Well I had a grand trip with Phil Cotton !!  I found Wabakimi very interesting for sure...not like Quetico.  As far as being lovely it was..but not much change in senery..all the same to me. Q was more beautiful I would say.  Water was low..lots of bog..portages were hard..cleared one with Phil.  Lots of fish.  We are supposed to do a trip the end of July but will I think do the southern part of the park.  Very remote..never saw a soul.

Well..looks like I will be joining Phil Cotton !!!    A perfect way to explore the park !!!

Can't wait !!

Debbie

p.j.(phil) cotton is going to start the season in the northwest part of the park above kenoji and then head east. i wouldn't describe the topography as flat, but would describe it as varied. get a topo and make your own judgment. low water didn't so much put us in the mud, it put us on the  rocks. we did stay on our route and came through in good shape and on schedule, but with longer days on the water. to our advantage, we had great weather. if the weather had been poor, we might have struggled. i have since read snippets from several posts that lead me to think that some had a very tough time of it towards the end of the season. need i say once again, go light.

Well...nothing I can do except wait til we are maybe a week from going to check out the water levels in Wabikimi.  So its flat up there...oh well..fun to see another area of nw ontario besides Quetico and Turtle River area.Have to figure out how to view the photos here so I can see ur Wabikimi photos.  I talked to someone today who was mentioning Mr. Cotton (can't remember his first name ) who is doing his maping etc for Wabikimi. I wonder what route he is taking..might be a good one to take..  If the water level will make the Wabikimi  to hard to ejnoy   (  hard to us .....just don't want to be knee high in mud for very long ) we will do a Quetico trip.  I think we really want to get as remote as possible !!!  and Wabikmi sounds like a place to me.

Debbie

I have pics from my May 2006 Wabakimi trip in my Inuk' photo albums. Feel free to check them out. The part of the Park that I spent most of my trip in was burned years ago, so the scenery was poor from that standpoint. But I do have pics from my fly-in, which show the lay of the land pretty well.

Wabakimi is fairly flat, and often boggy, IMO. Not hilly by any stretch.

Ranger

From what Jd is saying and from my experience traveling in the Q almost exclusively in August I am wondering if you will have any water to get from lake to lake in  Wabakimi that time of year?

We are planning a two week trip to Wabakimi for the last week in July and first week in August 07.
Am doing alot of research for the area..still have to get maps.
We were originally going to paddle down from Quetico into the BWCA..but..wanting remote paddling we have decided to check out Wabakimi.  Of course will get into Quetico a few times this summer and still might venture down to the BW !!   Will keep my eyes on this thread for more info re Wabkakimi and hopefully will be able to contribute to whatever I find !!

Debbie

in posting, my intent was not to dissuade anyone from planning a trip to this area, but to give a heads-up to the conditions you would find in low water conditions in the park like occurred towards the end of the 2006 season. if you are used to well used interlake portages like the bw/q, then you may have found these low water conditions undesirable, or even unmanageable. one solution is to go earlier in the season. the park has a just a fraction of the paddlers that use the bw/q, but does have outpost camps scattered around the lakes. i've said previously that the w reminds me of the q when i was first there in the early '60s, but the comparison is based more on the fact that during that time we rarely saw other paddlers. the portages in the q where in better shape then than in the w in current times. i was frankly surprised at the lack of campsites, or in some cases, a location to gypsy camp. i was using a map that had campsites marked, but i don't think 1 in 10 even existed anymore-completely overgrown. the more traveled areas of the park have more sites. various river systems connect the lakes in the park, so you will have river travel. there are rapids and swifts on these rivers, so it would be up to you. break or lose your gear and there's not likely to be anyone around to help. the topography is similar, but the forest is black spruce with scattered jack pines. some burn over. forget hanging a food pack. i used my souris and was glad i had a rugged and light boat. if you are a whitewater person, consider something else. saw no wolves or woodland caribou, but plenty of the other usual suspects. it's hard to say what is really happening in the park-some say paddling is slowly increasing, while others say decreasing. scheduled back in for 14 day trip-starting gear check. go light.

I just started checking out the park for an exploratory trip in the next year or two. How would you compare the park, waterways, shoreline, topography, campsites and fishing to Quetico? I was told by someone that it is more river then lake canoeing. Are there a lot of rapids and fast water or could you still do it in a Kevlar Minnesota II? Did you see any wolves or Inland Caribou? According to your wildlife sightings does it seem like there is more wildlife then Quetico? I also would be interested in pictures if you are willing to share them. Thanks.

Do you have photos of the trip up online some place we can see? I am real interested to see how the park is as far as topography and rocky and cliff lined shores etc. Thanks for the report.