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Message |
paul_hammersten
Member
Post Number: 73
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - 2:32 pm: | 
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Welcome back Ed. There is only one thing almost as good as taking a trip and that is sharing one's voyageur tales with others.!
Thanks!!
Best
Paul |
canoebear
Member
Post Number: 45
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - 6:25 pm: |
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Yo Ed,
Tha place wher Otters play, wer ther eagles
nesten/or soaren bout? |
ed
Moderator
Post Number: 85
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 9:10 am: |
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Otter_Mel:
The trip was supposed to be 1 month. It ended up being 25 days as I had to cut it short.
I am almost embarassed to say why.
Let me start this way. In 40 plus years of canoeing, I have never tipped a loaded canoe until this trip. I have tipped empty canoes and I came close to tipping last year on the Missinaibi, but I rolled myself out and the canoe stayed upright. This year I managed to tip once on the upper Lady Evelyn going upstream through a fast section when I got stuck on a rock and it swung in the current.
(hard paddling upstream, solo).Well it didn't quite tip, again I rolled out, the canoe half filled with water, my paddle, Tilley hat and the dog fell out.I got all of that, including the dog, threw her back into the canoe and got to the shore rocks, a few feet away, to bail it out. So much for that day's excitement.
Later in the trip, I was coming from Scarecrow, planning to go into the Sturgeon. In planning this trip which had gone up through Gamble to Kaa and back down through Barr, Wabun, Sunnywater, Smoothwater etc. Garrett Ephard had sent me some notes on his experiences in the area. I read the notes at the time, then forget to bring them with me. In them he said " don't go down Stull Creek".
Well, March was a long time ago, I had forgotten to bring Garrett's notes.When I got down to Hamlow that day, guess what, I went down Stull Creek to get to the Sturgeon. Why not...Hap's book had a nice description of the route, almost inviting me to go there. It is only 1.5 miles to the Sturgeon. The portages were either 3 miles along a road or 1900m on a rough one through the bush. I just got nicely into Stull Creek when I realized what a Hell Hole it really is. This placid creek has some big chutes on it, meaning many portages around them. The water was roaring down the "creek" and through the chutes. The take outs were all full of deadfalls, meaning you had to get in further upstream and then hack your way in. The put in's were full of alders and other debris. Would you believe 3 plus hours to do that short little distance?
Well, I finally got down this thing and got through the last portage, which incidentally has been extended by some kind person, effectively combining 2 other portages to avoid rapids. A good thing under the circumstances.
At the put in, I cut out a bunch of alders, so I could get to the water, got into my canoe and started back on my journey. Shortly after, I got pushed into a sweeper.This thing grabbed my canoe with it's branches and locked me in it's embrace. After several seconds Misshepezhieu, the River dragon came by and tipped me.....almost upside down and into the water.
Well that was a surprise. I surfaced to see all my gear sailing down the creek. Pepper was making it to shore. This time the canoe was full of water. The only thing left in it was my axe. After, I got it dumped out,I needed to find my gear which was now out of sight.On it's way out to the Sturgeon, for all I knew. And Pepper.... there was no way she was going to get back in there with me. She had decided that it would be better to walk along the shore than get back into that red box. She did that for about the next 20 minutes as I slowly walked down the creek trying to coax her back. Finally she accepted my offers of a ride and I managed to catch up to my packs, which miracuously had all got hung up along the way.
I recovered everything...... well.... almost everything.
I slowly began to realize that some items were missing. It was one of those days when I had 2 topos and the planning map out in my map case and Hap's book with his Stull Creek description open and in a zip lock bag.
They were gone... down the river nowhere to be found.
By now I was zipping down the Sturgeon River with no maps and no guide book.
Duplicates? Never lost a map in my life. Why would I ever need a second set of maps? Now I know why. If you canoe enough, Misshepezhieu will eventually get you in a single moment of carelessness.
My plan had been to go into Solace from Ghoul Lake and then down through the Yorston River and back into the Sturgeon above Upper Goose Falls then the Obabika River to Wawiagama Lake.
Sitting in my tent that night on Ghoul Lake, I began to realize that there was no way I could navigate through convoluted series of lakes comprising Solace PP and over to Bluesucker, down to Yorston, Seagram et al. without some maps or at the very least Hap's guide book.
I reluctantly concluded that my best option was to go down the Sturgeon and hope that Misshepezhieu would be kind and help me to locate all the chutes and falls along the way.
So, I cut my trip short and got back a week earlier than expected.
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ed
Moderator
Post Number: 86
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 9:22 am: |
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Canoebear: I didn't see any eagles about, on this trip.I have seen lot's of them in this area during previous trips, but not this time.
Pepper my companion on this trip is a 15 pound, mouse of a dog, a Jack Russell Terrier.I was a bit concerned that one of them might see her as an easy meal.I kept her in an orange PFD all day long and I have heard that an eagle will not attack something that does not appear to be natural. But maybe that is some kind of myth. |
c_mel
Member
Post Number: 40
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 11:28 am: |
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Great story Ed! I enjoyed reading that.
Pepper is 15 lbs - that's about 10 more than I thought - kidding. You know what they say, "Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog"!
c_mel |
tsm
Member
Post Number: 23
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 3:55 pm: |
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Sounds like quite the adventure Ed.
Thanks for sharing! |
canoebear
Member
Post Number: 48
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 3:25 pm: |
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Yo Ed,
What was yer canoe of choice fer 'tis excursion?
Early bird June trip done cause water levels-up?
How much dog food fer Pepper did ya bring?
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ed
Moderator
Post Number: 88
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 8:27 pm: |
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Canoebear:
I was using a 15 foot Kevlar Bob Special(a Prospector type hull). A Royalex would have been better for the upper Sturgeon with all of it's rapids, but that was not in my original plans. The Bob Special is pretty light and easy to portage. Since I was going to do close to 100 portages on this trip as planned,(only about 75 as it turned out), I thought having a light weight canoe would be useful.
I actually started this trip on May 13th. There was still ice around some of the shorelines of the larger lakes. It froze a few nights and was often around 0ºC in the early morning. It snowed one morning, while going up Lady Evelyn Lake.
The high water levels created a problem going solo upstream. Sometimes I paddled quite hard and got nowhere fast. The real problem was at the put - ins above water falls, like Helen's ,Centre Falls, Frank falls etc. The question in your mind is always... "can I put in here and make it upstream or am I going to go backwards".
Sometimes, I decided to choose a safer spot, further upstream before launching.
But to answer your question... .the early bird trip was done to go out before it got busy rather than for any enjoyment of the higher water levels.
There were not many others out there. I saw one guy on Diamond heading towards Sharp Rock, Some fishermen on Sucker Gut, some of whom were camping, others were from fish camps. While staying on the Island site near Frank's falls 2 canoes passed by and they were heading to Banks Lake to do the Makobe river up to Elk Lake. I think they stayed at Frank's Falls and I passed them the next morning.I didn't see them again on my trip up to Banks and Makobe nor did I see any signs of the portages having been used recently.
I saw some locals camping on Gamble and then Kaa on our long weekend and that was it until I reached Wawiagama Lake and some locals were out fishing there.Oh yes, one logging vehicle driving along beside me as I paddled up the Obabika River and there had been a group go down the Sturgeon before I did. But I didn't actually see them. They left a trail of empty Budweiser cans along the portages, unburned garbage in the fire pits where they stayed,a number of large partially burned logs in several areas where they decided to light fires and they seemed to be dragging their canoes over some of portages along the Sturgeon, as evidenced by the red plastic material found on many rocks along the route.
You asked about dog food.
Pepper eats 80g of dog food/day split between morning and evening meals.I had 20 days worth with me expecting that she would gladly eat my leftovers, which she did. The only meal she turned her nose at was a curried chicken dinner that I had one night.She helped me consume, Pizza, Lasagne and many one pot meals that I had prepared for this trip. Since it was cool out and not having a lot of fur on her, she liked to snooze in the tent, after the days effort , while dinner was being prepared, coming out to get in my face, just as the meal was ready.
Other dog owners will recognize this behaviour.
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Temagami canoe routes & backcountry travel 
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