Day 2: 08-11-08 Monday

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

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

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.