A Through-Paddle from Ely to Atikokan
Rod Franz
Day 12 (7/18/02) Day Nine on the water. Batchewaung Bay, Batchewaung
Lake, Nym Lake, Shuttle to Atikokan Base. 4 miles, one portage.
In the morning, the crew of ladies that we saw on Russell Lake came paddling
past. Right after we left the campsite, Rod's canoe hit about his 6th 'Jesus'
rock on this trip. (They are called this because if one stands on them, it
appears as though they are walking on water.) This particular canoe (or perhaps
it was the steersman) seemed to have an affinity for these rocks. This time,
they hit hard, and the rock scraped along the full length of the canoe before
it came to a halt, with the canoe hung up right beneath the rear paddler.
There were some unkind comments made by some of the crew about how this had
to do with the size of the rear of the rear paddler. There was a discussion
involving 'lard' but it had nothing to do with lubricating our way off the
rock. We managed to break free after paddling back and forth and rotating
the canoe a few times.
A few hundred yards more and we saw our sister T214 crew from Ely. They had arrived quite a bit earlier than we had, and told us that the island out on the lake had caught fire the day before, and they got to watch the Canadian Forest Service drop in some smoke jumpers to contain it. After a brief conversation, we paddled on to our final portage--168 rods. This one was placarded with a warning not to leave packs unattended, as the bear (named Humphrey) was known to raid packs that were left unattended. They even had a mug shot of Humphrey posted.
To be honest, I think most of us hoped to see Humphrey--but at a distance. We didn't see him, and we had no problems. It seems worthwhile to note that this portage seemed much shorter than the 168 rods that showed on the map.
At the end of the portage, we left Quetico Provincial Park. The property around Nym lake is privately owned, and there are quite a few houses built on the lake. We had a leisurely paddle across the lake, and after a brief search, found the ranger station where the Atikokan shuttle was to pick us up. Our sister crew arrived about 30 to 40 minutes after we did, and the shuttles arrived a few minutes after that. The trip to Atikokan base took about 20 minutes.
Atikokan is more primitive than Ely in a lot of respects, but the staff was excellent, and very accommodating. The Camp director was Don McDonald. A really nice guy. Our two crews received a fair amount of attention, as 'through paddles' are fairly uncommon. We were told that only 11 crews did it this summer, and 4 of those were from Troop 214.
First item of business was finding our 'off water' clothes, showering, and rediscovering porcelain fixtures. We are all fairly ripe by now, not having had a real shower since leaving Salina. We visited the trading post, had a real meal for supper. There was a brief closing ceremony. The only other crew was a crew from New York whom had gone north out of Atikokan in Voyager Canoes. These are 6 to 8 man canoes weighing on the order of hundreds of pounds each. It sounded as if it had been a different kind of trek.
We got to sleep in bunk beds with real foam mattresses.
Frank recalculated our mileage from the maps, and figured we had completed at least 113 miles. Frank was our interpreter fore the trip. He was great--provided the leadership and advice necessary to do this safely and yet have lots of fun.
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