Final Preparations: 08-09-08 Saturday

Pete and I each set our alarms for 05:00 am. Pete set the alarm on his cell phone and I set the alarm on my watch. In the morning our alarms went off about two seconds apart.

Well, I didn’t get much sleep last night. It wasn’t due to the expected excitement of the trip, but from Pete snoring loudly most of the night. I need to have it quiet when I sleep.

Pete, Dick and I paid our bill for the motel rooms before heading over to Tim Horton’s at 05:30 am. I filled up my thermos and bought some more muffins and bagels. It was still dark outside when we left Tim Horton’s 15 minutes later for the drive to Armstrong. I had brought a Detour Protein bar from home so I had that with the muffin and bagel for breakfast.

Armstrong is 150 miles north on Hwy. 527. This is a three hour drive going the speed limit. There are no gas stations or other places to stop until you get to Armstrong. The temperature was 58 degrees when we began going up Hwy 527, but it continued to drop to 49 degrees by the time we arrived.

Dick, Pete and I stopped in a Wildwater’s B & B. We had a room reserved for the night, since all the cabins were full at Mattice Lake Outfitter’s. We met Brenda and her husband, Bert. We were told where are rooms were and I began to walk across the linoleum floor in my gym shoes. Brenda got upset and told me not to walk on the floor with my shoes. I told her I didn’t see any sign saying that fact. She pointed behind me on the wall. Yep, there was the sign alright, but it’s not in a place where some one would look before entering the room. It’s on the wall where someone would notice it only after being in the room and looking to see what was on the wall. Anyways, my shoes were clean, but I did take them off.

Yolanda with Mattice Lake Outfitters

Pete and Phil Cotton

Our next stop was Mattice Lake Outfitter’s. http://www.walleye.ca/ A younger guy was walking around the front when he asked if he could help us. We told him we were looking for Yolanda. He told us to go inside the building where we would find Yolanda. Yolanda is the daughter of Don and Annette Elliot, the owners of Mattice Lake Outfitter’s.

Mattice Lake Outfitter’s would be providing us with the satellite phone, the car shuttles from the train station (parking lot), park fees and the deHavilland Otter float plane ride out of the park. Yolanda was very personable and friendly. She took care of us (our money) while we were waiting on Dave Phillips. Dave would be flying out of the park today in one of the deHavilland Beavers owned by the Elliot’s.

Yolanda told us that Dave Phillips and Phil Cotton (Uncle Phil) had landed on the lake and they would be pulling up to the dock shortly. Dave had spent the last week with Uncle Phil doing some portage clearing with the Wabakimi Project. http://www.wabakimi.org/project/

Phil was coming out for two weeks for his daughter’s wedding. Dave was coming out today and then he would be going right back into the park with us tomorrow on our two week trip.

We all walked down on the dock to meet Dave. I took some photos of the Beaver and of Dave, Phil, a guy name Ken and I forgot the name of the lady from Thunder Bay. Dave had nothing but nice things to say about how hard the lady from Thunder Bay worked.

Dave wanted to go to the local café in town to get something to eat while going over our route. Pete needed to drive back to Wildwater’s B & B to get his maps. On the way to the local café to meet Dave we saw a local Ontario Provincial Police Officer running radar while standing in the roadway. We were going under the speed limit, but he motioned for us to stop anyways. I guess you don’t need any probable cause or a violation to be stopped. He asked us if we had our seat belts on. We said yes while he peeked in the car and then he said we were free to go.

We met Dave inside E & J’s Café in Armstrong. Dave ordered breakfast while the three of us ordered lunch.

Dave got out his maps of our intended route and we all gathered around him. We began making notes on each of our own maps of where the portages were located, if they were on river right or left, length of any portages, any “swifts”, any known campsite locations and any outpost locations.

Dave

We all went back to Wildwater’s where the first thing we did was pay for our rooms. Then we all gathered on the front deck to begin going through our gear for the trip. Besides going through our gear we marked each items with orange flagging with our destination, Flindt Landing, written on the flagging. This would hopefully ensure that the train personnel and we didn’t forget any item on the train. If it doesn’t get off at Flindt Landing we would probably never see the item again. Besides it could severely hamper our trip. It took some time for us to finish this chore, but we got it accomplished.

Later, Dick and I added some more details to our maps from Dave’s maps. Earlier, Dave had provided the information, but I wanted to make sure I had properly marked mine.

More and more people were showing up at Wildwater’s B& B in preparation for their own trips.

Dick had brought Brats to cook on the grill. While the brats were cooking, I was still making notations on my topo maps. Once I got done making notations on my maps the brats were done. I was hungry now and had three of them. While the three of us were eating our brats several more people who were inside were now gathering on the deck. There were two other groups on the deck besides us. Soon everyone was talking with one another about where everyone was going.

One group had four guys and two of them were brothers. It sounded like they had a considerable amount of paddling experience. I don’t think I knew their names, but the brothers were from Prior Lake, Minnesota. We listened while they talked about some of their prior experiences including an adventure with a not too competent outfitter. The outfitter had no connection with Wabakimi. These guys have paddled in Wabakimi in the past. Another river they have paddled before was the Bloodvein River in the Woodland Caribou and they mentioned some of what they experienced near the First Nation reservation at the end of that trip.

The other group had six people of two brothers, their sister, one of the brother’s wives, and two other guys. I recalled the one sister was near Hudson, Wisconsin. The two brothers and one of their wives were near Duluth, Minnesota. We listened to some of their canoeing adventures. They also mentioned to us they come to Wabakimi to get away from the crowds of the BWCA. This group was fascinated in that the four of us got together for this trip from the internet. I also gave one of the brothers my blog address to check out about Marathon Canoe Racing and about some of my other trip reports.

I began writing in my journal while Pete walked down to Mattice Lake where I’m about ready to go for a walk.

Wildwater’s B& B is a large building with all the rooms on the outside perimeter of the building with the main room in the center. Each room has a door to the outside and a door to the main room. There were some other groups that stayed inside while some of us stayed on the deck talking. There were some females in the groups. Pete and I had a corner room to the SW and Dave and Dick had a corner room on the NW of the building.

After I walked back up from Mattice Lake, Dave asked if he had the corner room. Instead of telling him the correct room I told him it was the third one down. I think there were some women staying in that one. I never heard if Dave he took my advice of going to the third room or not.

I finally mentioned to Pete that he snored very loudly last night. He told me that Dave also snores during the night. I mentioned to Pete that Dave probably doesn’t have anything on him.

Some of the paddlers were having a fire tonight so Pete, Dick and I went where they were having the fire for a bit. There was one lady there who helps Brenda around the lodge and she said the bugs were a real menace up until four days ago. When Dave returned from his week with the Wabakimi Project he said the bugs were bad. The mosquitoes would come out for about an hour at dark.

I was in bed at by 10:00pm.