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94-06-09: Thursday Today was allocated to driving to the Haultain River. We expected the drive to take six or seven hours. Loading up at SED:
Because the springs were shot on Brent's K-car, we loaded 2 canoes on top of Alan's Civic. This was to have consequences... We left SED at 12:46. As we passed through Prince Albert, we stopped and ate a Burger King. Our last meal for the day, it was claimed. We gassed up at the last stop before turning off onto the gravel highway (Yes, a gravel highway. Only in Saskatchewan!) Actually, the gravel road wasn't bad. A half hour later, we passed over the Smoothstone River. Its watershed area is similar in size to the Haultain's, and it was running big. Looked like a really neat river to paddle. When we say that it is in flood, the water level is actually up over its banks in places, and flowing through bushes (and sometimes around trees). The gas station in Pinehouse was closed, but we decided that we should be back by 5:00 pm Sunday anyways. Brent had prepared for just this situation and we had 2 spare jerry cans of gas anyways. We then drove to our put-in site, just North of David rapids (~120 km North of Pinehouse). As soon as we had gotten past Pinehouse, the gravel road changed to something that only large trucks had the clearance to drive on. In the little Civic, we had to stay out of the ruts and drive up on the banks of gravel to avoid ripping the muffler off. Our destination was where another small river crossed under the highway (sic) and flowed into the Haultain. We stopped there, and unloaded. Camping near the road
To our delight, the Haultain river also in flood! This enthusiasim was damped by the number of bugs. Fortunately, I had brought several bug hats along, even though some of the people on this trip said "Don't be rediculous" and ended up borrowing one. Brent and Mike wish to emphasize that they NEVER wore a bug hat this whole trip. I went upstream along our small river, and tried fishing in the rapids just west of camp. It was way too shallow and the water was a wierd red colour, especially the foam. No bites, other than from the flies. We set up tents, and sat around. Everyone had said they weren't hungry, but we ended up eating bagels, cream cheese and a tin of ham anyways. I have yet to see out last meal in civilization be our last meal of the day! This was a meal to remember because of the bugs. It was early enough so that the mosquitoes weren't out yet, but the flies were small and suicidal. In order to eat, you had to lift up the bug hat. Then, you quickly jammed a bit of food in your mouth, including the bugs which had landed on it while it was in transition to your mouth. We found we ate less bugs if we ate running in circles, which we did. Brent and Mike ran in bigger circles than the rest of use... We finally went to bed ~11:00. It was still very light out. In fact, it never really got dark all night. One of the neat things about being this far north |
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