Trip Report

We're back. 3,200 km on the car, a couple of minor bruises and scrapes and lots of video and photos. It was really a tour of northern Ontario which included a 6 day Wabakimi canoe trip. We had planned the canoe trip for about 10 days and had enough food for 12 but ended up, for the second time, using the satellite phone to order an air-lift a little earlier than planned - not because we had completed the route (as we had in 2007), but due to very uncomfortable weather conditions. They changed, of course, right after we left.

One of the really interesting parts of driving to Thunder Bay is that there are two road routes to take and we have always made the driving trip a loop. The only back-tracked parts of the drive are the 240 kms to and from Armstrong and the 100 km or so between Thunder Bay and Nipigon. The outbound leg was on the "southern" route through Sault Ste. Marie which took us to Pancake Bay PP north of the Sault and then Rainbow Falls PP a little west of Shrieber on the north shore of Lake Superior. Both were excellent and we had time for a strenuous hike each day after arriving.

The Beaver dropped us at 8.30am on Burntrock Lake on a sunny and very windy Monday morning. After re-packing the canoe on a small island, the very first paddling was quite demanding - a crossing of a large open stretch of the lake from west to east with a strong north wind which required what I call "tacking" - also known as "quartering" - the waves to avoid broadside exposure. No issues with that and we camped on a beautiful island on the Palisade River after 3 portages. The weather was ideal: sunny and 21 degrees. We baked bread and made a very nice sweet and sour brown rice dinner, swam and then paddled 5 minutes back to a pool below a falls to fish for Pickerel. We caught 3 fish in rather short order: the first was a little too small so we released him; the second was a pike who pretty much swallowed the lure and suffered considerably from the removal of the hooks; the third was a beautiful Pickerel which I had on our fish stringer with the hooks removed. It got away when we tried to untangle the stringer, making us zero for three on the day.

Day 2 was another perfectly clear day and 22 degrees as we camped on a really nice site with a large sloping rock in an un-named lake west of Scragg Lake. A wall of cloud was building in the western sky as we turned in and then it rained in the night. Except for a brief glimpse before bed on day 5, that would the last we would see of the sun until the day we left the park.

Days 3, 4 and 5 were a constant mix of rain and wind with morning lows of 8 or 9 and highs of 11 or 12. Our fancy tarp from Madison worked well, as did the tent, but weather like that takes its toll eventually. We pushed hard on day 4 to make the northwestern tip of Whitewater Lake, one of the large lakes in Wabakimi. We arrived around 8.30pm and found enough dry wood to make tuna helper on the fire. We hunkered down on day 5 at the same site, continued to dry firewood and baked bread and chocolate cake. Just before bed, the sun broke through and it seemed like the nuclear winter was ending. We went to bed feeling optimistic about the rest of the trip, having endured 3 days of cold, wind and wet. The rain then woke us in the middle of the night - again.

Day 6 dawned windy and wet and 8 degrees. We made tea and set out at 8am onto the big lake hoping to warm up by hard paddling. By mid morning, I had floated the idea of an early exit and once this idea had taken hold, it gained a momentum which would not stop. We arrived on Best Island and the fomer home of noted recluse Wendell Beckwith around noon and called for the plane shortly afterward. We had lunch and toured the cabins before meeting the plane at a fishing outpost at 4pm. By that time, it was mostly sunny and had warmed considerably. The Beckwith cabins are fascinating in their design and details. They are, however, falling apart. A tree fell through the roof of the main cabin and a ragged blue tarp now covers it. This site is a fantastic potential restoration project waiting for a sponsor and funding. It is in a remote and inaccessible area (except by air) and time is running out on the life of the buildings. With a corporate sonsor, I can see it now: "Welcome to the Abitibi-Consolidated Wendell Beckwith Cabins on Best Island".

We checked into the Prince Arthur hotel in Thunder Bay at 8.30pm. It is purported to be the nicest hotel in downtown Thunder Bay - and we did not see any which looked any better - but it was quite disapointing. We later learned that the nicest hotel in town is the Valhalla at the airport. Too bad.

We shopped and poked around town before heading up the road 25 minutes to Kakabeka Falls PP, a large, well managed park with excellent hiking and views of the falls. We read the accounts of the strenuous portage around the falls during the fur trading era. The Kaministiquia River was part of the route which connected Lake Superior to Lake of the Woods and the west. Men carried two 90 pound "bales" on each trip and some apparently carried as many as four. We do this stuff for fun now. I can not imagine how demanding this occupation would have been for these voyageurs - no modern insect or water proof clothing or tents , no kevlar canoes and certainly no satellite phones or float planes to call in if the weather turned foul for a couple of days.

The next day, we logged some distance and pushed to Fushimi Lake PP, north of Hearst. It is a small park with many seasonal RV campers with motorized boats and ATV's. It's a nice big lake and is good for fishing, apparently.

Next up was Greenwater PP, outside Cochrane. What a gem this little-used park is. It features excellent hiking and swimming and four different camping loops, each on a clear and deep kettle lake but, according to the staff who do an excellent job maintaining the park, it is at risk of closure due to very low usage levels. The campsites seemed to be about 10 per cent occupied and the two hiking trails we explored were overgrown and showed no signs of use at all. We will write to Ontario Parks to share our impression of the park and recommend perhaps a name change to build interest. If it is still open when we next travel this route, we will stop there for sure.

From Greenwater, we drove to Muskoka, Picton and then home. Good holiday. We love northern Ontario and look forward to returing soon.