Canoeing, Episode 4

Before I go any further, I need to show you the Beaver River.  After all, we're often talking of the Beaver Valley, and it features a designated canoe route.  The core of the canoe route here is a wide meandering channel through a large Silver Maple Swamp, complete with designated access points and of course the river-side bakery in Heathcote.

The route starts just north of the village of Kimberley, where there's an inconspicuous sign, but this time we put in at the mid-way point, on the Epping Sideroad..

From there it's a pleasant drift downstream, though if you don't paddle the trip will take a long time!  As you ca see by the high water, we're paddling in the spring.

Soon you come to the 'Flower Bridge' where a neighbouring nursery hangs baskets of flowers and keeps them looking good over the summer, though it's too early this year.

At one point a pair of Turkey Vultures watched us from above.

After the village of Heathcote where we stopped to visit the bakery, the pace suddenly picks up quite a bit, and we've got some actual whitewater to contend with, leaving the swam behind.  They were little more than swifts and we enjoyed a faster paddle the rest of the way.

We passed pairs of Canada Geese in several spots.  The nesting pairs sat still and silent but the 'teenagers' flapped away honking madly.

The old low dam at Slabtown was our ending point, but we drifted down 100 yards to where we could easily bring the car close.

This is my two-person canoe, in comparison to the ;pack' cane I've mentioned.  This is an old canoe, rebuilt.  The body is original, but the gunwales and thwarts are all new, as is the colour, in a mix of ash, cherry and walnut.

The Spanish

The second river I joined my friends for was the Spanish.  The Spanish River is known as one of the best introductory rivers for those wanting to learn whitewater canoeing.  It's easily accessible, safe and definitely adventurous!  The river flows from north to south ending just west of Espanola, on the north shore of Lake Huron, west of Sudbury.  You can access the river at various points; we had a canoe rental outfit drive us north so we ended up with a five or six day paddle.

The river features lots of swifts, class I and class II rapids, as well as some class III (those might be wise to portage around if you're a beginner!).  I was lucky, I was in a group with at least six experienced whitewater paddlers.  They looked after me, gave me advice, and taught me how to watch for the rocks, follow the 'Vs'.  On easy whitewater you can make fast progress, and we did.

We took a detour onto Biscotasi Lake, one of the spots in northern Ontario tied by legend to Grey Owl.  Archie Belaney was an Englishman who came to Canada in 1906.  Fascinated by stories of the 'Indians' of North America as a child, he headed for Temagami in northern Ontario, and eventually made contact with a local group of Ojibwe.  He developed a life as a woodsman, trapper and guide, and many years later took on the personality of Grey Owl, claiming native ancestry.  In this guise he became a popular speaker and writer.  He spent part of his life in the region of the Spanish River.

I remember our trip as an exciting run down through a lot of gentle whitewater, learning fast how to handle it.  The days were long though; our leader had an idea of how far we'd go each day and I remember clearly complaining to my canoe mate 'how far does he want us to go anyway', after we had paddled 36 km. one day.  A great river for sure!