CIIcanoe Canoes Wabakimi

Wabakimi Provincial Park- CIIcanoe Canoes Wabakimi

2008-09-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Dates: August 10, 2008 to August 24, 2008

Paddlers: Chuck Ryan (Minnesota)
Dave Phillips (Virginia)
Pete Sukontaraks (Kansas)
Dick Beamish (Maryland)

Route: Flindt Landing, Heathcote Lake, Heafur Lake, Flet Lake, Flindt Lake, Flindt River, Tew Lake, Wabakimi Lake, River Bay, Kenoji Lake, Palisade River, Burntrock Lake, Palisade River, Slim Lake, Scrag Lake, Grayson River, Arril Lake, Grayson Lake, Grayson River, Whitewater Lake)

Distance: 231.5 km (145 miles)

Portages: 44

Swifts paddle: 23

Swifts / Rapids lined or tracked: 9

Pullovers: 3

Method of Travel: Two Souris River Quetico 18.5 foot Canoes

My Paddles: 50” ZRE Medium Weight Bent Shaft (carbon fiber), 50” Whiskey Jack Bent Shaft (wood)

Cameras: Nikon D80 w/ Tamron 28-300 lens
Olympus Stylus 770 SW

Most of my wilderness canoe trips have been solo canoe trips. This year I was planning on doing a solo trip to the Woodland Caribou Provincial Park in June 2008.

There was some talk on the bwca.com forum about canoeing some where other than the crowded BWCA area and going somewhere that was more remote and challenging. Pete Sukontaraks started a private thread on the forum called “Wabakimi” in the fall of 2007, but I didn’t e-mail Pete until March 2008 to join this private thread.

Most of my wilderness canoe trips have been to either the BWCA or Quetico, since I live so close to them. I also used to work for the US Forest Service in the Superior National Forest out of Isabella of which the BWCA is a part. I have pretty much stopped going to the BWCA during the busy season, because of all the people and the competition for a campsite. I like to paddle, so I don’t like the idea of having to stop early in my travels just to make sure I get a campsite. The only time I will go to the BWCA now is either early in the season or in the fall. Recently, I’ve been taking more trips to Quetico. It has been a dream of mine, since the mid 1990’s to paddle even farther north. I've had a couple trips that were planned going further north that were cancelled due to a lack of interest by others.

I got into Marathon Canoe racing in 1999. One reason I got into racing was to take my paddling skills to a higher level. That same year I went on a couple trips to the BWCA and Quetico, but those would be my last trips until 2006. I took a break from racing in 2004, but I started back up again this year.

When I began checking the Wabakimi thread earlier this year I saw that three people were committed to doing a trip in August. I recognized one of the members, Suko, and I was aware that he recently got into wilderness canoeing a couple years ago. The other two names I wasn’t familiar with at all. There were some other members inquiring about the last spot, so I watched the “talk”, but it didn’t appear anyone else was seriously considering it. I typed a message that I was interested in possibly going on this trip. I requested they send me some details of the trip so that I could make an informed decision. I gave them my blog address, CIIcanoe.com, where I have some links to some of my previous trip reports and information about my racing. This way the other three members could make an inform decision about me and if they wanted me to come along. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t going to be strictly a fishing trip or a base camping trip, because I love to paddle and I like to move everyday.

The decision was made and I was accepted into the group as the fourth member. Dave Phillips was the one who put together the route and the menu for the planned 14 day trip. Just about all I had to do was buy a train ticket, bring my personal gear and show up with my credit card and some cash.

When this group was formed from the forum on the internet none of us had ever canoed or been on a trip together. Dave and Pete were planning on going to Quetico with two other guys off the same forum in May.

After I made the decision to accept the fourth and final spot I also decided I would get back into canoe racing. One of the bigger races I wanted to do was the AuSable River Canoe Marathon which is a 120 mile canoe race in Michigan in July. There was a considerable amount of training to do to prepare for this race so I elected not to do my solo canoe trip to the Woodland Caribou now that I was going to do the Wabakimi trip. The Woodland Caribou trip would have to wait another day.

Dave Phillips sent me the itinerary for this trip. It showed that we would take the train from Armstrong Station, Ontario to the western part of the park to Flindt Landing, paddle for two weeks, then fly out of the park from Best Island on Whitewater Lake. The preliminary information on this canoe trip was that it was for 14 days, paddling for 224 kilometers (139 miles) with 52 portages.

Wabakimi Provincial Park is the second largest park in Ontario behind the Polar Bear Provincial Park with approximately 892,000 hectares (2,199,190 acres). There are also Woodland Caribou that inhabit the park. The way most people enter the park is by canoe, rail or plane, since the park is surrounded by Crown Land.

Wabakimi Provincial Park was established in 1983 with about 155,000 hectares (383.005 acres). The park was expanded to its current size in 1997. One reason the park was established and increased was to protect the habitat of the Woodland Caribou. There are very few people who enjoy the park compared to other parks and there are no entry point limits. There are only about 200 canoe groups per year. Although, the park is very large there are a limited number of campsites that are suitable to camp. This is a true boreal forest consisting mainly of black Spruce and Jack Pine. The park doesn't have a bear problem like the more populated BWCA, because of the lack of people.

There are 44 outpost camps and 7 main base camps within this very large park.

Travel Day: 08-08-08 Friday

2008-09-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

Pete

Last night, I went through my gear one last time. I was debating on taking my Cabela brand heavy duty rain bibs and jacket, but I decided to take only my lighter weight rain gear.

My alarm was set for 6 am. I was up as soon as the music for my alarm began playing in the morning. I slept really well. I was now beginning to get a little excited about the next two weeks of the unknown paddling with four unknown people in an unfamiliar area.

The day was looking good. The temperature was 55 degrees outside. It was a little cooler than the past few mornings. There wasn’t a cloud in the clear blue sky.

Today would be my last regular breakfast of oatmeal, ripe banana, dried cranberries, blueberries, cinnamon and a dash of olive oil for over two weeks. Oh, boy…my breakfast tastes so good in the morning. To top it off I have my Starbucks Guatemala coffee. I made two pots of coffee this morning, so I could fill up my large thermos for the road.

While I was waiting for my oatmeal to cool, I got on the computer to check my e-mail and to pay my last bill on-line.

Pete showed up a half hour earlier than expected. This wasn’t a problem since I was ready to go when he showed up. We just needed to tie his canoe on his vehicle and throw our packs inside that he had dropped off at my house a week ago. It didn’t take us long to do it and we were off at 7:42 am.

Pete and I talked a little about our selves, but mostly we talked about paddling while driving north.

Before this trip, Pete had e-mailed me about what type of paddles I was going to bring on this trip. I brought two medium Zaveral carbon bent shaft paddles and some epoxy for repair. I haven’t used a wooden paddle since one of my trips in 1997, so I don’t own any wooden paddles that I would consider paddling with any longer. Most of the wood paddles are way too heavy and I don’t like the grip / handle on most of them. All I use for racing are LeVas carbon fiber that weight 6.5 ounces and for training or trips I use my older ZRE paddles. These paddles weigh about 10 ounces.

Pete brought two of his 23 oz. wooden paddles. Dave Phillips only wanted one spare paddle per canoe. If something happened to my carbon paddle I know I didn’t like the feel of Pete’s paddles and I sure wouldn’t want to paddle with it. We decided to stop at the Duluth Pack Company when we got to Duluth to take a look at the wooden paddles they sold. It was about 10:00 am when we stopped in. I knew I really should have a wooden paddle for this trip, so I decided to buy a Whiskey Jack Chaser paddle. This way Pete could take his wooden paddle and I would take my ZRE carbon fiber and the Whiskey Jack as a spare. Later after our trip I found out that Whiskey Jack makes a higher quality wood paddle, but they didn’t have any in the store.

We didn’t stay long in Duluth. Our next stop was in Two Harbors to buy a Subway sandwich. We each bought a 12 inch sandwich and ate half right away and put the other half on ice. Pete also stopped to pick up some beer for Dave, Dick and himself as well as some ice at the liquor store down the road from Subway. The beer was for Saturday night’s cook-out at Wildwater’s Bed and Breakfast in Armstrong. We are having brats done on the grill prior to our trip. Since I don’t drink I’ll just have some water, but I’ll have a few brats.

Next stop was Grand Marais. I filled up Pete’s mini van with gas before we headed over to the local coffee shop, the Java Moose or something similar to that name. We filled up both our two large thermoses.

As we were approaching the border with Canada it appeared it was raining not too far a head of us. We pulled up behind some other cars waiting in line at the border at 1:57 pm. Pete hadn’t received his passport in the mail prior to leaving on the trip, but he did have a certified copy of his birth certificate. I renewed my passport last year so I was good to go.

While we were in line at the border it began to rain. It was now our turn to speak to the friendly, younger border crossing lady. Pete handed over our documents to her. She immediately began asking us our reason for coming to Canada, where we were going, when was our last time to Canada; if we had any firearms, any tobacco, any liquor, any firewood, any potatoes and some other things I forgot. She must have wanted to see my eyes from a distance, because she wanted me to remove my prescription sunglasses or maybe she didn’t want me to see her. She asked each of us what we did for a living. Afterwards she handed back my passport to Pete and she reminded me to sign my passport.

Just as we pulled away from the Border Agent it stopped raining, but it was still very dark in the sky from the northwest to the east a head of us.

Pete was wondering where the time zone was so I looked at the map. It was right at the border, so we were now in the Eastern Time zone. We lost an hour, so I moved the time on my watch ahead an hour.

With the time moved ahead an hour, we arrived in Thunder Bay at 3:45 pm. There were some high cliffs in the distance on either side of the road while we were driving to Thunder Bay. The Thunder Bay sign showed the population at 110,000.

Our reservation in Thunder Bay was at the Econo-lodge Motel. Pete had the general area where it was located, but we still needed to call them to find out exactly.

Once we were checked in we drove to Ostrom’s to browse at their gear. Pete was interested in the Ostrom’s packs. It’s actually a small store, but there were a lot of items. Pete was looking a one of the soft packs and said it was $405. He believes he saw the same pack in the US at a lower cost. Once we got back I checked on this price and it was a better deal at Ostrom’s in Thunder Bay.

We drove back to our Motel room. Pete went to tell the front counter staff that we were expecting Dick Beamish to arrive at the motel and if they would let him know what room we were in. Pete came back and said that Dick didn’t have a reservation. What we weren’t aware at the time was that Dick had arrived earlier in the afternoon.

A short time later, Dick Beamish came across Pete in the hallway at the motel. I could hear Pete talking to someone in the hallway. Dick followed Pete into our room and he introduced himself to me.

Pete had now met everyone who was going on this trip. Earlier this year in May, Pete and Dave had been on a trip in Quetico. I still had to meet Dave and that wouldn’t happen until tomorrow in Armstrong.

Pete got out his topo maps. He had the route we would take marked out in yellow highlighter. Since I didn’t have any highlighter pens with me the three of us drove over to Staples that wasn’t too far away.

I marked our intended route in the yellow highlighter. It would be much easier to follow while I was paddling and navigating. I noticed Pete had gone through his topo’s and marked some of the drops on his maps. I didn’t want to rely on his measurements, so I stopped marking them on my maps after the first couple of them.

Pete and Dick began talking about this trip and about the earlier Quetico trip, although Dick wasn’t on the Quetico trip. I began writing in my journal. I know from past experience how hard it is to write in a journal while everyone is still talking about different things and then trying to write after everyone has gone to sleep or whatever. I’m going to try hard to write something every day.

My plan is to do some sort of trip report, but at this point I don’t have any idea what form it will take. I do know one thing that I have to document things as I go.

We need to get some coffee filters for Dave and Pete’s gravity water filters, since Pete forgot to bring some from home. Most if not all the lakes will be tea stained with tannins. The water would most likely clog the filters fairly quickly. Time: 08:29 pm.

I’m back! We drove around Thunder Bay. Pete wanted to find Hwy 527. This is the road to goes to Armstrong Station. The road goes on for 150 miles with no services until the small town of Armstrong. Before we located the road we ended up in some large park where there were several people walking, jogging or hanging out.

On the way back to the motel room we stopped at Tim Horton’s. We were planning on getting an early start for Armstrong, so I picked up a couple muffins and a couple bagels. Well, I ate one of the bagels and the two muffins. I found out while we were Tim Horton’s that they were open 24 hours. I’ll be able to get my thermos filled with coffee and get some more treats in the morning.

The skies were getting very dark to the NE. Just as we got back to our room it began to rain hard, but it only lasted about an hour.

Pete forgot to get coffee filters.

Lights were out at 10:30 pm.

We were registered in Room 122 at the Thunder Bay Econo-Lodge.

Final Preparations: 08-09-08 Saturday

2008-09-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Day 1: 08-10-08 Sunday

2008-09-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Chuck, Pete, Dick and Dave

Lakes / Rivers: Flindt Landing, Heathcote Lake, Heafur Lake and the Flindt River

Distance: 17.0 km (10.6 miles)

Portages: 2

Time: 3:58 (not including 32 minutes for lunch)

Once again Pete snored very loudly. I was wondering if the ladies next door could hear him, since his bed was right next to the common wall. I was pretty tired from yesterday due to not getting much sleep the night before.

I got up once around 0200 am. I walked into the main room and I could hear someone else snoring. Pete got up at 0430 am. He didn’t come back right away so when I looked at my watch it was 0440 am. I could here some activity from the main room. I decided to get up since we were going to get up at 0500 am anyways.

Brenda and Bert were up busily preparing breakfast for everyone. Dick was up and sitting on the couch. More and more people began getting up and coming into the main room. It was about 0455 am when I grabbed for a muffin only to be scolded by Brenda that breakfast wasn’t until 0500 am.

Brenda less than 5 minutes later began going around and knocking on everyone’s door to make sure they were up and out of bed. Breakfast was now ready to be eaten and its self serve. There was cold cereal, muffins, banana bread, bananas, watermelon, juice and coffee.

Since I really didn’t know how the first day would go for eating I sure didn’t want to walk away hungry. It seemed like I ate a lot. At least for me!

I looked around the room and I didn’t see anyone from my group. I didn’t hear anyone say they were leaving. I walked up to Pete’s car parked down the long dirt road in the dark where I found him. We left for Mattice Lake Outfitter’s a short drive down the road at 0540 am. Dick had already left and he was going to park at Mattice Lake Outfitter’s. Pete and I were going to pick him up there. We saw Dave parked along the road when we pulled into the access for Mattice Lake to pick up Dick. We saw Dick’s vehicle down at the Outfitter's, but not Dick. We went back up to Dave who started to pull away. I told Pete to get Dave’s attention to make sure he had Dick. Dave stopped, but Dick wasn’t with him. Pete and I turned around to go look for Dick. We found him, got him in Pete’s vehicle and off we went to Armstrong Station following Dave.

Dave pulled into the train station that was only a dirt parking lot. We were the first people from Wildwater’s B & B to get there. We unloaded our packs and canoes off the vehicles. Mattice Lake Outfitter’s would come later in the morning and drive both of the vehicles back to their parking lot for safe keeping.

There were a total of nine canoes that were going to be put on the train at Armstrong Station. Brenda told us earlier at her place that the train was on schedule. The train came into Armstrong at 0655 am. It took a while to load the train with the canoes and all the packs. The train stops at several places down the line. Several of the groups from Wildwater’s B & B were putting in at the same place. We thought that was very unusual.

We were the only group that was getting off at Flindt Landing which was alright with us.

There were at least three groups getting off before us at Redhead Lake landing. What normally happens is the train will stop the car with the canoes, packs, etc. at a wooden landing, but this time the train went pass the wooden landing. The train stopped and got all the paddlers off with their equipment on a narrow section beside the train. The only way to the lake from this place was now down a steep hill that doesn’t have a trail down to the water or walk their gear back to the wooden landing.

Dave mentioned that the train usually stops at the wooden platform. The conductor also had never seen this happen before and wasn’t sure what was taking place at first.

The train backed up to the wooden platform after all the paddlers had gotten off with all their paddling gear. The train personnel unloaded some large coolers and several fishermen boarded the train. I continued to watch this happening as well as some other people. Next I saw one of the people on the wooden platform hand to someone in the baggage car a gallon size zip lock bag full of fish fillets. I’m not saying I know for sure, but it appears the fishermen were getting a favor and paying in many fish fillets to not have any of the paddlers and gear get off on the wooden platform. I saw some of the paddlers walking back toward the wooden platform where they should have been let off in the first place.

The guy on the train said he had never seen the train unload the paddlers like that before, but when he saw the fish fillets he knew what had happened.

We arrived at Flindt Landing at 0920 am (Eastern Time). The time actually changes at Armstrong Station or just to the west of Armstrong to Central Time, but we decided to stay with Eastern Time.

We unloaded our canoes and gear off the train. I took one last photograph of the train as it continued on its journey to the west.

We carried our gear down the wooden steps across the property of a fishing outpost camp. There was a lady who came out from one of the outbuildings and stood at the end of the stairs with her arms crossed. She asked us which outfitter we used. When we told her we didn’t use an outfitter she turned around and walked away. We began to wonder if this might be the reason that Wildwater’s had sent all their groups through the one access point.

We were on the water and ready to begin our 14 day canoe trip at 0940 am. Dave approached me earlier and wanted me to do a quick review on some of the different paddling strokes. I showed the group the forward stroke with torso rotation. I also gave them a demonstration on how to do a draw stroke, post, cross bow draw, and a sweep or push. These strokes would be needed to avoid any obstructions and used in the faster moving water or swifts.

Many of you know I race canoes and most of my wilderness trips are solo. It has been years since I’ve been in a canoe for any length of time with someone other than myself or another racer.

I forgot that most people who say they know how to paddle really don’t know how to paddle or at least don’t know how to paddle proficiently and efficiently. Pete told me earlier that he was willing to learn how I paddle, so that he could become a better paddler himself. Nothing against Pete, but he has never been taught how to paddle correctly. I paddle two to three hundred hours every year.

Pete was in the bow of his canoe and I was in the stern. In racing, the bow paddler sets the tempo and the stern paddler follows him. This way the catch, power phase and recovery if done in unison makes for a much more efficient stroke so the canoe guides smoothly.

Early on, I told Pete what he needed to do with his stroke so that we could get the canoe to guide and not have it jerking back and forth. There was no way I could handle two weeks of paddling that way. Again, Pete was very receptive and the canoe began to move much better through the water within a very short time.

We started our trip on Heathcote Lake, then on to Heafur Lake. The surroundings are your typical boreal forest of Black Spruce and Jack Pine. The sun shining without any clouds and it was warm. I forgot to put on some sunscreen back at the landing, so I borrowed some of Pete’s that he had in his seat bag underneath his seat when I felt my face getting too red.

For this trip I bought some topo maps that are 1:50,000 scale to cover the area we would be traveling. Dave also printed up some maps on 8.5 x 11 inches paper to the scale of about 1:20,000. There were 35 pages of the 8.5 x 11 size to cover our route. I like the scale of Dave’s maps, and I like to scan the area while paddling with the maps of more area. I found that Dave’s maps were limiting me to do what I like to do, so I decided to use my topo maps for navigating.

There was very little wind from the west today when we started paddling. Dave said last week while he was in the Caribou Forest it rained just about every day. He said about noon he would see the clouds building to the north and to the east.

We stopped for lunch on a small rocky point at the south end of Heafur Lake at 1144 am. We had pita bread, peanut butter, jelly, gorp and water. Dick had vacuumed sealed the pita bread and they sure didn’t want to come apart. I ended up pulling off pieces in sections. We were done with our first lunch at 1216 pm.

We did three portages today. Actually we only did two, because the third portage is where our campsite is located. The first portages are easy to locate if you know which side of the river to look for them. None of them were too tough. There was only room to land or launch one canoe at these portages. We were at the campsite this afternoon at 0150 pm. The campsite really only has one good tent pad area. I found as the more areas I saw that my personal observation on what consisted of a good tent pad was lowered.

Pete and I let Dave and Dick have their pick of where they wanted to sleep. Pete and I might not be so lucky. I’ll have to let you know tomorrow how our site was.

Pete’s new tarp was set up. This is a large campsite. There are lots of blueberries. Dave, Pete and Dick have been fishing. I saw the walleye that Pete kept. Dave caught a small walleye that had a large vertical laceration behind the dorsal fin as if an eagle may have tried pulling it out of the water.

Pete and I went swimming above the rapids near the campsite. I actually jumped in and swam a bit. The water was much warmer than I ever expected it to be. It was nice to clean up, since I didn’t have a shower yesterday.

Here is what the itinerary said for today: 20.25 km (I need to verify that) with no portages. We actually did two portages and traveled 17 km.

Well, I’m going to stop writing for awhile. The sun is still out with some high wispy clouds in the sky, but it’s still warm out.

Dave and Pete caught enough Walleye to go with our steaks and mash potatoes tonight. We decided not to eat the Portobello mushroom since the vacuum seal didn’t stay sealed. Dave tended to the fire and cooked the steaks to everyone’s desire. I’m not sure what spicy mashed potatoes we had, but they sure tasted good. There weren’t any leftovers.

Pete cooked the fish and once again there weren’t any leftovers.

After dinner Dave went and caught a couple more walleyes. He would clean and cook them in the morning and we'll have then for lunch.

It’s sure nice to be back in the bush, again. This is a remote route and we will probably not see too many people.

First portage: River left, 25 meters long, rapids not runnable.

Second portage: River left, 90 meters, portage cleared and easy, rapids not runnable.
Third Portage: River right, 1 meter ledge- rapids not runnable

Day 2: 08-11-08 Monday

2008-09-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Flindt River, Flet Lake, Flindt Lake and the Flindt River

Distance: 25.5 km (15.9 miles)

Portages: 4

Swifts paddled: 3

Rapids lined: 1

Time: 7:26 (not including 30 minute lunch)

It cooled off last night. I’m not sure what the temperature got down to, but it was nice sleeping weather. My alarm went off at 0500 am. It was still very dark outside. Pete got up at 0540 am and after he was done dressing I got up out of the tent.

It looked like it was going to be another nice day. Dick and Dave were out of their tent by 0600 am. There was some fog over the water this morning.

Dave was the cook for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of fresh eggs, hash browns, bacon and coffee. Dave cooked up the walleye that we’ll have with some pita bread for lunch today.

We packed up the campsite and we were on the water at 9 am. Dave wanted to check on a campsite that was just around the corner from where we were camped. This campsite was on river right and it had one tent pad (1x2). This means one place for a two person tent site.

This following information is for the first portage after our campsite. There was a “swift” that we took some time to study before running. We took the eddy on river left before the next rapids. There was previous info that the portage was on river right past the “swift”. We tried scanning the other shore, but there wasn’t any portage that was obvious. Dave and Dick decided to ferry to the other side, across the fast moving current. Dave got out of his canoe and walked into the woods looking for the portage. He was gone for some time. When he showed back up, he said he didn’t find the portage.

I got out of Pete’s canoe on river left and went into the woods. I found an animal trail that came out just downstream from where I went in. I hopped across the rocks going downstream next to the rapids. When I got to the end of the rapids I looked back across the river. I saw what looked like a blaze on a tree marking the downstream side of the portage. I went back to the canoe where Pete was waiting and yelled to Dave my findings.

Pete and I now had to cross the strong current to the other side. I told Pete what I wanted him to do stroke wise and what the fast current was going to do with the canoe. Dave and Dick began to line their canoe down the fast moving rapids by the time Pete and I crossed the current to river right. Pete and I then lined his canoe down the same rapids.

Just before we got to the portage landing Dick who was walking in the water fell in a hole up to his neck. I got out and confirmed that the blaze was at the portage. I walked the trail for some distance and it angled off from shore. The way the portage trail was going I believe we missed the upstream landing before the first swift. This was the reason Dave couldn’t find it when he walked about 75 meters into the woods. There were two more swifts after we lined our canoes past the rapids.

The second portage we found and walked. It wasn’t too bad, but needed some trail work. It was 250 meters long.

The third portage is on a north/south line that was 225 meters long on river left.

The forth portage is on river right and begins on the opposite side of the rapids. Its 175 meters long and it has a small opening with a blaze. There was a boat that is cached at the lower end of the portage. We had to run two swifts after this portage, and then we were on Flet Lake.

We paddled on toward Flindt Lake. We saw a couple campsites on the south end of Flindt Lake, but we didn’t go over to check them out.

We stopped about 3 km before our last portage of the day for lunch at 1245 pm. This was on the north end of a long peninsula on Flindt River. We had the walleye with the Pita bread, sun dried fruit and some gorp. Once again, we had the same problem with the pita bread being stuck together. We were back on the water less than a half hour later.

It was a hot day with little to no wind. The water surface was almost like glass. It was very hot wearing my PFD.

The last portage of the day was on river left. The upper end of the portage was very muddy and rocky and the lower end was muddy as well.

After lunch Dave headed off on an azimuth more toward the east. I thought we should be going to the Northeast, but I didn’t say anything. Only when we headed directly north and were about to run out of water did I mention to him that he went to the east instead of the NE. I told myself if I came across a similar situation I would speak up.

I brought us back to the area where we went off course and continued to lead from there. When I mentioned to Dave about our error he appeared to be exhausted probably due to the sweltering heat. I mentioned to Pete that Dave appeared very tired and agreed that he was.

We found a spot to camp in a burn area at 0506 pm. We needed to get the tarp up for some shade and to get the gravity water filter going for water. We all needed to hydrate ourselves after paddling in the hot sun. These were the first two priorities at each campsite. There might have been another campsite on the shore across from us, but we never went to check it out.

Dinner was chicken, beans and mash potatoes. We are very close to the waters edge. Dave and Pete did most of the talking while Dick listened. I sat, listened and wrote in my journal.

Day 3: 08-12-08 Tuesday

2008-09-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Flindt River

Distance: 12.5 km (7.8 miles)

Portages: 6

Swifts paddled: 3

Time: 4:39

Last night was a little warmer than the night before. My alarm already set from a couple days ago went off at 0500 am. I knew no one would be getting up right away, so I tried going back to sleep. By 0530 am I was ready to get up and by 0550 am I was out of the tent. I'll have to remember to set my watch for a little later in the morning.

It was still dark out, but I could see some fog on the water. I got my camera and tripod out and took a few photos.

I started the morning fire, so Dick and I got the coffee ready to go. By now everyone was up and moving about the campsite.

Dave usually gets up, comes over to the fire, and begins preparing breakfast. This morning was no different. Breakfast was fresh eggs; mine were done over easy, potato pancakes, dried cranberries and ham. Another fine breakfast I should add. Oh, and the coffee!

We broke down camp and were on the water at 0833 am. Looking like it’s going to be another hot day. The weather sure has been cooperating for us so far. There were some hazy clouds with no wind when we began our day on the water.

It was only about 2 km to our first portage of the day. Dave told us the other day about these portages. They were going to be tougher than the ones we’ve experienced so far.

Today’s first portage was on river left. This portage was 85 meters long. I’ve been stepping off the portages, since we began our trip. There were some rocks, but overall the portage wasn’t in bad shape.

The second portage began by us paddling through a swift starting on river right then moving to the center. The portage was on river left. There were some downed jack pine trees blocking a direct access to the portage. Dave and Dick stopped their canoe on the upstream side of the trees. It looked like Pete and I could hit a small opening just past the down trees but just above the rapids to get closer to the portage. I explained to Pete my plan of action of him paddling on his right side. I would be paddling on my right, also. I would tell him when I needed him to do a cross bow draw. We made it, but we were still a distance from solid ground due to all the rocks. We formed a line so Dave and Dick would hand us their packs over the down trees where we would carry them to solid ground. I guess maybe the correct term would be we carried the packs to “the soft, wet, muddy dark stuff”. Both ends of this portage were muddy. Length: 250 meters.

We saw several candy wrappers, Werters hard candy and a Kool-aid single wrapper, at the start of the portage. There was some recent chainsaw work done on the trail. The First Nation Portage crews are the only ones allowed to clear trails using a chainsaw. Later, I noticed on a couple more portages that had been cleared with a chainsaw had some more Werter candy wrappers left on the trail near the chainsaw activity. This portage trail was very rocky with some slight elevation change.

Just like most of all the portages so far there is only enough room for one canoe to unload and load at both ends. There were many blueberries lining the portage trail.

There was a swift before the third portage that was on river right. The approximate length was 90 meters. The portage was rocky at the start and the end.

The forth portage was a short distance away on river left. There was a better landing about 10 meters up from where we stopped, but I didn’t see it from the main landing. The first part as very muddy, more blueberries and the final 20 meters followed the river and the footing was tricky.

The fifth portage was on river left, but we needed to paddle through a swift to get to it. It is to the left of a second swift. The portage was very rocky for 136 meters.

There was a campsite on this portage. There was enough room for one 2-person tent. The campsites are few and far between. When you find a site, the tent areas are usually not ideal, but that’s what’s it like camping in a boreal forest.

The sixth portage was on river right. We had to ferry across the river to the portage that was just around the bend to the right just before the fast water. I couldn’t see where the portage was until I was on top of it, but I figured that was the only place it could be located. Once you paddle in particular area you begin to figure out where the most likely spot would be for a portage and what to look for.

There was muck at the start of this portage, along the trail and at the end of it. I was portaging one of my packs across the portage when I came upon Dick who was just recovering after falling in the muck. He warned me about the sucking mud. We ran another swift area after this portage.

We stopped for lunch on an island campsite at 0112 pm. We had pita and cheese, gorp and dried fruit. Dave checked his maps and determined there wasn’t another known campsite until Tew Lake, but there were 6 to 7 long portages to get to that known campsite.

We voted to stay on the island campsite that was actually pretty nice. We made the decision to stay at 0200 pm.

Pete cleaned his gravity water filter that pretty much stopped filtering water this morning, but its now flowing again, so we can all fill our water bottles and hydrate ourselves.

Earlier today I jammed my ZRE paddle between two rocks while waiting in line behind Dave and Dick at one of the portages. When I pulled my paddle out I punctured a quarter inch hole opposite the power face of the paddle. Later on while paddling I felt my paddle flutter in the water a couple times on the power phase. I knew I had a good catch each time it did this, but I couldn’t figure what was going on. Then about a half hour before we stopped for the day I notice that my handle was loose in the shaft. I put some duct tape around it until I could epoxy it.

I’m not sure if the epoxy is going to set or not. I either messed up on the mixture of the resin or hardener, but my guess it’s not setting properly due to me using Purell brand Hand Sanitizer to clean the areas I needed to epoxy. The epoxy is only semi-hard…not good! If it doesn’t set over night I will have to use my new Whiskey Jack paddle that Pete’s been using this trip. He likes the Whiskey Jack better than his own paddle. A day or two ago Pete was using the Whiskey Jack paddle so I thought since it was my paddle that I would give it a try. I took about 5 strokes with it and handed it back to Pete and told him “that sucks”. Pete keeps telling me he will buy the paddle if I don’t like it.

While at the campsite I noticed a sand beach on the far east shore. Dave and I paddled over for a refreshing swim. Dave also did some laundry in his self contained collapsible bucket. While there we found two aluminum boats that were cached and chained up. Pete and Dick stayed at camp and began cooking the fresh chicken. The chicken needed to be cooked, but we weren’t going to eat it until lunch tomorrow. Pete also began brewing some coffee.

When we were done with our swim we paddled over to the west shore in a bay looking for an outpost camp that we had marked on our map, but we didn’t locate it.

Just before Dave and I paddled over to the sand beach I twisted my right ankle. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it really hurt like hell and it throbbed for a long time. I immediately took some ibuprofen. I couldn’t believe I did something like that in camp of all things. Hopefully, I’ll recover. My ankle is still very sore.

Pete began cooking dinner. We were having Bear Creek Cheddar and broccoli soup with three cheese tortellini. Afterwards, Dave cooked up some dessert. He made Raspberry Sturdiwheat pancakes. Dave refers to these as “hippie pancakes”. These were a nice treat. We ate them like a muffin and not like a pancake with syrup.

It looks like we went about 10 km today. I haven’t been figuring out our distances on this trip, but I’ll do it once I get home.

We all sat around the fire tonight and talked a while before going to bed.

Day 4: 08-13-08 Wednesday

2008-09-20T18:59:00.001-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Flindt River

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.

Day 5: 08-14-08 Thursday

2008-09-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Day 6: 08-15-08 Friday

2008-09-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Wabakimi Lake, River Bay and Kenoji Lake

Distance: 19.75 km (12.3 miles)

Portages: 4

Swifts paddled: 3

Time: 6:35

I went out of the tent around 0155 am and the lake was still like glass. The moon was shining in my eyes while I was lying in the tent. I looked at the stars. I could barely make out the Little Dipper because of the brightness of the moon. I was standing outside without any shoes and noticed that it was very warm out. It was a very nice evening o sit outside, but I needed to get back in the tent to get some more sleep.

The sounds of the waves lapping up on the rock shore woke me up around 0320 am. Pete’s tent is set up close to the water so I could hear the sound of the waves.

Pete asked me if that was my alarm that just went off at 0525 am. Pete said he was going to get up in twenty minutes, but he got right up instead. I pack up my gear after he got out of the tent.

When I walked into the woods this morning there was a noticeable difference in the temperature in the woods compared to the area around our tent close to the water. The wind was coming out of the SW.

Dave cooked a Sturdiwheat hot cereal with some pineapple. The pineapple sure added flavor to the cereal.

We began our day on the water at 0758 am. We paddled down a ways down River Bay and checked out a couple campsites. The first one was a 3x2 and the second one was a 1x2.

We noticed that no one had used these two campsites or the one we were camped on last night for some time.

If anyone is going to paddle this park I would say the ideal number of paddlers would be four, because of the limited number of campsites and the limited number of tent areas.

Dave expressed his concerns for the next four portages. If they haven’t been cleared in a while we could be in a tough time getting through them. It’s possible there could be a lot of blow downs.

1st Portage: On river left. Good landing at the start. Length: 892 meters. The portage was muddy in spots with some logs placed in the mud. The end of the portage was very muddy.

2nd Portage: The first swift was on river left, and then we eddied out on the left. The second swift was run about one third out from river left. The portage was left of the rapids. I thought I counted 308 steps, but it’s possible it was 208. There was an old blaze on a dead standing Jack Pine, but I couldn’t see the blaze from the water.

3rd Portage: Ran the swift on river right then moved to river left for the portage. This portage was very rugged and was 362 meters long. I never saw a blaze for this portage, but I did find some orange flagging once I found the opening for the portage. There was lots of trail cleaning done on this trail and the flagging must have been left by the portage crew. It really would have been a tough to get across the portage without the additional work done on this trail.

4th Portage: was just before Kenoji Lake. There are two portages to choose from and they each take you to different areas. The one we took today was before the shorter one. This portage was very hard to see. It was just a small opening behind some low growing vegetation along the shore. There was some orange flagging, but once the flagging is gone it would be very hard to find this one. Pete and I paddled up closer to it and confirmed it was in fact the portage. Dave was through this area last year and he couldn’t find this portage. This portage goes to the NW and terminates in a bay to the west of the where the river comes out into Kenoji Lake.

This was an old portage based upon some old logs scattered on the ground that were sawn many years ago, but the portage appears to recently been open up again. The length was 381 meters.
The best I can do to describe the location of this portage is it’s located in an area with a couple dead standing cedar trees approximately 50 meters before the river goes around a bend to the left.

This portage is cut through the deciduous undergrowth. It won’t take long for the portage to be over growth again. The vegetation was already encroaching on the trail.

Again, Dave was aware of this portage last year and he couldn’t find it. Dave took the other shorter portage that is located further downstream. Dave said he had to run the swift on river right then ferry back across to the left to get to the portage. Dave also saw a half of an aluminum canoe that was sticking up out of the rapids. Earlier this year Dave spoke to some other paddlers who were on their way north to the Albany River. They said they didn't see the half torn apart aluminum canoe. They told Dave they were too busy bailing out their canoe to notice. This group did run the rapids in a Kevlar canoe.

Once we were all across the portage we paddled to the NE into Kenoji Lake to an island where were had lunch at 0110 am. We were back on the water at 0131 am after having a Pita sandwich with cheese, gorp and a box of raisins.

While we were having lunch on the lee side of the island we saw two motorboats that came from the NW from the direction where an outpost camp is located. I know the first boat had two guys who had their backs turned to us when we rounded the north point of the island. I don't think they ever saw us as they continued fishing.

The wind was blowing from the NW and the wind was kicking up the biggest waves we've encountered so far on this trip. We angled into the wind until we got to the NW corner of Kenoji Lake where the river narrows.

While paddling northwest we past a couple of campsites, but didn't stop to check them out. The first one was possibly a campsite was on an island in Kenoji, but with the waves as big as they were we continued on past it. The second campsite was in the narrows of the river and then north of it was an outpost camp.

We paddled on until 0244 pm when we stopped at our campsite. As usual everyone began doing something to set up camp for the evening.

A fire was started and coffee was put on to perk.

Dave and I each got out our own map sets. I gave Dave the information that I've been writing down on today's campsite locations and conditions, portage distances and outpost locations. We then put this information on our maps.

Dave has camped at this site in the past and he knew there was an Ontario Crown Lands survey monument placed in the exposed rock at our campsite. Dave located it and I took some photos.

Here is what the information stamped in the head of it:

P NO
112
1154.20
1925

0536 pm: We need fish for dinner tonight and for lunch tomorrow, so Pete and Dave went fishing. We'll have some for breakfast if they catch enough. Dick stayed back at camp, while I wrote in my journal.

Dick has been having problems with walking the portages on this trip and today he was having more of a problem on today's longer, tougher portages. He was lagging way behind. We had to wait a long time at the end of the portages for him.

I over heard Dave say to Dick that he could barely walk as Dick walked past him. Dick told Dave he sprained his knee a couple days ago.

Dave is from a paddling family. Both his grandfather and father were paddlers in Minnesota, so Dave grew up doing wilderness trips. Dave is very knowledgeable in this area as he has been coming here since the 1980's.

Dave told me that he used to see more canoes in this area before it was a park that he's seen in recent years. Dave has spoke to other people about his observation and they all say there were more canoes years ago.

Dave has been our primary cook and he’s very good at it. He sure enjoys cooking over a fire.

0813 pm: Pete is having his last cigarette of the trip. Dave wanted me to document it so we can go back and see when Pete's behavior changes.

Earlier, Dave and Pete came back from fishing. Pete caught a nice size walleye. Pete cut it up and Dave mixed it in with his Dirty Rice dish that we had for dinner.

0825 pm: Dick and I are going to do the dishes while Dave and Pete go back out fishing for 45 minutes. When they come back Dave is going to cook an Apple Crisp dessert.

Our campsite faces east and to the south. The site has had a nice breeze coming through the site and we haven't had to deal with any hot sun that’s over in the west.

Day 7: 08-16-08 Saturday

2008-09-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Kenoji Lake and the Palisade River (upstream)

Distance: 21 km (13.1 miles)

Portages: 4

Swifts paddled: 4

Swifts tracked: 5

Time: 5:48

I'm writing while sitting back in my therm-a-rest chair on the Palisade River on an island campsite at 0330 pm.

This morning I woke up around 0430 am, but fell back to sleep as soon as my alarm went off at 0525 am. I finally got up at 0552 am and out of the tent to start the morning fire. Dick was rummaging through one of the packs. He had just gotten up. Dick in the morning gets out the food that Dave will cook for breakfast. Once I had the fire going I went back up to the tent to pack my sleeping bag, etc.

The temperature last night was probably the warmest it's been since we started the trip. Dave commented on the nice sunrise so I grabbed my camera and tripod to take some photos.

Dave cooked up some eggs and sausage for breakfast.

Pete and I were on the water at 0759 am. Once we were on the water then there was enough room for Dave and Dick to load their canoe.

The following is the information on the portages from our 6th campsite.

The water on the Palisade River in this stretch flows north to south. There was a swift that could be seen from our campsite and we needed to immediately paddle up it. There was supposed to be another swift not too far from the first one. The shore was pinched down, but there wasn't any real strong current so we had no problem.

1st portage: We tracked the canoes on river right (left side). There were three boats cached here.

2nd portage: instead of doing this portage we tracked the canoes up the first swift. The second swift we walked the canoes up the current. The next two swifts we were able to paddle up them.

3rd portage: was on river right that was 93 meters long. This portage was a good trail that had a slight climb from the water, then levels off with a down slope to the water on the back side.

4th portage: My map showed this portage was 90 meters. I stepped it off and got 106 steps. This portage is located in the west bay that doesn’t follow the waterway in the east bay. The put-in had a sandy landing.

5th portage: was on river right. The river / rapids were totally blocked with sweepers. Total length of the portage was 227 meters. There was a campsite at the upstream end of the portage on river right.

6th portage: This portage is on river right. This was marked wrong on my map. Length: 183 meters.

Pete was the first one to see a moose with only his head sticking out of the water. The moose saw us and began swimming toward shore. Pete and I paddled over in its direction to try to get closer for a good photo. I was moving the stern of the canoe around to get a good shot, when the moose got out of the water and ran out of sight before I could grab my camera.

7th portage: Pete and I moved a head of Dave and Dick to look for this portage that was on river right. We paddled up a swift that meandered through some downed cedar trees (sweepers). It looked like a couple tops on some of the sweepers had been cut off leading me to believe that the portage was further upstream.

Pete and I paddled up around a couple cedars then stopped the canoe and got out in the water on river right.

We walked the canoe up the faster water located here after we made sure Dave and Dick made it up the first swift. Then we walked the canoe up the faster water around the bend up to an eddy on river right.

We walked back to help Dave and Dick walking their canoe up this second set of faster water if they needed it. Dick wanted to track the bow of Dave’s canoe while Dave was in the stern I was giving Dick some instructions in this tricky area when he lost his footing. Dick was being swept down the current so I jumped in and grabbed him be his PFD. I was floating in the current until I grabbed a hold of Dave’s canoe. Dick and I regained our footing. Dick walked back toward Dave holding onto the gunwale and got out of the water. Pete and I then took Dave’s canoe up the rapids since we were in a better position to do it.

Dave and Dick jumped back into their canoe at the top of the rapids when it was safe to do so.

There were three curious otters that kept us amused for several minutes about one kilometer from our seventh campsite. Dave started whistling at them when one of them began even more curious and started swimming toward Dave.

We tracked our canoes up a swift to get to the campsite that’s on the west side of this island. We had lunch here at the campsite at 0147 pm.

Once we were done with lunch I re-did the rock fire ring where we could cook with a grill. Dick put up the water filter then gathered what firewood he could find. Pete set up his tarp.

Once we were organized in camp we relaxed. I began writing in my journal while Dave worked on his maps. When Dave was finished with his maps we compared notes on the route that we covered today.

We saw orange flagging at both the beginning and the ends of all the portages today. Pete opened a bag of dried cranberries and put some coffee on the fire. It didn't take long for us to eat the bag of cranberries.

Dave was curious on how much detail I was going to put in my trip report when I posted it on my blog. I wasn’t sure when he asked me. What I’ve done so far is basically copy over my notes that I wrote in my journal.

Dave and Pete went out in the canoe to do some fishing. They were over by the small rapids to the west of this campsite, but now it appears they are moving all around.

Today’s paddle up the lazy Palisade River reminded me a lot of Quetico with the high granite rock outcroppings along the river. These granite outcroppings gave the topography some elevation compared to the lowlands we’ve mostly paddled so far in the boreal forest.

I haven’t commented on this so far, but Dick talks out loud to himself. He’s now looking for his lip balm.

0627 pm: I just saw Dave catch some type of fish. I know that’s two that I’ve seen him catch so far from this distance.

There are so many blueberries. They seem to be everywhere at the campsite and along the portages. Dave mentioned earlier you know you want a blueberry badly when you reach down to grab one while portaging the canoe.

The sky is beginning to get some darker clouds forming out to the west. I’ve been sitting under the tarp escaping the sun while writing. There’s been a nice breeze coming from a westerly wind this afternoon / early evening. It feels especially nice while I’ve been sitting out of the sun.

I took a bath earlier and did that ever feel good.

We still haven’t seen another canoeist since we started our trip. Dave was on the volunteer trail clearing crew with the Wabakimi Project the week prior to our trip. Dave thought the crew that replaced him were to be coming down on the Palisade River, but we haven’t seen any sign of them.

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to the west into Burntrock Lake. I’m not all sure what we are going to do, but we won’t have to break down camp in the morning. There are two portages and a swift before we get into Burntrock Lake.

Today when we were tracking our canoes up some rapids I was up to my waist. Luckily, my Olympus camera that I have around my neck is waterproof. I was completely wet when I grabbed onto Dick who was floating down the rapids. My camera seems to have survived the dunking.

My ankle had been feeling pretty good the last couple of days, but I could feel some pain when I was attempting to get my footing while floating in the rapids with Dick.

Pete cooked up some tortellini while Dave mixed up some seasoned olive oil for it. Dave cooked up the walleyes that he and Pete caught today. It was a nice dinner.

It really hasn’t been getting too dark at night out due to the Full moon. We were all in our tents by 1000 pm.

Day 8: 08-17-08 Sunday

2008-09-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Palisade River (upstream), Burntrock Lake and back to Palisade River

Distance: 15 km (9.4 miles)

Portages: 4

Swifts paddled: 2

Swifts tracked: 1

Time: 4:30

I’m writing here at the same campsite as yesterday at 0303 pm.

This is day 8 of our trip. My alarm went off at 0525 am. Pete seemed to be more excited about getting up right away this morning, because he told me there wasn’t anything to do, but light a fire and put the coffee on. I got up right up after Pete.

When I got up at 0130 am and went out of the tent the moon was very bright. I could only see one or two stars. After I got out of the tent this morning the moon was still up and very bright. It looked like it was still close to a full moon.

The only sounds this morning were the sound of the rushing water of the rapids to our west. There wasn’t any wind this morning to cause any ripples on the water. The water surface was flat as glass.

Pete and I were still the only ones up at 0550 am. Pete was brushing his teeth. He told me he forgot to brush them yesterday. Dick was the next one to get up. He came to the camp fire, then Dave.

Dave cooked up some bacon with his “hippie pancakes”. I put some maple syrup on mine, while Dave used up the last of the grape jelly.

Today is the day trip over into Burntrock Lake which is the next lake to our west. It looks like two portages and a swift away.

We needed to take one of our portage packs to put our raingear, food for lunch , first aid kit, sat phone, GPS and water bottles; so I took my gear out of my pack and placed the other gear inside. I took my Pelican case with my camera, too.

We buttoned up our campsite and headed for Burntrock Lake at 0810 am.

The first portage was only about a minutes paddle away. It was on river left and was 115 meters long. There was a campsite about 1 km on river right. It was a 2x2 site.

Just north of this campsite was a swift. Pete and I were able to paddle up it. The water was moving pretty good. Pete’s still is improving in his paddling and it showed today.

We found the second portage that goes into a bay on Burntrock Lake. This portage was before another swift. We didn’t take this portage going into Burntrock Lake, but we should have if we only knew what we were about to get ourselves into by going a different way. This portage was 319 meters long. There were some blow downs across this trail. I documented this information on the portage trail when we came back across it from Burntrock Lake

Instead of the taking this portage I looked up the swift that was very shallow and saw some cedar trees further up with their tops cut off. Well, they have to be cut off for some reason. It sure looked like the way to go.

Pete and I tracked the canoe over the shallow area, then it was Dave and Dick’s turn. We all got back into our canoes at the top of this swift and continued paddling upstream.

We came up to some rapids that have a few sweepers over the river. I got out of the canoe and walked across the rocks on river left to see if we would be able to continue. I found that this was a long stretch of rapids with more trees over the river and it would simply to be much work to get through, if at all.

On the opposite side of the river, river right, there was an aluminum boat with a Mercury motor cached on shore. We found this very strange because it’s obvious this boat couldn’t go upstream any further thus the reason it’s sitting where it’s sitting, but it could only go downstream a couple of kilometers when there was more water than there was now.

Dave and Dick paddled over to the boat then noticed an old blaze on one of the trees. Dave and Dick pulled their canoe between the trees on the cramped shore as there was a steep incline that went up right from shore. Dave walked the trail for a bit and came back and said it was a trail, but probably not for canoes.

Dave and Pete took the canoes and I took the pack across this “goat portage”. It was probably about 200 meters, although I didn’t walk it off.

We reached Burntrock Lake at 0934 am. This lake appears it’s appropriately named because of the large area around this large lake that has been burned in the past.

We paddled slightly south of west to where we knew there was a campsite. Pete and I rounded the closest point to this campsite where we saw our first canoes on this trip. The canoes were pulled up on shore. When we got closer we noticed that they were two Souris River canoes and there were two guys picking blueberries.

They hadn’t noticed us yet when I yelled, “Hey, those are our blueberries!” One of the guys had a Nalgene bottle about ¾ full of the berries.

Three of the guys were from Canada and the other from Maryland near where Dick lives. Two of them were brothers.

They let us take a look around their campsite since that was one of the reasons we came to Burntrock Lake. Dave, along with my help, have been documenting portages (length and what condition they are in), campsite locations and size and any other significant things to give to Phil Cotton.

Dave continued talking with the other paddlers about the Wabakimi Project while Pete and I checked out the campsite. These guys had come across Phil’s group minus Phil while on their paddle. Dave was surprised that the volunteer’s had already come across these portages without doing any work on some of the portages.

This group came into the park on Friday via Allanwater then over to the Flindt. They were partially outfitted by Wildwaters B & B. Again, it looks like Wildwater’s sends a lot of groups through Allanwater.

The owner of Wildwater’s came up in the talks with this group.

Once we were done talking and checking out the campsite we continued on our way. We headed off to the NW to the west side of the big island. The wind had come up from the SW since we left this morning and it was blowing up some waves. When Pete and I rounded the north part of the island we pretty much surfed to the NE to the next campsite. This campsite is on the island north of the big island. The first thing we did when we got out on the campsite was graze on the blueberries then we check the site out. It was a 2 x2.

We were going to check out the outpost camp at the end of the bay, but decided against it when we saw a plane coming from that direction had just lifted off the water. So instead we paddled south along the east shore back to where we had come from. This time we took the correct portage back across instead of the “goat portage”.

The swift we came up to next, Pete used the cross bow draw and a post without too much hesitation. We checked the campsite that was past the swift on river right before heading back to the next portage just before our campsite.

Once we arrived back at the campsite at about 1240 pm we had our lunch of peanut butter and pita sandwiches with strawberry jelly. We had two granola bars and some coffee to go with the sandwiches.

Pete went and cleaned up while Dick rested. Dave and I talked about Florida, Florida fishing, hunting, Virginia and some other topics as well.

The strong wind has been blowing directly into our campsite. The waves on Burntrock have to be substantial now. The guys we saw on Burntrock were supposed to be flying out at 0500 pm today, but it probably won’t happen. They need to strap two canoes to the outside of the float plane. They are only about 3 km as the crow flies to the west so we should see any planes that come and go.

I’ve been sitting under the tarp while writing. Pete just made another pot of coffee.

Earlier, Pete asked what was for dinner. It’s been a joke this whole trip, because every day some one will ask what’s for dinner. Someone else will say I don’t know. Check the list. Where’s the list. It’s in with Dave’s maps.

The time is 0423 pm and I’m going to stop writing for awhile. Oh, we are having pizza tonight.

While Dave and Pete were fishing I notice some real dark clouds building to the west. Dick and I started buttoning up camp and making sure everything was under the tarp in case it began to rain..

Dave and Pete came back from fishing with four walleyes. The wind has been getting stronger with some really strong gust of wind.

Approximately, 0630 pm the rain really began to fall. It lasted about an hour and got all our wood wet. We all put on our rain gear and sat under the tarp until the rain stopped Pete and I got the fire started again once the rain stopped.

Dave cooked up the walleye then made the pizza. It was later than normal when we finished dinner and the dishes. We went to our tents at 1030 pm.

Day 9: 08-18-08 Monday

2008-09-19T17:22:00.001-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Palisade River (downstream)

Distance: 21 km (13.1 miles)

Portages: 2

Swifts lined: 2

Time: 4:39

I’m not sure why I woke up at 0324 am. Did I hear a noise or what? What I saw when I opened my eyes was a light shining outside of our tent. Then I heard some noise. It was Dick walking from an area that wasn’t remotely close to his tent.

Pete began moving around 0430 am. He got out of the tent for a while, but he came back inside. My alarm went off at 0525 am and Pete never moved or made any sound.

When I got out of the tent Pete still wasn’t moving. I walked down to get a fire going to begin heating up the water for coffee. Everyone seemed to be taking their time getting up this morning. Dick was up next and he brought the food pack down closer to the fire. Dave began cooking breakfast for us. Today we had egg burritos. Dave uses the Sontegard Brand Dried egg mix.

Pete was the last one up this morning. He also had picked up the metal cans that were on the ground at an old campfire that was near our tent. He had them in a plastic bag that we’ll pack out.

It was a much cooler morning, very cloudy and it looked like it might rain today. We were on the water at 0805 am. We would be back tracking some of the route we took to get to this campsite a couple days ago. We immediately got to the swift that’s next to the campsite. We got out of the canoe and walked it through the rocky area before jumping back in the canoe.

We had a NE wind in our face as we paddled. We paddled approximately 3 km to the swift where Dick went swimming the other day. We lined this swift because of the two sharp bends and there was a very good possibility that we would have been wedged up against a sweeper or worse. Once Pete and I got his canoe through I went back and took the line from Dick to get Dave’s canoe down the swift.

The next portage was 183 meters long. Approximately 1 km east of the last portage we stopped at an island campsite that hadn’t been used in a long time. This was a 2 x 2 campsite.

Continuing on for another 2 km we stopped at another campsite that’s SW of Webster Creek. This was a 2 x 2 site. There hadn’t been any use this year. Dave mentioned if we went north through Webster Creek that this would be one way to get to the Albany River, but he said he heard the portages were nasty.

After checking this site we paddled 1 km to the next portage (223 meters). There was a campsite at the beginning of the portage. This was also a 2 x2. There was another 7 km of paddling before the next 90 meter portage.

Dave asked if we wanted to go up another branch of the Palisade River or down through Slim Lake. Dave knew where there was one campsite on an island on the Palisade, but he didn’t have any confirmed info on Slim Lake. The Palisade branch would take us west of where we would eventually be heading back toward Slim, but we all said we wanted to check out the other branch of the Palisade. Dave warned us he didn’t know how good the site was on the island on the Palisade River.

We all began looking along shore for any other possible campsites as we paddled to the known site. We stopped for lunch at 1220 pm on the western side of a large island that had a nice sand beach. We checked around this area to see if we could possibly make a campsite here with enough room for two tents. It would be possible, but we would have to do some clearing of a significant amount of down trees to accomplish it. This area has some nice large Jack Pines. There was an old fire ring in the sand that had been destroyed by the ice. I’m sure this was only used for a shore lunch site. We left the sand beach at 1244 pm.

The known camp site was about 1 km away. Dave was aware of some people camping at it before, but he had no idea how big or good a site it was.

When we paddled up toward the island with the campsite it sure didn’t look promising. The island was very sparse of trees with no down fire wood. We got out of the canoes and decided that the site wouldn’t work for us. We made a notation that this site would only be good as an emergency site.

Dave and I scanned the surrounding area for other possibilities for a site. I saw an area that looked promising so we paddled over to it. This immediate area was not suitable, but near this point was an area that would work.

We walked over to this area and there was a fireplace that hadn’t been used in years. The fireplace would need some work, but the site would work. Best of all there was room for two tents. We arrived at this site at 0108 pm. We walked back to our canoes and paddled over to an area closer to the fire ring. We all began doing chores to get the site ready for us.

I re-did the fireplace to our liking.

This area of the Palisade River is really pretty with its high ridges and rock outcroppings.

Pete and Dick went out fishing in the canoe. Dave was setting up his rod and decided to fish from shore. I offered to paddle Dave around while he fished, but I was told that both people in the canoe needed to have a fishing license to be legal in Canada. I didn’t buy a fishing license, since I knew I would be taking photos and writing in my journal. The only time I go fishing anymore is when I go to Florida.

The gray skies of earlier had cleared out and now there was nothing but blue skies. Today there has been some coolness in the air that we haven’t felt on this trip.

When Pete and Dick came back from fishing, Pete didn’t pull his canoe up on shore very well. Dave asked Pete how he liked his canoe as it was floating down the river. Dave and Dick paddled Pete over to his canoe so he could paddle it back to camp.

Dave is fishing somewhere from shore while Pete is cooking dinner. Pete is cooking angle hair pasta with chicken and a sauce.

Dick was cleaning his two fish that he caught earlier. Pete cooked up Dick’s fish for us to eat after dinner. Dick left a lot of the bones in the fish.

We were all in our tents by 1000 pm.

Day 10: 08-19-08 Tuesday

2008-09-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Palisade River, Slim Lake and Scrag Lake

Distance: 12.75 km (8.0 miles)

Portages: 3

Swifts: 1

Pullovers: 1

Time: 3:12

It was a cooler morning this morning. When I got up at 0230 am, the moon was still shining bright preventing me from seeing all the stars that I know were up in the sky. I could only see a couple of them.

Pete got up five minutes after my alarm went off at 0525 am. He packed up his gear prior to getting out of the tent. I did the same once he was out of the tent.

When I walked down to the fire where I saw that the river was like glass. Dick was also up. A quick cool light breeze came up, but it stopped as fast as it came.

I walked down to the waters edge and took some photos of the early morning skies.

Like clock work as soon as Dave got up he began preparing breakfast. This morning’s menu was scrambled eggs with onion and mushrooms, potato pancakes and coffee.

Yesterday Pete was in a quiet mood. He slept in late, but when he came out for breakfast he never poured himself any coffee. He also stopped smoking a couple days ago.

It’s pretty quiet in camp this morning.

Pete and I were on the water at 0749 am. The mornings paddle had some coolness to it as the fog lifted off the water. I was the only one in a short sleeve shirt. The sun was up and I figured it wouldn’t take to long before it got warm out.

As I paddle down the Palisade I keep looking up on shore to the high ridges while commenting to myself what a special area. We passed the points of interest from yesterdays paddle.

We got to the first portage that I stepped off earlier at 96 steps. There are three boats cached here. Pete took his canoe across the portage, then Dave took his canoe. Dave told me that when Dick came across the portage with a pack that Dick fell head first down the steep rock face to the water with the pack on his back. Dick was very lucky he didn’t do any serious injury to his body. Dick did get some scrapes on his face and he lost the lens out of his glasses. Dick has been having problems on the portages on this trip. The decision was made that Dick was not to carry anymore packs across the portages to prevent him from receiving any further injuries that would cause us to end our trip prematurely.

We scraped the bottom of Pete’s canoe when we paddled the next swift. Next up was a portage that we had to walk coming upstream because of the fast moving water. We weren’t able to paddle up it. Going downstream we had no problem paddling through, but right after that we had to get out of the canoe and pretty much drag the canoe on its side through a small opening to the other side.

It wasn’t long after we got through this area that we were in new territory of Slim Lake. About 5 km was another 167 meter portage. There was a cairn marking the beginning of this portage. This portage is just to the right of the lowlands that went to the east. There were two cairns along the trail as well as a cairn at the end of the portage.

This portage took us to a small unnamed lake. We crossed the lake to the SE to get to the next portage that would take us to Scrag Lake.

The portage into Scrag Lake was 212 meters long. There were two new blazes and a rock cairn marking the beginning of this portage. There were three trees over the trail when we walked it. This portage starts with a very steep incline up a rock face, and then there were a few cairns marking the way. Further down the trail was a muddy section we had to go through.

The last two portages didn’t seem to have gotten the use as some of the other portages we’ve been on. Maybe more people are coming into Scrag Lake from the south through Little Scrag Lake.

There was a blaze and a rock cairn at the end of the portage as well.

The water at the end of the portage didn’t appear too deep. I stepped off into the water and immediately went up to the middle of my thighs. When Pete came back across the portage I told him not to walk in the water, but he did anyways. He walked in and he kept getting sucked into the muck before rescuing himself.

We knew of three campsites on this lake. We decided to check out the one that wasn’t on the route to Arril Lake. We headed SE to the site. We were there at 1101 am. This was a nice large site. We started doing our chores to set up camp for the night. A little more than an hour later we were having lunch. Today’s lunch was Pita bread with sausage, gorp and coffee. Don’t forget every meal we have had with pita bread we spend some time prying them apart after they have been glued together by the vacuum sealer.

Around 2 pm Pete went up to Dave’s tent where Dick was and asked him if he wanted to go exploring with us. He told Pete he wanted to stay at camp.

Dave’s canoe still had the third seat, so we all got in Dave’s canoe. Dave took the bow, Pete got the middle seat and I was in the stern. We headed off to the SE in search for another campsite. We thought we spotted it, but when we got out checking it definitely wasn’t it.

We paddled around the island and when we got out we found two canoes stashed in the woods. They were well used, sun faded Souris River 17 foot canoes. They had the words “Canoe Frontier” spray painted on them. One of the canoes had at one time the name “Peanut” and the other canoe possibly the name “Bubba”. I took some photos of the canoes.

We checked another area for the campsite and again that wasn’t it either. Well, on to look for something else. Dave was told there was an old outpost camp located on the south shore that had burned down in a forest fire. Dave was told he couldn’t miss it. Well, we looked, but never did see the debris he was told he couldn’t miss.

When we were paddling south toward the opening for the channel to Little Scrag I told Pete I saw some thing flashing in the sun. When we couldn’t find the burned down outpost we paddled over to where I saw the shining object. We found an aluminum boat cached in the woods.

We all noticed an eagle sitting in one of the trees on the south shore.

We paddled backed to the stashed canoes to take a better look at them. From there we paddled north to an island campsite. Access to this site is on the north side of the island and there are either 2 x4 or 4 x 2 tent areas.

Enough exploring for the day so back to camp we paddled. Dick was up and moving about. Pete put some more coffee on the fire. When it was done I noticed it was much weaker than before. He told me he just threw a few more grounds on top of the used grounds.

Pete caught two northern pike while fishing. He filleted them, but he didn’t take out the Y bones.

Dave got Dick more involved by having him cooking up the rice and the fish for dinner. When the dishes were done we all sat around the fire before heading to our tents. We all retired at 1025 pm.

Day 11: 08-20-08 Wednesday

2008-09-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

Lakes / Rivers: Scrag Lake, Grayson River, Arril Lake, Grayson Lake and the Grayson River

Distance: 21 km (13.1 miles)

Portages: 2

Swifts paddled: 2

Swifts lined: 2

Time: 6:41

Pete got up out of the tent so I decided to do the same until I realized it was 0445 am. The alarm would be going off in 40 minutes. Pete didn’t hear it. I eventually got out of the tent at 0538 am.

Dick was up pulling out of the food pack what Dave would be cooking up for breakfast. I started the fire and put the coffee on. This was one of the few mornings some loons were calling at the end of the lake. The fire was crackling and popping to the sounds of the loons in the background.

Dave was up at 0606 am and he started making breakfast. I took some photos of the sky at 0609 am while there was an orange glow in the east. There was a cool breeze, but not a cool as yesterday.

Once breakfast of bacon, buckwheat “hippie pancakes, dried fruit and coffee was done we got packed up and on the water at 0749 am.

We started paddling to the NE from our campsite through the narrows and found a campsite to our left on a point. It hadn’t been used this year and it appeared to be a 2 x 2 campsite.

I had a swift marked on my map, but I don’t recall if there was any fast water or not.

The next portage was on river left. I stepped it off at 290. There were a few trees over the trail.

The Grayson River is a very, clear river. We actually noticed a change in the water clarity on Scrag Lake yesterday, but with the shallow water on the Grayson it was really noticeable. There was an old beaver dam blocking the downstream of the river.

The next portage I stepped off at 493 and from Phil Cotton’s records showed the portage at 490 meters. There was some flagging at the beginning of the portage and one cairn along the trail.

A total of seven trees were across the trail. Three of them were Jack Pines, one right after another. Dave and I stopped to pick some nice size blueberries for a couple minutes on our walk back across the portage.

The portage was marked as 89 meters long. We paddled the river up until the last 30 meters when we got out and lined that section.

We were now less than 1 km to the opening of Arril Lake when we came across the first of two campsites. This first 2 x 2 campsite hadn’t been used for some time. Less than 1 km away on the south shore of the lake was the second site that could be used as a 2 x 4 site, although it had only been used recently as a shore lunch site. Inside the fireplace were two cans, two single coffee filters/ pouches, and some foil pouches.

I find it simply amazing that most of the culprits who are leaving cans and other junk at the camp sites are those who are flown in by float plane to an outpost, then use a motorboat to go fishing. They are the ones who could very easily pack up their junk, put it back in the motorboat and throw it in the garbage can at the outpost. I know it isn’t all of them, but so far that seems to the majority of what we’ve seen so far. Just plain laziness!

There was an outpost about 2 km to the east, so Pete and I paddled over in that direction while Dave and Dick paddled NE across Arril lake. Just south of the channel that goes east was a large sand beach. I made a notation on my topo map of its location.

We stopped on an island campsite for lunch at 1122 am. This was our destination spot today, but we all agreed it was too early to stop. We decided to paddle another 10 km to another campsite, so that tomorrow’s paddle would be shorter. We left the island at 1145 am.

After leaving Arril Lake we paddled down a short swift. We lined the next long one that was a couple hundred meters at least. If we wanted to take a portage we would have had to paddle into a bay prior to paddling through the first swift. In hindsight even if we took the portage it probably came out along the swift that we lined, so it wouldn’t have done anything for us.

On Grayson Lake we could feel the full effect of the intense hot sun and there wasn’t any wind. I could tell Pete was getting tired due to his ever increasing slower recovery rate of his paddle stroke. He finally crawled from the bow to the middle of the canoe so he could get his water bottle out of his pack. He was also wearing one of those long sleeved nylon shirts that don’t breathe. I don’t like to wear those types of shirts unless there is a cool wind then I use these shirts more as a windbreaker.

Last year I did a solo trip to Quetico of 161 miles, http://www.bwca.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=forum.thread&threadId=50925&forumID=19&confID=1 , and just about everyday it was in the high 80 to low 90’s. One day I put on a similar shirt to keep the burning sun off my skin and within a short time I could feel my body temperature dangerously increasing. I wasn’t wearing a PFD like we have been on this trip. I knew Pete had to be over heating.

We turned to the east at the south end of Grayson Lake where we came upon a portage on river left. Phil Cotton had it marked as 223 meters while I stepped it off at 262. There was a rock cairn marking the start of the portage.

There had been very little use of the portages that we have traveled today. The campsites that we have checked have had no use because there has been grass or moss growing in the fire rings. Only one site had some use and it appeared to have only been used for a shore lunch site based up the cans in the fire ring.

We got to our current campsite at 0220 pm. This site hasn’t been used this year. I re-did the fire ring to accommodate our grill for cooking. Pete put up the tarp. Dave set up his tent. I put up Pete’s tent after I was done with the fire ring. Dick gathered firewood.

Dave and I went over my notes on today’s route and we both made notations to each of our maps.

Today was very hot, very little wind. There was nothing, but blue skies for paddling. Now at camp the clouds have been rolling in. Dave said most of the inclement weather comes in from the west in this park.

Dick didn’t carry any packs across the portages today, but he did help line Dave’s canoe with him.

Pete cooked Tortellini with a Cheddar and broccoli soup. He added some sausage to it, also. It was very good.

I washed dishes and Pete rinsed while I put some coffee on the fire. Next, Pete is going to mix up some blueberry muffin mix for dessert.

Earlier when we had just crossed the first portage out of Grayson Lake we saw a helicopter circling the skies to the east. They also had a rescue basket attached to their landing gear. They circled a couple times, and then flew over us. It appeared they were checking us out, but they left when they saw we weren't in any trouble.

Pete cooked up the muffins. They were a nice treat tonight. Dick went to the tent shortly after having his muffin. The mosquitoes came out around 0900 pm so I went and put on my long sleeved wool underwear shirt. The three of us went to our tents at 0945 pm. I needed to take the long sleeve shirt off while in the tent because it was too hot. It was warm outside.

Day 12: 08-21-08 Thursday

2008-09-06T17:50:00.001-07:00

DAY 12: 08-21-08 Thursday

Lakes / Rivers: Grayson River and Whitewater Lake

Distance: 10 km (6.25 Miles)

Portages: 3

Pullovers: 2

Time: 3:05

Last night I had to put my shoes under the downside edge of my sleeping pad to keep from rolling off it. Pete needed to do the same. Some of these tent areas are less than ideal.

The alarm went off at 0525 am. Pete began stirring shortly thereafter. After he was out of the tent, I packed up my stuff. I saw Dick walk by our tent while I was packing.

Pete had the fire going and the coffee pot on the fire already. When I came down to the fire he went back up and started packing up the tent. I needed to put more wood on the fire to get the water to boil.

Dave got up and made the Sturdiwheat hot cereal with mangos that hit the spot. I put some cinnamon on the cereal this time. I think I'll have to try some mangos in my oatmeal when I get home.

Dave told me to pick up some Red River Cereal while in Canada. He said it had the flaxseed in it. I never did stop to pick up some when we were out of the bush, but Pete asked me if I wanted to stop while we were in Thunder Bay.

Once everything was packed up we were on the water by 0734 am. This was the earliest we’ve started on the water. When Pete and I shoved off that gave Dave and Dick enough room to get their canoe in the water.

Last night it stayed warm out and this morning it still was very warm. It felt humid. The mosquitoes were still out. This site has been the worst for mosquitoes that we’ve been at, but overall they haven’t been too bad. So far the trip has been very enjoyable without a constant swarm of mosquitoes.

Instead of doing the first portage to our east we paddled as far as we could before lifting the canoes over the fast moving shallow water. Then we paddled a short distance to the next campsite that was on river right next to the rapids. We portaged 60 meters across the campsite to the other side and continued on our way. We didn’t use the regular portage here, either.

Less than 2 km away was another portage that was 158 meters based on what I stepped off. This portage was located in a bay on river right. There was an old blaze, but very hard to see, just to the left of the trail. Once we got closer I could see another newer blaze from the water, but it was located further back.

There were some moose tracks in the mud along the trail. I stopped and took a photo of one of the tracks. This port was very muddy and rocky. There was also a 10 inch diameter Jack Pine about 2 feet up off the trail.

Pete and I checked for a possible campsite on the north end between the two portages, but we didn’t locate anything.

Before the next portage was a campsite on river right. This site hadn’t been used in a long time.

I walked off the next portage off at 170 meters. There were two boats cached at the beginning of the portage. One of the boats had a 1990 Minnesota boat registration, ID # MN 4826 CK. This portage was muddy.

After this portage we checked out a campsite on the first big island. This site had only been used for shore a lunch. There was a Styrofoam cup, foil and some onion remains left in the fire pit.

We paddled SE along the eastern shore of this big island. Where the island appears to touch the main land there is a small opening where we were able to get through, but to do so we needed to drag the canoes across a shallow area

The wind was blowing from a southerly direction on Whitewater Lake. We needed to cross a ¾ km of open water in the larger waves. If we had not continued paddling yesterday we would have gotten to this area and there was a good possibility we might not have been able to cross. The wind has increased since we arrived at our current campsite at 1039 am.

Camp was set up. Then it was lunch time of pita, cheese and gorp. There were some dark clouds moving in so we tighten up the camp by bringing up the portage packs and placing them under the tarp.

Pete and Dave are doing some laundry.

The strong winds with some really strong gust are blowing up some good size waves on the lake now. We wouldn’t be able to cross that ¾ km section now.

Tomorrow we will meander our way through the islands on Whitewater Lake to get to Best Island. This will be our last evening and we will get picked up on the Otter on Saturday near Best Island.

We’ll begin by going through the maze of islands along the north part of the lake then turn to the south where we have two options to go depending on the strength of the wind.

Well, the last couple days Pete and I have been talking about stopping at Tim Horton’s for a blueberry muffin and coffee when we get out. Actually I’ll probably get something other than a blueberry muffin, since I’ve eaten so many blueberries on this trip.

Today is day 12 of our trip. I think I’m going to stop writing for a while and do something else or I might just sit back on my therm-a-rest chair and take in the views. The time is now 0123 pm. It’s approximately 14.5 km to Wendell Bechwith’s place on Best Island. I’m not exactly sure where our next campsite will be located.

I’m back. Everyone has had a bath. We all have been sitting around under the tarp trying to get relief from the hot sun. The wind has been blowing extremely hard still. Dave told Pete there were probably 4 foot seas on Whitewater Lake right now.

We’ve seen three small motorboats come past our campsite in the narrows. They don’t even want to be in the open part of the lake.

04:43 pm: The wind seems to want to ease up some, but then some very large gust of wind will pop up.

Dave and Pete went out in the canoe in an attempt to catch some fish for dinner. They went to the west in these narrows. Pete had caught a couple small northern pike while fishing from shore earlier.

The dark ominous clouds have since moved out, but I’m still sitting here watching the large waves crashing up on the islands in the distance.

I forgot to mention earlier we could see and smell some smoke due to some larger fire when we got near Whitewater Lake. The fire was somewhere to our south. We heard the helicopter again today while paddling, but we never saw it.

Dave used this same campsite last year and from the looks of things it hasn’t been used since then.

Dick didn’t carry any packs again today.

0504pm: I just some more coffee on the fire.

Dave and Pete came back from fishing with some walleyes. Dave filleted them, and then he mixed up the fish in a soup / chowder type mix. We called it “Wabakimi Chowder”.

Pete has been very animated and talkative this evening after having some bumps off his liquor he brought on the trip.

Dick went to bed early. Dave, Pete and I talked about group dynamics and minimizing risk on canoe trips. The first step is the screening process. The further north one goes on a trip it’s important not to take inexperienced people.

When we were talking about inexperienced people I thought to myself that most of the recreational paddlers I know are “dippers”. These are canoe trips and the method of movement is done with a paddle and personally I feel strongly a person should be a competent paddler. In Minneapolis there have been a group of racers that put on a weekly paddling session called, Monday Night rookie Racers". This has been going every year since 1976. We pair an experienced recer with an inexperienced paddler to show them how to paddle properly and efficiently.

Usually the first time a person comes to the practice they always say they know how to paddle, but it's evident as soon as they get on the water that they need to stop paddling the way have been all their life and start to learn the proper way. It seems easy to paddle correctly, but once a person tries it they quickly learn it isn't that easy. Once they learn the correct technique, then they enjoy paddling that much more.
0130 am (Friday morning): I got out of the tent to check on the weather. It was nice and warm out. I stayed outside for a while enjoying the sights and sounds. It was still very light outside as it had been this whole trip.

Day 13: 08-22-08 Friday - Day 15: 08-24-08 Sunday

2008-09-05T17:52:00.001-07:00

DAY 13: 08-22-08 Friday

Lakes / Rivers: Whitewater Lake

Distance: 16.5 km (10.3 miles)

Time: 2:10 to Best Island. I didn’t document our time spent at Wendell Beckwith’s and our time paddling looking for a campsite)

This morning where we camped last night there was already a breeze, but there is a very large long island blocking the majority of the wind. Dave cooked scrambled eggs with onions and ham with some potatoes. We finished breakfast at 0640 am. We began packing up our gear to the sounds of some loons in the background.

I’m writing now at a campsite that we had to make camp from an old shore lunch site. There was a very old fireplace that hasn’t been used in years, and there hasn’t been anyone using this site for camping. There was enough room for one tent site close to shore. I located another area for a tent way back in the bush. Pete came up with his axe and cleared the area and cleared a trail back to the camp.

There were again many blueberries at this site.

We were on the water this morning at 0729 am. When I first got up I saw clouds to the east that were moving our way toward the west.

We followed our intended route to the east about 6.5 km before turning to a southerly direction when I saw a large Woodland Caribou on a point. The caribou walked into the water and began swimming across to an island to the east. Pete and I continued paddling to the caribou that was ahead of us. It was still some distance from us. I tried taking some photos, but I figured they wouldn’t turn out because I really needed a tripod because of the distance it was from us.

Before the caribou made land it swam up to a large rock that was under the water. We could see the caribou get about half way up and then slide back in the water. Once it made it to the island it ran south along the shore before getting back in the water. It began swimming back to the island from where it came, but only further south. Dave and Dick who were paddling behind us saw the caribou, also.

This was everyone’s first time seeing a Woodland Caribou in Wabakimi. Dave has seen Barren Caribou in the wild before, but it was his first Woodland Caribou in the park.

Woodland Caribou- not a good photo, but used to document the sighting.

The wind was coming from the SE this morning around 15 to 20 mph. We needed to paddle in some larger waves to get to Best Island. We arrived at Wendell Beckwith’s place at 0939 am.

Wendell Beckwith lived on the island from 1955 to his death in 1980. Wendell has been called the “Hermit of Whitewater Lake”. He was an amateur scientist who conducted astronomical and meteorological observations doing what he called “pure” research.”

We looked around his place where I took many photos of the inside and outside of the several of the buildings which he designed and built. We had lunch at the picnic table down at the beach after we looked around for an hour or so.

Dave got out the Globalstar Sat phone and called Mattice Lake Outfitters to confirm our flight and pick up location for tomorrow. I was surprised when it only took less than 5 minutes to get a signal. Dave talked to Yolanda who told us to call back in an hour. The person who does the scheduling wasn’t in. We were hoping for a 9 am pickup tomorrow at Wendell’s place.

We back track a little to a known campsite on another island near Best Island. The island was looking sparse and there wouldn’t be much relief from the strong southerly winds.

Dave had another campsite marked down on his map that was in the area, but he never had been to it himself. We needed to cross the large waves to check on it. We paddled down the west shore of another island, but we didn’t locate anything that was remotely possible for a campsite.

We then crossed more open water to the far west shore to check out another possibility. Nope, that wouldn’t work. It was back to paddling to the east from where we came. We scoured the area and came upon this old shore lunch site.

We got out and determined it was a possibility. There was one area for a tent site and Pete told Dave and Dick they could have that one. Pete told them we would make do with what was available or find a better site back in the woods.

We all began our chores to set up camp while I walked in the woods for a potential site. I found one, but it needed some work to have a reasonable access to it. That’s when Pete brought up his axe for clearing duties.

When camp was set up we put some coffee on and after that was gone we put on another pot. It appears Dick is a sleep under the tarp.

When Dave spoke to Yolanda earlier she said there was rain in the forecast tonight and tomorrow. The winds were expected to be from a southerly direction of about 10 to 12 mph.

Pete went for a walk in the woods this afternoon. Dave and I paddled in the very rough water to the Whitewater Lake First Nation outpost. There were a few times while I was sitting in the bow that I really had to bend down to get my paddle in the water. I felt like a bobber while paddling in the bow going over to the First Nation outpost camp.

We beached our canoe near their docks and walked around. There wasn't any activity. We didn’t find anyone walking around and it appeared vacant, but an hour or so ago we saw a Beaver land over in this area.

Another paddler who I talked to while waiting for the train at the start of our trip told me if we had time to stop by the First Nation site here. He said there was one guy who lives out here who’s very friendly and he’s willing to talk to anyone who comes by.

I walked up to the last cabin and saw a person in the window sitting with his back to me. Once I got up closer I waved at a female who was sitting across from the guy. She waved back to me.

I knocked on the door and it was answered by a guy who said his name was Walter Slipperjack. I introduced myself, who we were and what we were doing. Dave found his way to where I was and introduced himself to Walter.

Walter and his lady friend were dropped off by the Beaver float plane an hour or so ago. They are the only ones around. His brother has a cabin at the far north end and his sister, Rose, has a place further to the south of him. Walter and his brother trap here in the winter.

We asked Walter if he snowmobiles out in the winter and he told us no. He said he didn’t want to open up a trail for everyone to use and come up. He said the cabins are owned by First Nation families who live in Thunder Bay. He said anyone from the First Nation can come here and build a cabin if they wanted.

Dave and I had an easier time paddling back to our campsite after leaving Walter’s place. Pete was back from his walk and he was preparing dinner. We are using up the last of our food of sausage, angle hair noodles and sauce from a packet. When we ate that Pete cooked up some “hippie pancakes’. He made up a brown sugar, Swiss Miss and cinnamon for a topping. It tasted pretty good. I was still hungry.

Walter Slipperjack and Dave

The wind has increased even more since Dave and I got back to camp. The skies began getting dark and we could hear some thunder in the distance. It looked like it would rain soon so we put the packs under the tarp then threw another tarp directly over the packs.

Dick told us he survived his adventure, but he didn’t do as good as he wanted.

There were no canoes on our route other than the two we saw on Burntrock Lake at the campsite when we went on our day trip. We have seen a few small motorboats, float planes, a helicopter but nothing that would ruin a trip.

There has been a fire somewhere to our south and possibly to the west.

There hasn’t been too much to do on these last couple days after we ended our paddling early, but they have been relaxing days.

We really have had some nice weather for this trip.

The higher water level actually worked in our favor on this route. We could paddle through a number of swifts and some of the shallows we had enough water to line or track our canoes and we had better access to the portages.

DAY 14: 08-23-08 Saturday

Lakes / Rivers: Whitewater Lake

Distance: 6 km (3.75 miles)

Time: 0:45

I'm writing while sitting a in an outpost cabin on Whitewater Lake that's owned by Mattice Lake Outfitters.

The wind was blowing hard last night when we went to bed. Pete and I talked about paddling, again. It rained after we went to sleep, but when I got out of the tent sometime last night the skies appeared they were starting to clear. The wind had eased up somewhat, also.

Before I got out of the tent in the morning I could hear the wind blowing through the trees. The alarm went off at 0525 am, but Pete didn't hear it. He was still breathing loudly. I started to pack up my gear then shortly after Pete started doing the same thing.

Pete had his pack under the other vestibule on the other side of the tent, so he didn't have to carry all his loose stuff down the trail he cleared with his axe yesterday.

Dick was up attempting to start a fire when I got down to the water. When he couldn't get it going he asked me to do it. Since we didn't get the coffee ready last night Dick got that together, while I got a fire going.

Dave started making his "hippie pancakes". The skies were dark to the south and the west with some orange intersperse in them at 0622 am. It appeared that the wind would cause us to be picked up somewhere other than Wendell's place on Best Island today.

We decided that we should go to Mattice Lake's outpost camp for our pick-up. Hopefully it would be a little more protected on the south shore. We got on the water at 0800 am. We paddled toward the west shore to get out of the bigger waves that we being caused by the SW wind. Once we got closer to the west shore we headed south past the First Nation outpost camp then we went east along the south shore.

We arrived at the outpost camp at 0845 am. We pulled onto the beach next to the dock where we met Richard. Richard was the caretaker for Mattice Lake Outfitter's here at their outpost camp on Whitewater Lake.

Richard called Mattice Lake Outfitter's to let them know we had arrived at the outpost. Richard came back and told us they don't have a time on when they would be able to pick us up today. The wind has become a problem now, but if the weather breaks they would come and get us. Richard said he would let us know.

Richard told us a week ago there were several fires on Whitewater Lake from some lightening strikes. He also mentioned there was a bigger fire somewhere between here and Thunder Bay.

I found a very large blueberry patch in back of the outpost cabins. The plants were full of big blueberries. There were large clusters of blueberries. This is the type of picking I like instead of picking a berry here and there.

We place our packs on the dock as well as the canoes after we took everything out of the canoes. We sat and watched our gear sitting on the dock from the deck of one of the buildings. The longer we sat there the larger the waves were getting on the big lake. The wind was still blowing from the SW.

We continued to sit in the cold wind waiting to hear word that it was a go, but we all knew the weather didn’t look like it was going to cooperate, but we still hoped. There were several strong swirling gusts that went with the constant steady SW wind.

Richard came over at 0145 pm and told us lunch was on. He gave us all a ride on his John Deere Gator down to his cabin. It felt good to get out of the cool, damp wind. Richard served up some baked beans and a couple hot dogs for each of us. Richard was aware we had eaten all our food last night.

We went back to our “stand-by deck” and stared off into the lake watching the huge waves crashing on shore in the distance. The temperature has been dropping so I put on my long underwear pants and put on some dry socks. I took off the storm boots and put my tennis shoes on. The temperatures were now in the low 50's, and dropping. It was also misting on and off. The time is now 0233 pm.

We've been on a holding pattern since 0900 am. Richard told us that Don Elliott could fly up until 0830 pm. We decided to take the canoes and packs off the dock when it began to rain. We put the canoes up along side of the building and put the packs on the deck under the eve of the building where we sat.

Richard came over and gave us a small bag of coffee after Pete went over to see if Richard had any extra. Pete had his MSR cook stove out. If Richard didn’t have any extra coffee we were going to have some tea that Dave had packed.

It looked like the wind had started to move around more to a westerly direction. The temperature was now in the 40's. I could see my breath. We put on a second pot of coffee and still no good news about our flight.

We just saw Richard at 0645 pm go to one of the cabins that a group had left from this morning to clean it. It looks like we are spending the night. Pete walked over and spoke to Richard. Pete came back to say that the plane wouldn't be flying tonight. Richard had started a fire in the wood stove where we were going to stay. It felt good to feel the heat after sitting in the damp, cool air without moving around much for the past 10 hours.

Richard told us we could help ourselves to the food in the refrigerator, except for the frozen chili. The food is left over from other groups that have stayed here and there was a group that just left this morning.

Richard told us Don said there was no charge for the cabin and we are scheduled to be the first ones picked up tomorrow. Hopefully, around 0700 am.

We all helped ourselves to some apples, oranges, cheese and other food in the refrigerator. I was starving as I think everyone else was. Richard came back over with a loaf of bread for us.

Dave found some chicken breast in the freezer and he began to thaw them for dinner.

Pete and Dave have been looking at my overall view map of Wabakimi Park looking at some potential routes to the Albany River and the Misehkow River.

DAY 15: 08-24-08 Sunday

Last night after we got done snacking on the food in the refrigerator Dave cooked up the eight frozen chicken breast. We had a nice salad that Dave mixed up, also.

We were all able to take a hot shower last night before bed. The beds were pretty minimal, but we had a roof over our heads. I could hear the wind blowing over all the snoring going on inside the cabin. I got up at 0200 am and went outside. I couldn't see the waves lapping up on shore, but I could hear them over the wind.

I noticed a light on the distant shore. It must be another outpost on the lake. When I came back into the cabin Pete asked me about the wind. I tried to go back to sleep, but coming from the other room was some very loud snoring. The snoring went on for some time.

Pete got up before 0430 am. He wasn’t attempting to keep the noise down. He was banging around attempting to light a fire in the wood stove. Then Pete went outside the cabin and allowed the door to slam behind him causing even more noise. This woke Dave up and he said, “What is going on!” Pete was so loud that I never got back to sleep. When my alarm went off I got right up and hoped that our flight would be here at 0700 am.

Pete was sitting in a chair pulled up to the woodstove when I walked out into the main room. He said he had a stomach ache. I went over and turned the burner on the stove for the coffee pot.

For breakfast I grabbed a green apple out of the refrigerator and ate it as I began to pack up my stuff. We were all packing up our stuff like we were really going to be leaving today even though the way the wind was blowing.

Richard made his way to our cabin at 0630 am and told us we were a go for this morning. We threw our packs in the back of the gator and he drove the gator down to the dock. We put the packs and the canoes at the end of the dock. Earlier we all threw in $10 each to give to Richard for the food and the use of the cabin so Dave gave this to Richard this morning.

The thermometer on the warehouse building registered 40 degrees, but it seemed much cooler with the strong wind. The wind began increasing with every minute while waiting for our flight.

There was no sight or sound of our flight or word from Richard about our flight at 0805 am, so I decided to head back to the cabin to get comfortable and warm. Everyone followed me back to the cabin. Dave immediately went to the refrigerator looking for more food. I had a piece of bread and a small orange.

I sat down on a chair next to the window, so I could keep an eye out on the water by the dock. I wasn’t seated to long before I yelled, plane, and then we all ran out of the cabin toward the dock. The otter landed at 0816 am.

Richard

We waited on the dock for the Otter to be secured to the dock by Richard. Once Don Elliott got out of the pilots seat we introduced ourselves. Don had us get inside the float plane while he secured both canoes on the outside of it.

We left Whitewater Lake at 0835 am. Don pointed the Otter into the wind and once he supplied power the plane took right off the water. The Otter has so much more power than a beaver. We arrived back at Mattice Lake Outfitters about 0909 am.

The canoes and gear were taken off the plane where we tied the canoes to Dave and Pete’s vehicles. Everyone’s packs were put in the appropriate vehicles.

We went in and talked to Yolanda to take of any unfinished business. We needed to return the Sat phone and the charges for the few minutes we needed to use in making the final arrangements for the float plane. Yolanda also billed us for the outpost cabin that we were told would be on the house. We each paid our split of the bill without mentioning anything to Yolanda.

Pete and I were in the parking area down by the office putting our gear inside Pete’s vehicle, when Dick said he was taking off. He also told us, thanks for putting up with him.

Dave who was still busy tying his canoe to his truck when Dick left came over to us his afterwards and asked where Dick was. Dave asked us if Dick said anything so I told him what Dick told us before driving away.

Pete and I started driving down the road at 1000 am. Its 150 miles down the road from Armstrong to Highway 11/17. (Thunder Bay)

Pete hadn’t put anymore gas in his vehicle after we filled up in Grand Marais. He said during the canoe trip he didn’t think he would need any gas until we crossed the border.

Well, Pete became concerned that we might not even make it back to Thunder Bay. I looked at the fuel gauge and we had been driving on empty for some time. Luckily, Dave caught up with us and he didn’t pass us by. Pete did put on his flashers a couple times.

I really wasn’t too happy about this situation. I really wouldn’t have liked it if he had run out of gas. There are no gas stations until Thunder Bay, but luckily Dave was there if we had run out of gas.

We made it to the first gas station that we saw so we pulled in. There was no diesel for Dave’s truck and he was wondering what was going on with Pete putting on his flashers.

It was Sunday, but Dave wanted to see if the Wilderness Store in town was open. We followed Dave to the store, but it was closed. Dave then followed us to a Tim Horton’s where I filled up my Thermos with coffee and bought some muffins and bagels. I needed some meat so we drove a block away to the Dairy Queen where I got a double hamburger and a large fries. Dave bought a meal also. Prior to going inside Pete said he was no longer hungry. After Pete stopped smoking during the trip he said he was going to quit for good. He told us that several times.

While Dave and I were sitting waiting for our meal Dave asked me where Pete was. I told Dave that Pete said he was no longer hungry, but when Dave and I looked toward Pete’s vehicle he was standing to the back of it smoking. Once Pete was done smoking he came in for something to eat.

I got home at 0645 pm (Central), but it was 0745 pm (Eastern).

Chuck Ryan

Wabakimi Trip Report Coming Soon!

2008-09-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

This is what the photo above should look like that has the title of my blog. I wasn't paying attention when I uploaded because it cut off the right side of the photo. I'll have to work on it later.

This is where I will post my 2008 Wabakimi trip report and photo's when it's finished. I was one of four paddlers who met over the internet on another canoe forum and decided to paddle Wabakimi. This trip lasted 15 days from Sunday, 08-10-08 to Sunday, 08-24-08.

Chuck Ryan

http://www.ciicanoe.com/