Forestry Picnic 1963

In June 1963 Mr. Lawrence Yanik hosted a river excursion with the Forestry tug and barge. About 30 of us travelled 12 kilometers downstream to an island in the shallows near the east channel of the Rivière des Rochers . 

Everyone has loaded at the Forestry dock, and getting settled for a beautiful sunny but cool day on the water. People that I recognize: myself, Al Misko, Charlie Summers, Mom, Katherine McMaster, Charlotte Herman and her daughter Diane, Pat Dickson with her baby, and Bunny Yanik. Others, while familiar, I can't name for sure... 

Enjoying the sunshine...

Mr. Yanik, who knew the country very well, took us to a small island with plenty of room to spread out on a sunny slope and deep water for docking the MV Chipewyan. I think that's Al Misko waving to the camera.

The sun, while still high, had moved into the west by the time we left.

Mr. Yanik piloting the boat back home.

The Rivière des Rochers drains Lake Athabasca at the very western edge of the Precambrian rocks that form the Canadian Shield.  In 1963, before the W.A.C. Bennet Dam was activated*, much of the light-coloured green land in this image was open water. 

The land around the island we visited is now mudflats and willows, with only a few open channels.

Mr. Yanik winking at me at a party in the Yanik's basement, August 1964. 

I took this photo of Picnic Island in September 1964 when returning to school on a Courier Air Service flight that stopped at Swanson's Sawmill on the Peace River before carrying on to Edmonton. 

* The disruption by upstream dams isn't the only factor affecting water levels in this area. Isostatic rebound, the rising of land depressed during the last ice age, accounts for as much as 18 inches of relative elevation change in the 60 years since 1963, and the relentless progress of climate change continues to reduce inflow from the Peace, Athabasca and Fond du Lac rivers. Late 18th century fur traders recorded that the entire lowland area northwest of Fort Chipewyan was under water at that time, and named it Chipewyan Bay.