Day 1: 08-10-08 Sunday

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