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.