The Happy Camper: Canoe Trip in Opasquia, Part Three
It was late afternoon of day seven of our canoe trip in northern Ontario�s remote Opasquia Provincial Park when Andy and I finally slid our canoe into a large lake and joyfully paddled across the great expanse of water. No longer were we hauling our gear and canoe through alder thickets and over fallen jack pine and spruce, helplessly looking for any sign of a possible portage that may have existed a few centuries ago.
Like most lakes in the park, this sizeable one didn�t have a name recorded on our topographical map. It took us over an hour to paddle its full length. The water was dark and murky, with plenty of half-submerged rocks littering the bank. It was probably chock-full of walleye. Why wouldn�t it be? I doubt it gets fishing attention, and the habitat was ripe for those schooling types of fish belonging to the perch family.
The forest around us had burnt in a 2012 fire and you could see how the young lime-green jack pine and spruce had taken over the landscape. The odd tops of the old charred trees were stretching out from the new growth. The view was like an obscure, iconic Group Of Seven painting. It was well beyond their range of characterizing a true Canadian wilderness landscape. Or, was it?
In the distance, we could see a portion of the ancient Opasquia Moraine�the main reason the area was made into a wilderness class provincial park in 1983. The elongated ridge of deposited glacial debris (glacial till) stretches for two kilometres and ascends 100-200 metres above its surrounding landscape. It�s a lobe of land (the highest point is 380 metres above sea level) that doesn�t exist anywhere else in the province. The sides of the moraine mark the raised shoreline of the former Lake Agassiz. Approximately 13,000 years ago this proglacial lake was larger than any other existing lake in the world, covering southeast Manitoba, northwestern Ontario, northern Minnesota, eastern North Dakota and Saskatchewan. The surface area was larger than all of the current Great Lakes combined. It eventually drained Hudson Bay, leaving behind what we now know as Lake Winnipeg, Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Manitoba and Lake of the Woods.
Andy and I eventually headed northwest to where the lake narrowed and flushed into a series of even larger lakes. We soon spotted an old aluminum boat flipped over and stored. It hadn�t been used for a while. We also noticed two contour lines crossing the stream that connected to another lake. Each contour line represented 10 metres of elevation, meaning there were rapids and possibly a mini cascade coming up. There was no sign of a portage leading away from the stored motorboat, so we readied the lining ropes to the bow and stern and crept slowly forward.
The water levels were low and the first set of rapids we came to was a boulder garden with just a trickle of water squeezing its way through. We coached the canoe and gear downstream by lining and wading. The canoe buckled at one point while we slid it over some rocks. This was no place to break our canoe! I heaved the heavy-loaded boat off the rocks and was able to take off the pressure from the haul. Unfortunately, I also managed to wedge my right foot between a pair of submerged rocks. The canoe bent my knee joint in the opposite direction. It hurt like hell! I was lucky to have a doctor back home who supplied me with pain and anti-inflammatory medication before the trip. I would add them to my nightly routine before sleep for the rest of the trip.
Around the next bend was another shallow rapid, this time clogged with debris flushed down during the spring floods. We cleared the way through, tossing logs and sticks downstream, and squeezed the canoe through a narrow gorge.
The third and final drop ended up being indeed, a medium-sized waterfall. A sheer rock face was on the left side, so we checked out the right shore. Once again we had to scout, tag and cut our own trail.
It was getting late in the day and the next lake had no nobs of rock to pitch our tent on. The shoreline was either thick with birch and poplar saplings or burnt fallen jack pine. Just before sunset, we resorted to a flat patch of land covered in every berry bush that grows in the north�blueberry, bunchberry, dogwood berry, partridge berry, sarsaparilla berry, all the berries that bears love to eat. We cut and cleared an area for the tent, had a quick dinner and slept with one eye open and a canister of bear spray stored on both entrances to the tent.
It was a misty morning and a thick dew covered the berry bushes. Breakfast was a quick porridge and instant black coffee. A twenty-minute paddle brought us to our next series of portages. Two motor boats were stored at the take-out, used by a remote fishing lodge, Big Hook Wilderness Camps, located on the nearby Centre Lake. We were beyond thankful to find out that the lodge had maintained both of the portages. They were short, a 200-metre one on the right (marked on the left on our map) and a 375-metre one also on the right. It was pretty much a straightforward task to carry our gear and canoe across, and Andy and I danced a jig every step of the way.
To be continued…
Check out this portion of my Opasquia canoe trip on part five of my video series on my Youtube channel.
