A Through-Paddle from Ely to Atikokan
Rod Franz
After portage into North Bay, we set up camp on island. Everyone pretty exhausted. Estimate of 12 miles and 4 portages: 20 rods, 84 rods, 16 rods, and 30 rods. (A rod is 16.5 feet or 320 rods to the mile).
Everyone eventually falls into a routine--when we get to a portage, the bowman jumps into the water to stop the canoe before it hits the rocks. Everyone out, and grabs a pack and heads down the trail. Last guy picks up the canoe and carries it. Everybody carries at least one pack or a canoe, and this allows us not to walk the portage twice. Because we use the wet foot technique--the canoes are never supposed to touch bottom or land, everybody's feet and legs are wet all of the time. The loose gear--fishing poles, water bottles, paddles and the like are usually the most troublesome because they don't pack up and have to be carried in the hands, or lashed to something else.
We always wore PFDs, although we saw many people who did not. An absolute rule was that if your feet were in the water, the PFD was on. The water at shore was often shallow, but was just as often very deep, and dropped suddenly. In addition, footing was not sound, and a fall in even shallow water could be dangerous because of the rocks and weight on our backs.
Sometimes we could '6-man' instead of a regular portage. This involves leaving everything in the canoe and lifting it through a short shallow area. Still difficult, but still easier and faster than unloading and loading everything. We had to take special care not to damage the canoes in these circumstances.
Usually the bow-man paddles and provides the bulk of the power to the canoe. The stern man steers and provides supplemental power. Typically, the guy in the middle--the 'duffer' rides and rests, although on a few lakes we did three-man paddle to deal with the wind.
The bugs are thick, and there are more kinds of flies than we thought possible: Horse Flies, Black Flies, Common Flies, and then there are the beasts we christened 'triangle flies' because they look like stealth bombers. They like to get into the hair, and suck blood--they are persistent and good at it, and they are also good at avoiding being slapped. We were later told these were deer flies. The good thing is that the bugs don't bother on the water--they are strictly a land phenomenon.
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