GALLERY: Six men, three canoes and an adventure trip of a lifetime in the Arctic wilderness

By Robin Gee, Hyde Park Living Editor

Note: This story appeared in our March 2024 issue of Hyde Park Living.

Cincinnatian Hugh Haller did something last summer he’d wanted to do for a long time, ever since he was a young camper at Camp Koochi-I-Ching, a 100-year-old boys camping facility located outside International Falls, Minnesota. He and five friends went on an adventure trip of a lifetime, spending 45 days and traveling 1,100 miles in canoes in the Canadian wilderness and even skirting the Arctic. 

Haller is the president and CEO of the Camping & Education Foundation, an organization that offers traditional wilderness camping activities and outdoor fun for kids ages 8 to 18. The headquarters is located in Hyde Park, but the camping facility is located outside International Falls in Minnesota on Rainy Lake along the Canadian border. 

He had been a camper at the organization’s boys camp, Camp Koochi-I-Ching, and later worked as a camp staff member. As an adult, he joined the organization’s administration. The camp offers alumni and staff an opportunity to take a long and intense wilderness canoe trip. He’d never been able to get away to go until one day, he and a friend, also a former camper, decided it was now or never. The men were heading into middle age and agreed it was just time to do this trip of a lifetime.

The Kazan 360 Arctic Expedition

After extensive preparations, the men set out for their trip in Canada. They departed Wollaston Lake in Saskatchewan on August 8, 2023, heading to the Kazan River. They paddled into Chesterfield Inlet in Nunavut province in Hudson Bay on September 21 after more than six weeks of canoeing and camping in the wilderness. Along the way they traversed lakes, rivers, portages and rapids, fished for food, slept under the stars, traveled under the Northern Lights and saw caribou, moose and even seals near the ocean. 

They dubbed their trip the “Kazan 360 Arctic Expedition” named for a combination of the six men’s ages and also in honor of their journey coming full circle from young campers to adult adventurers.

The group included Haller, who grew up in Hyde Park but now lives in Wyoming; Steve Luebkeman, who also grew up in Hyde Park and now lives in Northport, Michigan; Peter Tester of Minneapolis; Steve Shook of West Lafayette, Indiana; Ken Alt of Winnetka, Illinois and Dave Seibert of Madison Wisconsin. 

On their backs, they carried personal gear, waterproof boots and extra clothing, three tents, first aid kit, dry suits, a satellite communications device, cooking equipment and the first two weeks of food for the journey. They later received a food drop for the remaining weeks. They fished along the way as well.

“We had a wonderful group, an incredible team dynamic,” said Haller. “We did not have a leader; we took a very democratic approach, kind of defaulting to whoever felt the strongest about a particular thing…We fell into a rhythm where we all gravitated to what we enjoyed doing the most in terms of teamwork and what we needed to do…We worked out our differences when we needed to and treated everybody with respect and kindness.” 

The trip, Haller said, could be divided into three main parts. Starting at Wallaston Lake in Saskatchewan, it’s about 225 miles to Kasba Lake where the Kazan River begins. The river runs about 625 miles to Baker Lake and involves a series of eight lakes interspersed along the river. The last leg of the trip goes from Baker Lake all the way to the Arctic Ocean and into the town of Chesterfield Inlet, about 170 miles.

The Kazan River

“The Kazan River is well-known for its Inuit population who lived and hunted and explored along the entire region,” Haller said. 

The eastern third of the Kazan River is very rich in the history of the Inuit, he said. All along the river, there are stone structures built by the Inuit known as cairns and believed to be points of reference for travel routes, crossings, hunting grounds or camps. Some were places of veneration and included stones made into human forms. These the Inuits called inukshuk, which translates roughly to “in the likeness of a human.”

“The Kazan River is one of the last remaining major caribou migrations in the world. The Inuit hunted the caribou; they hunted musk ox. The area’s just incredibly rich in history and wildlife. And it’s one main reason why we chose this route in the first place. You travel this route, and you constantly see these inukshuk cairns. You’re seeing remains of their tent rings and their hunting blinds and on and on. It’s pretty overwhelming in its history, not to mention the wildlife is abundant… and you’re up above the tundra line, so it’s all barren land and those landscapes are just phenomenal.”

Where the wild things are

“It’s incredibly rich in its wildlife,” said Haller. Just beginning with the waterfowl — the snow geese, the Canadian geese, the trumpeter swans — are just in abundance, ducks, you name it. So there’s just a tremendous amount of waterfowl. And then from there, the migration of the caribou…We’d see singular caribou, we’d see herds of 10 to 20, an incredibly amazing animal,” he said.

“In addition to the caribou, there are timber wolves, Arctic fox, Arctic hare. I came out of my tent at 4:30 one morning, and I was staring straight into the eyes of a beautiful silver gray timber wolf. He sat transfixed and stared at me as long as I stared at him. I wasn’t sure if he was going to eat me or just walk away. I also saw muskox, one of the most amazing creatures on the face of the earth; these big woolly beasts are very prehistoric looking.”

He also said he saw his share of moose and, when they got closer to the ocean, there were seals as well. 

“The one animal that we did not see (they probably saw us, but we didn’t see them) were bears. We did not see any grizzly or, more appropriately, polar bears…They were around for sure. We saw many signs of them, but we didn’t actually see them,” Haller said.

The fishing was good and abundant. There was lake trout, northern pike, Arctic grayling and Arctic char. They ate very, very well, he said. He also noted that the vegetation was not what he expected.  

“You’re up in lands right above the treeline, and you think it’s all going to be sort of brown and dark. But at the time of year that we went, it was incredibly rich and colorful — reds, and yellows and greens, just stunning…cranberries and blueberries in abundance, and then a lot of different colors of moss on the ground and different vegetation and plants.”

Memorable moments

What were Haller’s most memorable moments on the trip?

“Probably the number one was the timber wolf that I mentioned, which was amazing and not something you’d ever expect to experience. And so, I’ll never forget it,” he said. 

“The second one is burned in my memory forever…These inukshuks I referred to…The thing that is fascinating about them is they’re built out of boulders, and some of these can be eight, nine, 10 feet tall. And some of the boulders at the top weigh 200 or 300 pounds. You can’t even imagine how they’re made…They were made hundreds of years ago, when they didn’t have tools and levers and things like that…There was one we came upon. When we walked around to the front and stared at it, there was no denying it was a mother with her baby on her shoulder made out of stone. I get choked up talking about it…I have three young kids, and it brought me instantly to my family and to what matters.

“And then, the other major one was…Kazan Falls, which in my opinion could be one of the eight wonders of the world. There’s this spectacular gorge with a 100-foot drop and beautiful falls and just powerful and overwhelming and incredible. So those are three that were really special to me. You know, I can go on and on about my takeaways and what I’ve learned…”

Haller said he was struck by the vast beauty of the region.

“When you’re out in the wilderness for two months, completely unplugged, with no access to anything, it makes you realize just how special life on earth is and, you know, we take it all for granted,” he said. “And it’s an amazingly beautiful, vulnerable and fragile piece of land called the Arctic, and most people will never see it. We sit here trying to figure out how to colonize Mars, when we have this amazing territory that’s only 3 or 4,000 miles away from anybody in the US…And if we’re not careful, we’re going to destroy it.”

He said the trip brought him full circle, back to the importance of his work introducing young people to the beauties and mysteries of the natural world. 

“For me, it was what matters most — why we have these wilderness camps in the first place, why we give kids these experiences, because it’s just so important. And I think we really can help shape young people, and anybody for that matter, to begin to appreciate the physical beauty of the natural surroundings that we have.”

About the Camping & Education Foundation

The Camping & Education Foundation headquarters is located in Hyde Park at 3515 Michigan Avenue, but it’s summer camps are located in Minnesota, near International Falls on the Canadian border.

The organization sponsors outdoor summer camp programs that include the opportunity to participate in canoeing trips into Ontario and beyond. Depending on age, campers come for four or eight weeks and a part of that experience involves a canoeing adventure. 

Camp Kooch -I-Ching, Ojibewe for “a place of inlets,” is the boys camp that will celebrate 100 years this year. Camp Ogichi Daa Kwe, “strong spirited woman” in Ojibwe, is a girls camp that started 20 years ago. The camps serve about 500 campers each year from all over the country. About 25% of campers receive tuition assistance.

Year-round, the organization also offers an Urban Wilderness Program aimed at providing outdoor experiences and skills for children in the city. Participants in the program get hands-on skills in boat building, canoeing, campfire cooking and other outdoor activities as they learn team building, planning and perseverance. The program has worked with about 30 schools in Cincinnati and 2000 students. They also work with kids in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco and other places around the US.

To learn more, donate or to volunteer, go to campingedu.org or call (513) 772-7479.