The Thelon: Where Time and Light Stand Still

by Max Finkelstein

“Get up! There’s a grizzly bear in camp!” Those terse words, hissed through clenched teeth, cut into my dreams like a news flash. Jim and I crawled out of the tent into the brilliant stillness of an arctic dawn. All traces of sleep evaporated instantly when our bleary eyes focused on the silver-tipped barrenland grizzly nonchalantly investigating the gear we had stashed under our canoe. Without any clear plan of action, we shouted, “Stupid bear! Get out of here! That’s our stuff!”

Thelon – A New Management Plan For The Sanctuary

by David F. Pelly

Free again. The first, fleeting moments alone beside a barrenlands river deliver a sensation you can never forget. Impossible to hold onto, it is nonetheless so profound that its memory is permanent. Left alone beside the river, with no more than a tiny pile of gear, a silent travelling companion, and an immense wilderness all around, the solitude penetrates through every sense, every pore of your body. It is palpable, flowing over you like a wave. It may be familiar, and expected, yet all the more profound because of that. There is a feeling of having awoken from a dream, to find yourself within a beautiful, peaceful sanctum. There is stimulation everywhere, and yet there is nothing, absolutely nothing, imposing itself upon you. Nowhere is this experience more impressive than in the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary, in the heart of Canada’s Arctic barrenlands, as far away as you can get from “civilization” in continental North America.