Trip Report: Wabakimi Provincial Park – May 20-27, 2006

Prologue:

I participated in a Wabakimi Park project this spring. The project is being coordinated and led by a man named Phil, from Thunder Bay, who is a retired teacher and outfitter himself. The reason for, or objective of, the project is as follows: the first Management Plan for Wabakimi and Kopka Provincial Parks is underway; however, Ontario Parks has very little information in its database about routes in the Park(s). Phil’s goal in leading these trips is to acquire accurate, first hand information about the routes (i.e. portages, waterfalls, pictos, et al.) in the Park(s), including possible access routes from surrounding crown land. This information will then be used to help park planners establish protective mechanisms to preserve these routes and values. Essentially this is “step one” in protecting and preserving canoe routes.

Phil seeks paddling partners to help him explore, develop and document these routes. This is how I got involved. The way the trips work is that Phil spends twelve weeks per year “in the bush” working on this reconnaissance. Every week three new volunteers are flown in, and the preceding three are flown out. I joined Phil on his first trip of 2006. Further, Phil works in conjunction with two area outfitters, which allows him to offer these trips to his volunteers at very favorable costs. So while there is work involved, as you do spend some time clearing portages, it is an opportunity to explore a new Park in a unique way. My main motivation though was that I saw this as a chance to “give something back” in a way. By contributing to this project, my efforts may help preserve canoe routes in this area for future generations. That’s a good feeling.

Here is the short run-down on our trip:

Group – Phil (Thunder Bay), Gil (Thunder Bay), Ryan (Barrie) and myself (Denver).

Weather – Snow and cold the first two days, hot and sunny (mid-80’s) the next three, then rain and clouds the final three days until the plane arrived.

Bugs – The black flies and mosquitoes were both out in good numbers. The black flies more so along the Ogoki River; the mosquitoes were everywhere, although not the worst I’ve ever seen them. Phil thought this was the earliest year he had ever seen hatches in these numbers.

Fishing – We didn’t fish a lot during the early part of the trip. It wasn’t until Friday that we really fished extensively. By then a low front had pretty much shut things down. Plus I suspect that the spawn was still on, based on the cold weather they had in the week or two leading up to our trip. All in all the fishing was poor when we were there.

The following is a brief day-by-day report from my trip journal:

Friday 5/19/06
I was up early on only a few hours sleep, catching the first flight from Denver to Minneapolis. Once at MSP I had a few hours to kill before catching the second leg of my journey, from MSP to Thunder Bay. I didn’t mind the layover, as I thought it would increase the chances of my checked bag making the connection. The plane from MSP to Thunder Bay is an old Saab prop-job; a rackety bastard to be sure. The DeHavilland Beaver was much quieter, by comparison. Once we landed in TB we were herded like cattle into the Customs office to gather our bags. You can imagine my grief when the baggage conveyor stopped and I didn’t have my bag! That’s a nauseating feeling. The handler leaned into the office and asked, “everyone have their bags?!” This was not the way I hoped to start my trip. Apparently, despite being no more than three quarters full, the flight from MSP was “overweight”. So to cut weight, they (Northworst Airlines) simply removed baggage from the hold at random. My only hope was that they would put my bag on the late flight, scheduled to arrive at 11:30pm. Having traveled on NWA before, and being less than optimistic on their abilities, I had Gil drive me to the Wal-Mart in town. Thankfully, I had the foresight (unique to frequent NWA fliers) to pack my essentials in my carry-on, which lessened the potential disaster. I bought some clothes and such as an insurance policy of sorts. As it would turn out, I was finally reunited with my lost bag sometime around 12:30am. The flight was late, of course. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to see it!

Saturday 5/20/06
We used Mattice Lake Outfitters near Armstrong for our flights. We arrived at MLO on Saturday to find that we would not be flying for a few more hours, until the pending storm had passed. The wind was blowing hard out of the north. After leaving breakfast in Armstrong, it started to snow hard. I caught a nap in Phil’s van and we waited it out in the MLO office for a while. As it would turn out, we would not be flying today. The snow flew constantly well into the evening. The MLO staff very graciously gave us cots to sleep on in their office, saving us the three hour drive back to TB, or the spendy motel stay in town.

We were scheduled to meet a Park portage crew on our first day, and would travel with them up the Ogoki River to provide some additional man power in clearing four portages. We figured that they would understand our delay given the weather.

Sunday 5/21/06
The temperature was 25* when we woke at 6:30am. By the time we left breakfast in Armstrong around 8am, the temp was right at 32*. The steps of the diner were covered in a thin coating of frost and snow. Shortly after 9am they told us to bring our gear down, and they started to load the first plane. Phil and Gil flew with Don Elliott, half of the equipment and one canoe. Ryan and I flew with Wendell and the rest of our stuff. Our plane was right behind Phil’s as we circled our intended route and landed on Oliver Lake. Our Moneyeen Lake entry was scratched in favor of Oliver Lake, due to there being no suitable landing areas on Moneyeen.

We landed and made camp across from a fishing outpost cabin. It was cold making camp as a north wind was whipping across the lake. By late afternoon the weather started to break some, still cold, but calmer now. We paddled up to the Moneyeen portage to investigate. The heavy cutting on the portage is done by Mike Henry, the outfitter that owns the outpost camp. He also has two cached boats on the Moneyeen side of the portage. We brushed out the trail, made improvements as necessary, and measured. This portage measured in at 1220m, just past Gil’s eerily close estimate of 1200m.

From there it was back to our camp on Oliver and a quick dinner. No sign of the portage crew, and we were camped on the predetermined meeting site. It was a damn cold night in the bag this night!

Monday 5/22/06
Still no sign of the chainsaw-wielding MNR team. We could only assume that they were delayed by the same weather that cost us our first day. But the weather had broken nice and sunny today, and we were already behind schedule, so we left a note on an obvious branch with some flagging tape and paddled west to the Ogoki River. The first portage of 70m was a dense mess of tangled underbrush. We opted to track our loaded canoes up the south shore of the River.

The second portage featured rapids that eliminated any tracking option. The work involved cutting through log after log that blocked the portage, then lifting those cut sections aside. Often all four of us would have to team up to try and push a fallen tree aside that was too large for cutting. We also made a log bridge over a small creek crossing the trail. This portage took us well into the evening to clear, consuming our entire day. The work was tough and the trail measured in at only 420m – far shorter than we had estimated. Afterwards we paddled across the bay to a site at the start of the next portage and made a quick camp.

Tuesday 5/23/06
I woke up sick today – all the classic symptoms of Giardia. Not fun. I referred to this campsite as “Camp Misery” in my journal. Not only was I miserable, but the site was what one might classify as a “one star”, being in the middle of a giant former burn. I stayed in camp while Ryan, Gil and Phil went ahead to start on this new portage. By lunchtime they returned exhausted. This trail could not be opened with the hand tools that we had. The dead falls were so deep on the trail that they couldn’t even walk without any gear to the River on the other end. Ryan was the only one to completely cross the trail, and he did so by balancing across fallen trees for the final 150m.

We rested under the shade of the tarp, contemplating our situation and our possible choices from there. We also continued to break Phil’s gear. Gil had broken a shovel the previous day, and I had broken a saw blade. Today I broke the other shovel, and Ryan and Gil teamed up to fell a tree onto one of the tents. They were tying a ridgeline for a tarp between two dead trees – remember, we were camped in a burn – when the weaker of the two gave way. I had no sooner thought to myself, “gee, that rope looks awful taught”, when – snap! Phil’s face was priceless. He didn’t even look; he knew full well what had just happened. The tree went right through the rain fly and the tent wall, leaving an 18” tear down the side. Gladly no one was inside at the time. Some duct tape held it together until the end of the trip. Fortunately, that was also the last of the damage done for the trip.

I was miserable all day with the stomach bug. Ryan and Gil paddled across the River for a brief fishing outing in the evening. The good news was that they spotted two people on the portage that we had just cut. We assumed it was the MNR team on our trail. Later that evening Gil and Phil paddled over to conference with them. They had lost two days travel due to the snow, but were planning to press forward into Kenoji Lake the next day.

Wednesday 5/24/06
I woke feeling better today. Whatever the bug was, it passed in 24 hours. Thank God. We had camp broke down by 9:30am and the MNR team arrived at 9:45am. The portage crew was a Native couple, Jonathon and Donna. Work started at 10am and the pace was good out of the gate. Jonathon led the way with the chainsaw. Ryan, Gil or I were always just behind him ready to move the logs he cut. The other guys were next with the brush axes opening the trail. Donna’s role was apparently “juice maker”, as she generally hung around waiting on Jonathon during breaks. As the heat of the day wore on, the pace withered. We all had headaches from the sun and dehydration. Plus the damn black flies and mosquitoes were thick.

We pressed on exhausted through the afternoon. The group was getting more than we bargained for in terms of portage work. The blow down was especially dense as we neared the end of the portage. The trees were laying five to six deep, forming a sprawling log jam that extended in every direction. Finally by 6:30pm we reached the River at the end of the trail. It took us 8.5 hours of constant working to clear a 434m portage. That’s a pace of roughly 51m an hour. Now we had to double carry our gear across.

Once loaded and on the River, it was agreed that we would track up any remaining portages, and return to cut them another day. However shortly after shoving off we ran into problems. I was under the impression that Phil knew what lay ahead, but this was not the case. We reached the first rapid after only a few hundred meters paddling. Phil and Gil followed the MNR team and chanced paddling up the center of the rapid to eddy out behind a mid-channel island. Ryan and I ferried to the inside bend, hoping to shorten our tracking distance. However, a sweeper extending out over the River made tracking impossible, and the shoreline was too overgrown to portage. The MNR team paddled into our eddy and warned us not to try to proceed upstream “it’s too dangerous!” They then turned and paddled back downstream to their campsite from the night before. I don’t think I’ll ever forget yelling across the River to Gil on the other side, waving my hand around my waist, inquiring how deep the water was on that side. He waved his hand above his head! Only mere feet from shore the River was about six feet deep. Phil and Gil soon paddled over to us and we discussed our options. We were all very tired from the days work, and the River gave us no options for passage. We had to paddle back to the portage we just left, and portage our gear back across to make camp again. Back to Camp Misery, which was by now the official name for the site. Dinner dishes weren’t done until after 11:30pm that night.

Thursday 5/25/06
Jonathon planned to attempt to travel upstream again today, cutting portages as needed in order to reach Kenoji. Our group took a vote between two options: A. attempt to forge ahead behind the MNR team to Kenoji, clearing at least two more portages, or B. paddle back to Oliver and base camp the remainder of the trip. The vote was not unanimous, but option B won. I think the group had had enough by this point. Our original itinerary was already shot, and we were worn out from the heavy lifting of the previous three days. Plus we were skeptical that we would even make it to Kenoji, based on the extent of the dead fall in the area and slow pace of our prior work.

With that we broke camp and headed east, back downstream to Oliver. It was a gray day and a steady rain fell all day. We were met by 12-18” waves rolling west as we paddled out onto Oliver. Fortunately, Phil spotted a very nice site only a few km’s east of the river mouth. We made camp and rested under the tarp in the rain. Phil lifted spirits some in the evening with a four course meal.

Friday 5/26/06
Friday broke cloudy and gray. The group had only spent a few minutes fishing all week, so we figured we’d get out and try to catch some walleyes. Ryan and I went fishing in the morning but were held to one small walleye that he jigged up. A slightly larger one was lost at the boat. After lunch we all went out in the canoes to try to fulfill the goal of an evening fish fry. Several hours later none of us had caught anything. Ironically, as Gil and Phil glided their canoe over to ours, a fish swirled right between us. I threw a spinnerbait right into the swirl and caught a small northern pike.

Defeated, we paddled back to camp to start dinner – beef stew. The rain finally stopped though, and the clouds broke revealing a starry night. We stayed up late chatting and looking for the constellations. It was 3am by the time I got into the tent. I always find it tough to turn in on the last night. I find myself looking up at the stars, watching satellites soar overhead, wishing I could get up there more often.

Saturday 5/27/06
Sometime during the early morning hours a substantial flock of geese was heard noisily flying overhead, migrating north for the summer. Shortly thereafter, Gil and Phil believe that a wolf (or wolves) walked right through our camp. They heard an animal immediately outside of their tent, accompanied by what they described as quiet dog-like panting. Whatever the animal was, it had briefly stopped outside of their tent before moving on. Ryan and I slept oblivious to both the geese and apparent wolves.

Saturday morning brought more rain, and the inbound plane was expected to be delayed. We packed up our personal gear and sorted out what of Phil’s would be staying or going. We said our good-byes with Phil before shoving off in the canoes. By 1:15pm we were floating in the middle of Oliver Lake. Sometime around 1:45pm the sound of a floatplane was heard in the distance. Soon Don Elliott was doing his cursory loop of the lake and coming in for his landing.

We quickly paddled over to the plane and tied the canoes off to the floats. The unloading and loading was quick, and we handed over the paddles to trip A2. They remembered the beer, so none of them had to take the long walk off the short float. Soon they were paddling away, and we were taxied down the lake for take-off. The flight back to Mattice Lake was smooth and quick. The Blues, although a tad warm, hit the spot.

We saw a few more bears on the drive home, bringing the trip total to eight bears. The largest was a huge boar that we saw on the way up to Armstrong. Every other bear bolted upon seeing us – not this one. He sat right down and stared at us, which makes for easy picture taking!

Epilogue:
Wabakimi is a vast, wild place. The Park is over two times the size of Quetico, with a fraction of the visitors. There are huge lakes in the Park perfect for sea kayaking, and there are small, intimate waterways perfect for a canoe. Some of the Park was damaged by a burn, especially around Kenoji Lake, so I would try to avoid those areas. Unfortunately, many of the larger lakes also have fly-in lodges on them, along with motor boats. But a determined paddler could always route themselves around those lakes. Very few people paddle Wabakimi. Last year Phil paddled 42 days without seeing another canoe. This year he’s already paddled 44 days without seeing another group. However, that level of solitude makes safety all the more important. You cannot assume that someone is going to come along behind you if you get into trouble. A satellite phone is probably a good idea, as is traveling in a group of at least two. Apparently, there are virtually no Ranger patrols like in Quetico.

There are a few primary routes used by paddlers, and that would be where you might expect to see some other folks. Currently, there are very few drive-in, drive-out options for trips. And there is only one train-in option. So a floatplane flight at least one way is generally a given.

Fishing is limited to walleye and northern pike, with a few lakes housing lake trout. The number of fly-in lodges attests to the fact that the fish are there, you just have to find them. There are no bass in the Park. Most of the lakes are tea-stained, so bright colors will work the best. Leave the naturals and blues and blacks at home.

Overall, I would say that Wabakimi is today what I imagine Quetico was 60 years ago. It’s remote, vast and wild. There are no portage or campsite databases. Both can actually be somewhat difficult to find. And when you arrive at a portage, you have no idea what it will be like. Canoe tripping in Wabakimi is not for the uninitiated! But it’s all there for you to go and explore. Take an adventurous spirit and enjoy the boreal forest!

Photos from this trip can be found in my Inukshuk photo album, under "Wabakimi Park, May 2006". Hope you enjoyed the read!

Ranger

nice report - clear and concise.  guess I'll put Wabakimi on the back burner till I get my own float plane though.

Great report, Ranger.
Part of me says I'd love to join a crew for a week or two like you did. But, the amount of work sounds daunting. Still, I admire the fact that you did it.
Sounds like a wonderful and wild place. Thanks for sharing.

The Beaver

Ranger

Good job on the report,I think it would be nice to do a trip in just to be able to say" I did it back when". I didQuetico "back then" in 1977, wow fun to think back. Wabakimi is on y must do list. thanks for the info.

Cedarboy

I probably should have mentioned that what my group faced re: the amount of portage clearing needed was the exception, not the norm. The fact that we were in the burn, which led to the blow down, made for tough going. Areas outside the burn are generally more passable, and require much less "heavy lifting" so to speak.

The one upside to having to fly into the Park is that there seems to be a lot of floatplanes up there servicing that general area. Your best bet might be to hook up with an outpost cabin operation, and tag along on one of their flights in/out. You could get dropped at one of their cabins, paddle off on your trip, then meet back at the cabin for the flight out. They're generally in there dropping off or picking up a group once a week. I haven't priced this out at all, but it seems like there could be some efficiency there that could save you some money on the flights.

Ranger

Ranger,

I checked out your photos...very nice. I realize it was early spring up there but was still struck by the starkness of the land. Very wild looking.  
How accurate did you find maps as far as portage locations, etc.?

The Beaver

The maps seemed fairly accurate. Portages were generally in the obvious locations - starting in the very back of the bay, etc. They weren't always obvious though, as they're not terribly well traveled. But there were often small markers indicating their presence - a small bit of rope tied to a branch near the water, etc. Caution should be taken when paddling river stretches though. If you missed the portage, the current could prevent any going back. The Ogoki River could be especially dangerous as it is high volume and often deep near shore. Take the photo of the "canoe carnage" (see Inuk' album) below the River as an example!

Ranger

that was a great trip report and kudos for giving your time and energy to such a worthwhile project!!
i took interest in your idea about fly-in to outpost cabin and canoeing from there??
i receive info every spring from Mattice lake outfitters and one of there northern most outpost camps offer's Brook trout fishing where a large river enters northern part of lake.
i've thought about seeing if i could fly -in and paddle up to fish for Brookies and paddle back and fly-out with camp visitors??
sounds like something to pursue??
To many places to go, and not enough time or money to see them all :'( :'(!!

I was involved in this project too, Ranger definitely had one of the toughest routes.  Wabakimi is a great place.  Here is a brief trip report of my trip (June 17-24).
------------
We did not complete our planned route, on Monday we checked out the
route out of the east end of Takeoff Lake where we were supposed to
go. The park super went through there last September. After the
first portage was supposed to be a bog with a creek to paddle in the
middle. All we found was a pond, two puddles, and a grassy meadow.
A beaver dam had broken and that route was now undoable. Storms and
wind were kicking up so we returned to camp. The next day we tried
to explore the west end of Takeoff, but again wind and rain
prevented us from getting there.

Next we headed into the Metig Lakes and began finding abandoned
Native fishing and hunting camps. These were heavily used up into
the 80s based on the types of trash we found (the evolution of the
soda can was found in the dumps). We spent a lot of time cleaning
two of these. We were supposed to be able to track or paddle the
rapids in the area, but we had to portage. Which meant finding the
long snowmobile trails around the swift water and then clearing
them. We saw 5 moose in these lakes, including one that came into
camp on the night of Sweet and Sour Pork and Walleye.

Finally we made it out to big Greenbush lake and during the Friday
night phone call the sat phone batteries died. So they only had our
approximate location and we only had the friday morning scheduled
time for our rendevouz. Saturday was a lot of waiting, but we were
lucky enough to get a glimpse of a woodland caribou just beyond camp
in the edge of the lake. About 3 hours after we expected them the
plane arrived.

We did not cover a lot of ground, but it was a lot of fun and it was
obvious that this park needs Phil and all of the people that are
helping him. I definitely hope to return.

Here is one of my favorite pics.

---

Awesome pic C-Dub!!!!  

One of the best I've seen.  EVER.

Thanks for the great trip report. Brought back memories. I was on the 2005 first trip with Phil exactly a year earlier.  Weather was quite warm, no snow, and the bugs were tolerable. Our trip ended at the same place with about the same results.  Phil must be experiencing deja vu.

Our trip started via train and we worked our way north to the same place just below Kenoji.  To get there we made a long portage from Smoothrock, then went down the Berg River, clearing and measuring portages to the Ogoki River.  There's a beautiful falls where the outflow from Oliver Lake drops into Ogoki.  I think that's the beginning of the Ogoki. Water flow direction gets complicated and it's going to take me a few years to really know. From there it was a clear but hard (for oldsters) portage into Oliver.  From Oliver we headed toward Kenoji, came to a dense blowdown on river right (our left) and opted to track and drag up on the north (our right) side of the river.  From there we made it to within two kilometres of Kenoji by May 24, 2005 and set up camp when it started raining.  We experienced heavy rain but were dry in Phil's 4 person Exp. Timberlines.  Best supper I've had during an all out torrential rain.  Nothing beats a nice big tarp.

Our group of four did not reach an agreement on forward progress but nevertheless turned around on May 26th and went back down river through the rapids we had tracked up. I was quite disappointed to turn around as I was really looking forward to seeing more new country. There's a long story here but I'll condense it to simply say: both canoes swamped.  Phil had the longest swim as he was determined to hold onto our canoe and work it to shore.  Mid May and the water is still fairly cold, so you know Hypothermia was close by. Two of our group elected to fly out from the fishing camp on Oliver Lake, using the sat phone to contact Mr. Elliot for rescue.

Phil and I then spent a day drying out in beautiful weather at that same campsite mentioned by Ranger, across from Moneyeen and the fish camp.  Even enjoyed a beer courtesy of our rescuers from across the lake.  That campsite is a great site in fair weather, too exposed otherwise.  After drying out and regaining our sense of humor Phil and I made our way back up the Berg and across Smoothrock to exit out of Little Caribou a few days later.  Phil related some interesting stories from his London travels. I think you would have been hard-pressed to find two over-50 guys traveling any faster in the hot weather. For Phil this trip had been a loss and he was intent on getting ready for trip #2. On our way out we doused an unattended blazing lunch fire left by fishermen. I didn't think people really still did such idiotic things.  Were they drunk?  After two days of hot dry weather the jack pine it was built next two could easily have caught fire. I helped myself to some of the freshly cooked and excellent breaded fish they had thrown on the rock slope.  It was still warm, but unfortunately gulls got most of it.  (I wasn't too bushed, I only ate the nice full pieces the gulls hadn't been gnawing on). That was the only fish I had on the trip.

Got to laugh about winching down that tree while setting up a taut ridge line.  Phil's Navajo saddle cinch is as tight as you're going to get without a come-along.  I'm using that to stake out my dog team now.  Nice and easy to release too.

Going upstream from our campsite below Kenoji, Phil and I spent considerable time clearing out a portage trail on the south side and we could see the final rapids below Kenoji.  I'm disappointed to hear that section must be blown down again.  I was hoping to head up there this year and reap the benefits of our work.  At any rate my wife and I are starting the 12 hr drive up to Armstrong tomorrow morning, leaving the Wolf River to it's own dryness.  

MNGreen, thanks for the complement on that photo, what an amazing evening.

Shane,  good to see you posting here.  Phil had nothing but good things to say about you.  If I remember correctly the story of your "arrest" the previous winter was pretty funny.  Thanks for posting about your trip.  I hadheard about yit from a number of sources, Phil never mentioned it other than you pulling him out of the river and starting a fire to warm him up.

Have a good trip to Armstrong.