Day 3, August 22
We were finally packed and away by about 10 am. The skies were threatening with spots of rain. Under Warren’s careful tutelage we ran the fast water below the campsite, and landed on the ledge above Barker Lake. After instruction, we all ran the ledge, all three canoes clunking somewhere on the way down.
Warren and Katrina
L to R: Ken, Jeffrey, Christopher, Alison
Peter and Albert
Afterwards, both novice canoes were happy to see that Warren and Katrina had shipped about as much water as they had. We bailed out and paddled to Barker Island. There we waited to regroup, as the weather looked even more threatening with thunder in the distance. We sprinted across Barker Lake, and relaxed drifting and paddling slowly down Mosquito channel. The rain was still spotting, and the sky was very dark. We greeted another group camped site at the beginning of the channel, and continued, very judiciously, keeping close to shore. However the thunderstorm failed to materialize over us.
We heard and then saw the entrance to Murray Falls and shortly landed at the portage above Mosquito. This was a short portage; even Ken by now thought that portages were not so bad.
However, on arriving at the put-in on Devil Lake, the wind was a howling gale, with white caps crashing in. We decided that we would not make any headway towards the take-out point and that there was danger of swamping.
So we lit a fire at the bottom of Mosquito and cooked the ‘emergency’ hot dogs on sticks. Warren also had his ‘emergency’ soup, brought in case there was (horrors) fish for dinner one night, so he cooked this up on his camp stove. By the time we finished lunch, the wind had dropped and other group from the top of Mosquito arrived, causing congestion at the put-in. We launched and after a 25-minute calm paddle arrived at the take-out, where we took a group photo.
Warren showed his prowess at backing the Caprice and trailer down to the dock and soon we were loaded and off. We stopped in Missinnipe for ice cream all round, and ate these while watching two float planes of Osprey Air taking off (we had flown with them into Paull River in 1996). We phoned Neis Beach to tell everyone of our safe return and to alert them of our arrival for dinner. An hour later we collected our Voyageur certificates at La Ronge and another two hours later we arrived at the cottage at about 5 pm.
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