118W via kayak, see some new country and maybe get some fresh air and exercise while on vacation. He also believed no one would visit this point due to the amount of travel over water involved. Over dinner and a few beers the plan changed to Chris and I (John Stanga) going in a 12 foot aluminum boat with a 6 hp motor to visit this point. If I had know how many hours we would spend in that little boat I might have rethought this idea.
We started our visit to the confluence point bright and early. Yah right. By the time we got the boat, motor and other gear into the truck, breakfast into us and on the road it was almost 10:30 am. It was about a 140 km (90 miles) on the highway to the boat launch on Kakisa Lake at Kakisa Village NWT.
The weather was a beautiful +18 C as we unloaded our gear, set up the boat and away we went. I knew there was a communication problem between Chris and I when I realized it was 64 Km’s round trip (32 km’s each way), not 32 km’s round trip as I believed. The two of us, neither of us small men, in a 12 foot boat with a 6 hp motor, extra gas, survival gear and a spare outboard our top speed was 9.8 km/h. Good thing the lake was flat, calm and the weather was nice.
The trip was great, with us having a ending at a incredibly pretty point at the end of Kakisa lake, finding the confluence and a great smooth calm trip back to the landing.
61n 118 w @ 1:13 pm