Day
1; August 20
We
were up early and Alison packed the family’s gear in the waterproof bags
Warren had brought. We transferred
the trailer to the Caprice. We
decided to take only three canoes (Warren’s Mad River Royalex, Brent’s
aluminum Grumman, and Peter’s Mad River Kevlar) to ease the paddling and
particularly the portaging load. All
the baggage was loaded in the Caprice together with Warren and Peter and with
the Linden family in the Windstar we left Emma Lake at 10 am.
The sky
cleared as we drove north, until by La Ronge we were in sunlight. We stopped at
the tourist office in La Ronge to register the group as Voyageurs, then stopped
to fill up (comme d’habitude) at the Mohawk station.
An hour later, after eating some dust, we stopped at Otter Rapids for a
sandwich lunch, then on two more kilometers to the put in dock on Devil Lake
above the rapids.
We were on the water by 2
pm. Warren and Katrina led,
followed by Peter and Albert, with Alison, Ken, Jeffrey and Christopher in
Brent’s canoe.
In
its generally eastward flow, the Churchill River consists largely of a series of
lakes connected by rapids. Between
Burgess Bay, on Hayman Lake, and Devil Lake, the Churchill splits into three
channels, Sluice, Donaldson and Devil. Both Sluice and Devil have
unrunnable waterfalls and rapids. Donaldson channel is runnable at some
times of the year, but the water was too low at the time of our trip. Our
route therefore was to go upstream via Devil and downstream via Sluice.
Portages are in green and campsites in blue.
A head wind made us
work hard crossing the lake until we entered the Little Devil section although
the sun was hot, with the temperature in the high twenties. A short portage around the bottom of Little Devil Rapids
brought us to a pool, where we reloaded, then paddled a few meters to the next
fast water section. Here we met a large family party coming down in four
canoes. After they had passed we
began to walk the canoes up the shallow fast water section. 
Katrina and Warren forged ahead, as did Albert towing Peter’s canoe
with Peter struggling to keep his footing on the boulder strewn river bed.
Ken attempted to keep his pants dry but finally succumbed to walking in
the water.
We boarded the canoes
and paddled about one km to Great Devil Rapids where we had to make a one km
portage. This was a severe culture
shock for the California crew. Ken
wondered why anyone would ever want to do this, and Alison opined that it was
NOT fun. Peter also was struggling,
even with his Kevlar canoe, since this expensive Mad River product had a cheap
flat piece of wood as a yoke, which dug into his trapesius muscles just where
his life jacket had no padding. Warren
of course had swung his Royalex canoe up on his shoulders and bounded off along
the trail, to a rest stop at the mid point.
Peter got to the mid point and returned to the start for a pack and
encountered Ken struggling with Brent’s canoe, being spelled for shorter
spells by Alison. The kids all
pulled their weight on the portage, but also had time to sample the blueberries
along the trail. Eventually the
torture finished, Warren meanwhile recounting how one of his friends thinks
portages are the fun part of the trip.
We had a bit over one km to paddle to the campsite Warren had picked at the top of Donaldson Rapids. This was a very nice campsite, soft underfoot with a good view over Hayman Lake. Alison cooked a delicious taco filling to go in flour tortillas to make burritos.
After everyone had eaten
lots (and recovered) all except Alison, Peter and Christopher went fishing.
Peter’s suggestion of fish for breakfast was universally disapproved, so the
numerous Walleye (Pickerel) and Jack (Northern Pike) caught were released.
Everyone was tired and the party was all in bed soon after 9 pm.