Day 5: 08-14-08 Thursday

Lakes / Rivers: Flindt River, Tew Lake and Wabakimi Lake

Distance: 30 km (18.75 miles)

Portages: 3

Time: 5:06


I'm writing at 0406 pm at a campsite on Wabakimi Lake at the opening of River Bay.

Pete didn't hear my alarm go off at 0525 am. He was still snoring. I got out of the tent and started a fire for breakfast and coffee. Dick got up a little after I got up.

The morning had a little coolness to it. It was cooler than the last couple of mornings, but nothing significant. No wind, either. So it's very quiet out. I heard something down by the water when I first got out of the tent. Dick told me heard something, too. I never saw anything when I looked so I don't know if it was a mammal or fish.

Once I got the fire going and the coffee on, Pete came down. I went back up to the tent and packed away my sleeping bag, pillow and therm-a-rest pad in their stuff sacks.

Dave made his Raspberry "hippie pancakes" for breakfast along with bacon, sun dried fruit and coffee.

Once breakfast was eaten, dishes cleaned, we broke down camp. We were on the water at 0759 am.

We paddled into Tew Lake from the SW, and then turned east going to our first portage. Our first portage was to the far eastern direction along the south shore of Tew Lake. The waterway here was completely blocked. There was a portage sign at the farthest end. It was the first one I’ve seen, but Dave said he saw another one, but I don’t recall where he saw it. The first portage was on river left out of Tew Lake. I stepped the portage off at 168 steps. This portage was flat with some rocks.

The second portage was across land that had no connecting waterway. The portage was mostly flat with a slight downward slope to the water on the back side. Its length was 128 meters and it was on the left.

The next portage was not far away. Dave got out and checked out a campsite (1x2) where the upper part of the portage was supposed to be. I didn't get out of the canoe to check this portage. In fact, Dave was the only one who got out of the canoe.

Pete and I went downstream a little farther to another landing on river right just before the rapids. This was the most logical place where to portage from. Dave had followed the first portage trail that came out where Pete and I were with his canoe. The beginning of this portage trail was rocky and 125 meters long.

On my topo map I had the two portages marked down. The first one began at the campsite where Dave got out and he followed it to the second one was where Pete and I got out. I have no idea why there would need to be two portages here.

We got through all the portages by 0940 am.

We were now only a short distance before paddling into the west end of Wabakimi Lake. There was a light breeze. It was fine with us if it didn't blow any stronger, since we were going to paddle to the far east end of the lake.

If the wind blew hard there was no where we could escape the wind in the western section of the lake, only when we got to the islands we would have some shelter.

We pulled up to an island that had some blueberries and we had lunch at 1137 am. Just about everywhere we go has blueberries. For lunch we had some gorp with our Pita sandwich with peanut butter and jelly. We were ready to move on after a half hour.

He wind wasn't getting any stronger, but we still meandered through the islands in case the wind did strengthen.

We found ourselves at the campsite near the River Bay inlet at 0135 pm. This site is a 3x2 site. I set up Pete's tent, Dick gathered firewood, and Dave set up his tent. I then helped Pete set up his tarp. Pete also set up the gravity water filter.

There wasn't as much down dead firewood compared to what has been on all the other campsites so far.

When all the chores were done we all sat around and talked.

Since my epoxy never set up I paddled today with the Whiskey Jack paddle. Let’s say I put up with it, because I needed to use it.

I didn't realize we had some white gas until Pete mentioned it since we have only been using fires for cooking our meals. I cleaned up the epoxy that didn't set with the white gas. I sanded the parts again, cleaned it off with the white gas and applied the new epoxy. I’m pretty sure the epoxy will set now.

Pete was trying to improve on his paddling techniques while we were paddling across Wabakimi Lake. Pete has been real receptive to my critique. I have been calling, Hut, each time I needed us to switch sides his trip.

Since we have been at this campsite we have seen three motorboats. The first one was a while ago with one person and then later; there were two boats with two people aboard. The guys in one of the boats have been fishing on the west side of an island that's in front of our campsite.

There is an outpost camp down River Bay. There was a float plane just making an approach to land over in that direction. I don’t know if the plane was picking people up, dropping people off or dropping off supplies.

There are blueberries everywhere on this site. Everyone has been eating them on and off.

Pete and Dave were going to go fishing. Dick has still been having problems with his reels, so he’s not going to go fishing.

Pete took off in his canoe by himself. Hopefully, the wind doesn’t come up otherwise we’ll have to go get him in the other canoe. Pete’s bow is completely out of the water as he's paddling around.

Dave looked at Dick’s reel and it appears that the line wasn’t put on properly.

Pete caught a walleye while he was out by himself. Then he came back in and picked up Dick after Dave fixed the problem with Dick’s fishing reel. Pete ended up catching three walleyes while out fishing with Dick.

Pete is now cleaning his fish as Dave instructs him how to do it a quicker way. We are going to have walleye tonight for dinner.

Dave and I talked while the other two guys were out fishing.

Wabakimi Lake is almost like glass and there is just about a full moon tonight.

The epoxy on my paddle is hard so I’ll be able to use my ZRE paddle in the morning.

We were all in our tents around 1000 pm.