May 22 2005

We had a busy month mounting axles on the boat, loading with provisions, and getting other smaller jobs done.  We had a lot of nice visits from friends, neighbors, and others interested in the trip.  We would like to thank everyone for their well wishes and their help.

We put the Idlewild into Peace River at Dunvegan Alberta on Sunday May 22 with the help of our friends.  It was straight-forward but not without challenges.  We left our home port of Dunvegan Bridge on Tuesday May 24  at 4:25 PM with our jet boat “Cimarron” leading the way.

We had many shallow spots and dragged bottom in a couple places, but all went well.

We arrived in Peace River town on May 25 at 10:00 AM.  We visited, took on some more crew and departed at 5:00 PM.  Then arrived in Fort Vermillion early on May 28.  Made preparations to portage the “Chutes”.

The people in Fort Vermillion are more conscious of the River and its history and all wanted to see our boat and 4 came to the chutes on May 29 and helped us around.  The whole portage was very labor intensive.  We had a crew of about 16 in Idlewild and 3 jet boats and then were joined by Chip, Jodie, Ryan, Scott, and Marie at the chutes.  A knowledgeable and hard working crew allowed a straight forward pullout and good progress in spite of having to build 50 feet of our corduroy and matting to cross the creeks.  The first 2 miles of trail were very narrow and required a chainsaw crew ahead.  We over-nighted on the trail and had a good start in the morning.

The  Natives of Fox Lake  provided us with a D6 cat and an excellent, experienced operator in Daniel Ribbonlegs that pulled and winched us up the bank and down the trail.