We paddled the Maligne from La Croix to Sturgeon in late July. There are many small portages you must make before Sturgeon but none are very long.

Yes, the water flows against you. In fact the watershed divide is well east of the park - so water flows west towards the Rainy River and then up to the Arctic. Anyway, paddling against the flow can be challenging in spots. You may be able to see the riffle areas on your map. You must dig deep, point the canoe straight through, and don't look down for it will appear as though you are really moving fast and there is a tendancy to let up. But when you look to shore you'll see that you are only inching along. These spots are brief however, and they put hair on your chest.

We did a fly-in to La Croix and paddled out to the French Portage in the north-east corner of the park. Our feeling was that we wanted the prevailing winds at our back and felt it was a good trade-off visa-vis going against current flow. Sturgeon is such a beautiful lake that we stayed 2 days. When we left we literally got blown down the lake. It was wonderful and made us feel that paddling up the Maligne was well worth our while.

Posted by Argo on November 20, 2001 at 11:01
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