Swallowed by the Falls

 

This is the story of a near disaster at Swallow Falls in the Northwest Territories, an accident that occurred near the beginning of a 23-day trip down the Broken Skull and South Nahanni Rivers in early July 2023. 

Full disclosure – we deliberated for some time about writing this article. The feeling within our group was initially one of embarrassment and a desire to keep the incident to ourselves. That emotion was tempered with gratitude that no one was injured, and pride that we managed to rescue everyone, recover nearly all our equipment, repair our badly damaged canoes, and complete our journey. We ultimately concluded that if such an accident could happen to an experienced group like ours, it could happen to others. We hope that sharing our story might help other groups prepare for such risks.

 

See Nastawgan Winter 2023 for rest of the story.