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Day 1: Friday, September 3 8am came and went, along with a possible early morning departure. An early departure would have given us the chance of completing the 2km portage at the end of the first day of paddling, and then immediately finding a campsite and collapsing into it. But Joan and Elaine arrived later than we hoped. So it goes. Once they arrived, we started stuffing stuff into waterproof bags and getting everything ready. Extensive repacking of the food bags was done over and over. I now knew that we were 7. An odd number is a little awkward for canoeing, but we did have one big "freighter" canoe, 18 feet long and very broad. So it would be 3 people in the freighter and 2 people in each of "Mad Rivers". Dad's big Chevrolet Caprice Station wagon was able to seat 8 people in seat belts, so we had room to spare with only 7 people!. Mike's trailer held the canoes and most of the gear.
We were finally on the road at 11:00. No chance of doing the big portage today! Enroute we stopped at the La Ronge Visitor Centre to register. This entitles us to Voyageur Certificates once we complete the trip. They also send in the Mounties if we don't make it out! We also loaded up on the usual gas and snacks at Mohawk. We continued to McKay Lake at km 60, where we unloaded trailer at the campsite dock on Heyer Bay. Peter did the 20 km car shuttle to Missinipe, where Ric Drieger (of Churchill River Canoe Outfitters -CRCO) was going to help with the shuttle. In the meantime, the rest of us loaded up the canoes. Peter and Ric reappeared with the Caprice, along with some advice for the portages! Ric took the Caprice back to Missinipe for safe-keeping and we were finally in the water by 15.30. Joan and Peter in Peter’s red Mad River kevlar canoe, Warren and Karen in Warren’s beige Mad River royalex canoe, and Elaine, Andy and Rick in Chris’ Aluminum "freighter" canoe. Warren decided that it would make the trip more interesting if the novices learned to navigate. Everyone had a map and a compass and no excuse. We paddled out into Heyer Bay in fine style, with Joan and Peter in the lead following a course to the north-west. The other two canoes followed, then changed course, after much discussion and pointing, to the north.
Andy, Rick and Elaine all pointing in different directions. Joan and Peter did not have the courage of their convictions and followed the rest around the point towards the north. After we arrived at the northern shore of Heyer Bay and didn't find any exit, the group got ready to take off in yet another wrong direction. At this point, Warrren decided it was time to help in the navigation, identified our location and we all paddled back south, retracing our steps. We rounded the point and took off in the direction that Peter and Joan had originally intended to go. Once through the narrow outlet from Heyer Bay and into the main part of MacKay Lake life became easier. A pleasant paddle, with nice warm weather with a following wind, took us to the take out in Orton Bay. This was incorrectly located both by the grid reference and on the map, but since Warren had been burned before, he was able to point out the real location of the portage trail. The rest of the group was whistled in. Three years before, on this same trip with Brent, it had taken them over an hour to find. The 440 m portage was easy and in good condition, although a bit of a culture shock for Andy and Karen. Rick found a "rickshaw" that someone had built out of old bicycle bits and plywood and rope. Using it doubled the effort required to complete the portage. The put in was on a narrow arm of Bartlett Lake.
Rick and Andy with Rick's Rickshaw We were running behind schedule (!), and decided to camp on an island about 5 km into Bartlett after having covered a total of 11 km. The tents were halfway up when we were hit by a brief brief hail storm.
Hail hitting the water This soon cleared and Elaine made dinner. She had prepared a whole bunch of personal foil-wrapped meals, made up of ham, potatoes and fresh garden vegetables. There was even a special one made up for Warren with no mushrooms. Delicious. And a good thing we didn't make it to the 2km portage. They were heavy!
Elaine, cooking into the evening. As darkness fell, we stayed up late and were treated to an awesome display of aurora borealis, and even a couple of satellites. |
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Please send all comments to warren.long@shaw.ca Go to: Warren's CanoeingPages Go to: Warren and Sandy's Home Page |
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