William

 Today is William's birthday.

He would have been 49.  We love him every day.

The French River Part III

 Dalles Rapid Is a serious bit of whitewater that canoeists would plan to portage, especially when there's a wide open area of bedrock to portage over, a relic of the lumbering days when they ran logs through this area.  We weren't going further downstream so we just had lunch and enjoyed ourselves for a couple of hours.

I got down really low on the shore and tried for the view a canoeist would have.  Looked pretty terrifying to me!

In fact there was a grave marker for Doug Smoot, who drowned when his motorboat got sucked in, and he wasn't wearing a life jacket.

It couldn't be a more typical place for pine trees and granite!

I did stop briefly for a picture of the old 'Alligator' boiler.  'Alligators' were steam-powered barges that pulled the logs rafts.

It was a long paddle back home, but we made it after an interesting day on the water.

That evening was a beautiful sunset.

And the next morning a beautiful sunrise.  And with that I headed home, and our winter revisiting of my canoe trips is over.  Hope you enjoyed it!

The French River Part II

 We decided just to explore around the lodge on day two, after the long drive plus a long paddle to get there on day one.  The lodge is surrounded by several very narrow bedrock channels, providing great things to see.

At this narrow gap in the bedrock you could literally hit the rock on both sides with your paddle.  The whiter rocks are evidence of a higher water flow; we were there in September.

Some gorgeously coloured maple leaves on small saplings.

And look at the fold in this bedrock!

I wandered a trail behind the lodge and found plenty of mushrooms, including these Death Angels, deadly poisonous.

You could see where vegetation was protected by the winter snowpack.  These White Pine branches spread out over the ground, suggesting protective snow cover about a foot deep.

On the next day we figured we'd better have a longer paddle, so we headed southward to find Dalles Rapid.  The White Pine were tall, with their branches all blown one direction.

At one stop we found a collection of shells on the rock, evidence of otters feeding.

Then we got to the rapids.  We stopped to explore, roaming over the bedrock.  This is probably a Class III rapid, certainly not anything any of us would be comfortable running!

The French River, Episode 11

 The French River is a trip we took (for the third time) just 6 months before I became paralyzed, so I have lots of photos from that trip.  I can also tell you about the original trip Thr French is set in granite and pine country, and features long narrow channels carved out of the bedrock.  It's a key part of the original fur trade route followed by the voyageurs starting in the 1600s.

Here's one of the first channels you come to, granite rocks covered in pine trees providing your scenery.

If you're headed west, out toward the outer delta, you would start at Hartley Bay Marina, located some distance south of Sudbury.  As you can see lots of people start here.  There are few cottages, most of the area is now a provincial park, but it's popular for fishing.

On our final trip we opted to avoid portages and whitewater, and stayed at an old fishing lodge, approached down one of these bedrock channels.

I could just stop paddling and coast for hours, absorbing the classic northern Ontario scenery.

The French River Lodge is a typical northern Ontario fishing lodge, with one large building, but several smaller cabins.  We rented a smaller cabin for five days, planning to paddle out and back in each day.

The old boathouse/workshop was a treasure trove of everything you might need for fishing and fishing boats.

On the second day we set out to do a little very local exploring, as the lodge was very close to some interesting bedrock channels.  More on Tuesday.

The Original French River Trip

The original French River trip went mush further than this one, paddling down one long narrow bedrock channel after another, following what we thought was the probable route of the voyageurs.  We had a provincial historian on that trip, so we learned a lot about the fur trade.  Eventually we came to the outer delta.

It was here we were told, that the voyageurs had a large campsite, just before they headed out into the open waters of Georgian Bay.  We got out of the canoes and wandered for an hour.  We thought we found the location of the site, but no artifacts.  In another location there's a short rail track for hauling larger boats up the slope.

We explored along the shore heading east to look for an alternate channel to return.  There we ended up among the 'Fingerboards', short narrow ridges of bedrock, as short as a few feet long and one foot wide, just rising above the water.  It was fascinating!  This is where I borrowed a one=person canoe and went for a paddle.  That settled it; I was getting one of these for myself!

This was by far my favourite trip of the ten I did with my friends.  I think it was a combination of several things.  By this point, after several trips, I knew what I was doing (mostly).  It was a landscape embedded in history.  And it featured that classic northern scenery, bedrock and pines.  I'd go again in a snap!

The Beaver River, Again - Episode 10

We've visited the Beaver River before, several posts back, but here's another route higher upstream that's very interesting too.  It meanders slowly through a huge Silver Maple Swamp, dodging logjams and encountering wildlife.  It was the closest easy paddle to our previous home.  And it was a designated canoe route, with safe access points.

The reflections were striking in early spring or 2015, the leaves just emerging.

I really like this picture, showing what paddling through a swamp is like.

These are the sorts of logjams you encounter.  In this case we were able to slip through by ducking under some branches.  Free Spirit Tours runs canoe trips on the Beaver River, so they make sure logjams aren't completely blocking the river.

We saw occasional Canada Geese; if they didn't call and fly quickly away you knew a nest was nearby.

We also passed one beaver lodge.

And surprisingly saw several Egrets.  Can you spot it?

After an hour or so, the scenery opened up and forest cover was a little less dense.

Double-crested Cormorants roosting in a tree.

You could spot ice damage on the lower trunks of nearby trees.

And another Egret standing along the shore.

In fact, as we approached the bridge and the take-out point, I counted four Egrets together on the bank.  This is a very peaceful and easy three hour paddle, but quite interesting at the same time, particularly if you combine it with the lower section which I've already described.

The Burnside River

The most distant and challenging canoe trip I joined my group of buddies on was the Burnside in the Arctic.  The Burnside is a typical Arctic River, well beyond the tree  line, bouncing down a constant gradient providing almost continuous Class I, II and III rapids.  There are very few portages, but one giant one, six kilometres long, over a significant hill!  It's been described as the 'Burnside Death March'!

We flew in from Yellowknife heading over 400 km. northeast until we could land on a lake that wasn't still frozen solid - Kathawachaga Lake.  From there it was just bouncing downstream until we came to the killer portage around the Burnside Falls, to emerge at Bathurst Inlet, a tiny hamlet with access to the Arctic Ocean.

The Burnside is known as a wildlife river, with guided expeditions speaking of Muskox, Grizzlies, Wolf and other species, but we saw few of these - only a grizzly at a great distance as we started the portage.  However, we did pass a narrow point of the river where the local Caribou herd migrated.  With Inuit hunting at that point we did find a significant pile of Caribou antlers and bones.

The paddling was great. the current was so constant that we really didn't have to paddle for momentum, rather we had to paddle to avoid boulders!  So it was often the bow person's job to be on the lookout and pull the canoe sideways with a draw stroke or two!  I was kept on my toes, but enjoyed it immensely.  I won't describe the 'portage from hell' in detail, suffice it say it was three times as long as any other portage I've done, as well as being uphill in part - a big long hill!

This was the only trip where we took a large tent we christened the 'tundra tunnel'.  It was large enough we could all gather inside, away from the bugs that swarmed around once we stopped to camp.  It got us out of the wind too; the low end helps prevent the tent from being blown away!.  It's the big blue tent in this picture.

We did make it successfully to Bathurst Inlet, to find no-one there, so we set up camp on the airstrip, and waited for pickup and our return flight to Yellowknife.  All in all the most exciting canoeing I'd ever done!

 

The Saugeen River Again

As I've said, the Saugeen is a popular river for canoeing in these parts.  The Conservation Authority has arranged access points up and down the river, with good maps posted and available online, so it's easy to access the water and plan your outing.  I haven't seen any other river where canoeing is promoted so well.

This time we're paddling the main Saugeen, a little further up the watershed, starting east of Hanover and finishing some distance downstream from Walkerton.  

For the most part it's an easy-going river, and the paddling was pleasant.

We went under several old railway bridges, this one from the Wellington Grey and Bruce Railway, built in the 1870s but long since decommissioned.  The pillars are original but the bridge itself has a new deck, suitable for biking and hiking.

We portaged around the small dam in Hanover, and sat in the shade for lunch.

We went back in a few weeks and started again at Walkerton.  Soon after you come to this tall sweeping sandbank, lining a large bend in the river.  The current speeds up here and you need to be careful going through the only real whitewater you'll encounter.

High on the vertical bank are these homes of bank swallows.

The water is a little choppy here, but you could stand up anywhere if you needed to.

We found a gravel bar for lunch, 

And I found this bright purple Vervain, entangled with the white blossoms of Wild Cucumber.

This is the sort of map that's posted at every access point.  Makes it pretty easy to see where you are.

They're posted at all the access points, with a few parking spaces and a way to get down to the river.  All in all this was an enjoyable paddle, spread over two days.

The North Saugeen

The Saugeen River occupies a widespread drainage basin, with many branches; it drains into Lake Huron.  The North Saugeen is one of the smaller branches, and wilder than most.  It moves through a mostly forested corridor, and is a pretty exciting river to paddle for this area.  We've canoed it three times, and got started on a fourth.  

That 4th trip we didn't get far before one of the canoes got hung up on a logjam and in rescuing things, one of the ladies broke her wrist!  We had to take a GPS reading and head out through the forest to the nearest road, dragging the canoes behind us!  That was a trip to remember!

The route starts at McCullough Lake, at this big culvert.  A good current to carry us onward.

This river has lots of fallen trees leaning over the river, or actually in the water.  You wouldn't think we could get through here, but there was a narrow channel we could use among the branches.

Other parts of the river looked like this, a beautiful easy paddle.

The water was incredibly clear; this is two or three feet deep..

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Along the way we passed several patches of wild Blue Flag, the wild Iris.

But more logjams too!

My favourite was a small patch of Cardinal Flower, its bright red blooms standing out among the green.

On our last paddle here there had been a fairly serious flood earlier that spring.  The entire river channel had been re-arranged, with new gravel bars and places where the canoe could not get through because of shallow water.  We expected to wade in places.

And wade we did, especially in the first kilometre downstream from the lake.  We were out wading about 7 or 8 times, which is really no problem if you are expecting it and plan for it.   You need your bow and stern ropes in this situation, or the canoe is quickly sideways!

In a river like this (or any whitewater river) I should point out the safety issues if your canoe gets sideways.  Even though the water may be only a foot deep, the current may be very strong.  A canoe that gets sideways and flips from the water pressure, especially if it's against a log jam, can get destroyed quickly, or worse still, someone could drown.  In situations like this, having good bow and stern ropes can enable two people to keep the canoe going straight.

Again I'm adding the air photos as at least some of you said you enjoyed them.  McCullough Lake is in the upper right of the first photo, surrounded by cottages.  You can follow the river through a forested corridor down to the concession road.  The same road appears a short ways down on the second photo, and as the river winds its way west you can see where a few houses back onto the river.  It goes under the road again, bending north, then west under a north-south road, where the end point is found.

The Bloodvein River

The Bloodvein River is in far northwestern Ontario, and is an ancient canoe route, in use for millennia, watched over by nearby Indigenous communities.  It is one of very few joint World Heritage Sites in Canada, designated for both its cultural and its natural heritage values.  Notable on the cultural heritage side are numerous Ojibwe pictographs.  The entire area is traditional Anishinaabe territory, largely occupied by two provincial parks, Woodland Caribou Park on the Ontario side and Atikaki Park in Manitoba.

Getting there involved a flight, then a long drive to get to the put in point west of Red lake Ontario.  This was a spectacular trip, two weeks long, with lots of white water.  For me it was good practice putting to use the skills I had learned on previous trips.  One of our group could only come for one week, so was flown in to join us in a small float plane for week two.  Talk about dedication!

What I remember are the pictographs, a sample shown above. and realizing that you were camped on spots that had been used for perhaps 6000 years!  It really made you feel part of both the landscape and the culture.