Distance: 9.5 km (5.9 miles)
Portages: 7
Swifts paddled: 3
Time: 4:31
Happy Birthday to me! I slept pretty good last night. Before falling to sleep last night Pete brought up the subject of paddling techniques. We talked about what to do in certain situations, especially in moving water. I’m really glad that Pete wants to learn to be a more competent paddler. Pete told me he has paddled with some paddlers who just say, F___k-it, just paddle! I would really be having a bad time on this trip if Pete felt this way.
I love to paddle and I take my paddling seriously. After all, it’s a CANOE trip! I don't claim to be the fastest or the best paddler, but I find paddling to be such a pleasure. I enjoy moving the canoe to where it needs to go. It takes experience to know what the current will do with a canoe. I put in several hundred hours every year paddling to where everything is done almost without thinking about it. This will definitely be big criteria on if I decide to paddle with a different group again.
While Pete and I were talking there was some loud snoring going on in the tent next to us. Pete hasn’t been snoring as much or as loudly as the first couple times I’ve heard him while he was sleeping inside.
My alarm on my watch went off at 0525 am. Yesterday I changed my alarm to go off 25 minutes later. Pete immediately asked me if it was 0530 am. Shortly afterwards, Pete got up and out of the tent then me.
Pete started the fire and put the coffee on.
When I got out of the tent I looked at my right ankle. It was still sore and there was some swelling. I found my Ace bandage that I was going to use today to give my ankle some support. I wrapped my ankle then put on my NRS Storm boots.
Once Dave got up he took over at the fire. He cooked us some fresh eggs, pita and cheese and bacon. The coffee was done just before breakfast was served.
Camp was broken down and we were on the water at 0802 am. It was cloudy when we began today, so I didn't bother to put on my sunglasses. It took us 18 minutes to go approximately two kilometers to the first of seven portages today.
1st Portage: was on river right. I walked off 320 steps. I’ve been walking off all the portages without any packs on and I’ve been very close to what Phil Cotton has marked down when he measured them. Phil uses a measuring tape to document the length of the portages. I may use my steps as meters and for my purposes this is close enough.There was a 1x2 campsite on the portage. The portage began with lots of rocks, and then got very rocky toward the end. How is that for a description? The beginning of the portage was on a rock shelf and this was one of the few good landings for unloading canoes.
2nd Portage: There was a swift before the second portage. There's also a tall cairn marking the beginning of the portage in low water, but with the higher water we needed to land just upstream at the fast water. The first part of this portage had some cairns and blazes marking the beginning sections of this portage. Length: 250 meters.
3rd Portage: was on river right. Again, we had to paddle through a swift around to the right to get to the actual portage. The beginning of the portage was marked with a blaze on a cedar tree about 10 meters behind a medium size rock in the river. Length: 60 meters, easy.
4th Portage: was on river left and it was 135 meters. This portage trail had moss covered rocks along the trail, but was a relatively easy portage. Both ends of this portage, the take-out and put-in, were tricky to load and unload the canoes.
5th Portage: was on river right. (I had my map marked with river left, so I needed to go back and change this). I walked off the length to be about 372 meters. The put-in for this portage had enough room to load two canoes at a time. The river had a gravel bottom making for an easy put-in. After we were done loading the canoes we ran another swift.
6th Portage: there was another swift prior to this portage as well, and then the portage was on river right. Length: 210 meters. The beginning of the portage is wet, muddy with rocks for the first 50 meters. The beginning of the portage is to the right of the rapids after the swift. What was nice about the end of this portage was it had a nice sand/gravel base in the river.
7th Portage: was a short 33 meter portage on river left. The beginning of the portage was about 20 meters past a sweeper and we needed to hit a small opening past this sweeper to get to the portage before some more down trees downstream.
Another swift was run past this portage
The river widened up after this last portage and we paddled to the SE to a small 1x2 campsite on a small beach. We stopped here to have lunch at 1205 pm. We broke lunch at 1229 pm and paddled NE along the east shore of the river looking for a campsite.
We found that particular site on a small point with a sand beach, but there was only room for a two person tent. Dave was aware of another campsite further downstream so we went looking for that one. We got to that site at 1257 pm. There was enough room for two, 2 person tents. Camp was immediately set up, then we each did our own thing for awhile.
The epoxy didn't hold on my paddle, so I had to paddle with my new Whiskey Jack paddle and did that ever suck. I haven't used a wooden paddle in a long time, but I needed to have one for this trip. I just hope I get used to paddling with it if I need to paddle with it for the rest of the trip. So I attempted to repair my paddle again.Pete took a bath today and changed into clean clothes. Dick went and gathered firewood. Dave relaxed in his chair before working on repairing his NRS Storm Boots. Dave's boots seemed to be missing the adhesive to bond the soles to the upper part of the boot. Both Dick and my storm boots have the adhesive showing and so far neither one of us is having any problems.
The wind picked up today, but it was never a problem for us today. We stopped at this campsite before getting to the larger whitecaps further down on Tew Lake.
Dave showed us a potential route on the large overview map of Wabakimi Park going north across the height of land up to the Albany River. We could be flown out from the Albany River or do a big loop coming south through the Ogoki River system.
The reason we stopped earlier in the day the last two days is because of the limited number of known campsites.
Dave just got up out of his chair at 0408 pm and he's going to do some fishing.
Pete is progressing in his paddling. He really wants to paddle efficiently. He mentioned it's going to tough paddling with other people again. My feelings on people who don't want to learn how to paddle efficiently are cheating themselves of a more enjoyable experience. Not only that fact, but it would frustrate the hell out of the better paddler in the same canoe.
The route we have been taking is considerably more challenging that the BWCA or Quetico. A person needs to be in shape for this trip because of the remoteness of the area, the ruggedness of the portages, the limited information on the portages and campsites, lots more moving water to either paddle or line / track a canoe. This is day four and we haven't seen another person in the park.
Dave has caught a northern pike to add to our meal for dinner. Dick is also fishing, but he's having problems with his fishing reel.
There isn't any way to paddle this park and not "wet foot" it. So far there hasn't been one portage where we could paddle up to it and get out from the canoe onto solid land. Most of the landings are a small opening in the woods. Many of the portages are marked with an old or newer blaze on a tree. Some of the older blazes are hard to see from the water. We also have come across several areas of "swifts" before and after a portage.
Dave has given up on fishing at 0520 pm until the sun goes down.
Tomorrow we have only three portages, but there will be plenty of paddling since we have to travel the length of Wabakimi Lake. Wabakimi Lake is a very large lake. We are hoping the winds will be light tomorrow. Today wouldn't have been a good day to cross it.
Pete is cooking dinner. He's cooking jambalaya under Dave's direct supervision, but Pete isn't listening to Dave. Dave cooked up his pike for our dessert. It was delicious.
0726 pm: The wind abated about a half hour ago and the sky is now clear of any clouds.
The epoxy in the plastic bag where I mixed it isn't turning hard. I'm not so sure that I will be able to paddle with the ZRE across Wabakimi Lake.
This park needs to be experienced by paddling it. The shoreline is mostly low land and covered with Black Spruce and Jack Pine. Not a lot of photo opportunities, since it would look basically the same in a photo.
So far this first part of our trip has been mostly river travel.
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