Maps provided courtesy of Toporama which contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. I have marked my route in blue and portages in red. 

It rained all night and stopped just after sunrise. The entire area had received a good 12-hour soaking. When I emerged from my hammock at about 6:30 AM, the sun was trying to poke its head through the cloud cover in the east. Come on sun, come out to play! 

Looking at the map and calculating our remaining distance to finish the trip on time, we realized that we could afford to have a short day. After all, it was Day 8 of the trip and we hadn't yet had a rest day. Let's not forget, between the two of us, we had 126 years of wear and tear already on our bodies! We decided it would be a short day to fish and take it at a leisurely pace. Our goal for the day was Neville Lake which was only about a half day's journey away. 

Our first order of business for the morning was to hang up our wet rain gear. Our clothes were fairly ripe by that point of the trip, but getting them dry with the sun still hiding behind clouds might have been washful thinking; everything including the trees, lines, and bug shelter, was still sopping wet. 

Partially for the challenge and partially because the air had a chill to it in the damp morning, I tested my fire-starting skills with soaked wood and eventually got one going which took a bit of work to keep alight. We dried some of our clothes next to it in the copious amounts of smoke from the wet wood. Our rain jackets suddenly turned into smoking jackets. Sorry, that was a really flame joke.  Ouch, I'm not exactly on fire with hilarity but I do flame to please. 

After some coffee and some rehydrated eggs with bacon, we broke camp and got on the water just after 10:30 AM.  I forgot to take a shot of our site from the water as is custom because a foursome in a fishing boat was trolling the lake near our site and greeted us as we were departing the site. After some questions and some exchange of pleasantries, we discovered they were staying at a lodge on an island in the next bay to the north. We snapped a picture of the cabin shortly after as we paddled past.  

It was a pleasant paddle through picturesque Wolf Lake. By the time we reached the north end of the lake, the clouds were beginning to dissipate and the sun was trying to warm things up. We spent some time fishing there for a bit and I was able to reel in a nice pickerel which we kept for lunch. We were looking for another to make a proper meal out of it but didn't have any further luck. Knowing we had some rapids ahead of us, we pulled up to some rocks at the top of the rapids and cleaned our catch before making the run. 

After leaving Wolf Lake, the Somme River threw two rapids at us in quick succession. We fully expected to have to wade through them, much like we had done the day before on the upper Somme. However, the river was deeper and had more water volume below Wolf Lake, and a quick scout revealed that we had a clear run through the narrow channel. It was a fun ride. 

We fished at the base of that first set but only came up with some smallish bass and pike which we returned to the river. We were on the hunt for more pickerel. 

The second set was similar to the first and it was an easy glide through them in the high water conditions.

After paddling through a small pond, we came upon another set of rapids where there was supposed to be a 180-meter portage to bypass them. This set was rockier and wider as it curled around a bend. Again, we had a deep enough channel on the left to run the C1 rapids. We were ecstatic to be able to run all of the rapids between Wolf and Somme Lakes. I snapped a shot of these rapids from the bottom. 

We tried a couple of casts at the bottom of this last set but the river was too shallow to yield pickerel there. 

The river widened below that set and the shallow conditions continued as we paddled into Somme Lake. It was after 2 PM at that point and we were getting hungry. We headed to the campsite on the northeastern shore and trolled along the way in the hopes of adding another fish to our single pickerel that we had ready for lunch. Unfortunately, we only pulled in some pike that were too small for eating. We arrived at the site and pulled our canoe up the steep bank.

It was a large site on a clearing in thick forest. It sported a couple of firepits (oddly, right next to each other?) and looked well-used by fishermen and/or ATVers judging by the metal chairs and other items left there. It was clean, however; there wasn't any garbage left there that we could see. We got a small fire going and cooked our pickerel which we enjoyed with a pasta side dish. It was a nice change of pace from cold wraps of honey and peanut butter, our normal fare. 

We rested at the site for a bit before departing. After getting back into the canoe, we took a picture of it from the water before making our way across Somme Lake. 

The day was growing quite hot and humid with the emergence of the sun. The wind had pick up slightly, but not enough to hamper our paddling efforts. It was a welcome relief from the heat though. 

We paddled across Somme Lake and once again found ourselves re-entering the Somme River. The river was wide and shallow for a little more than a kilometre before it disappeared into a pair of culverts that ushered the flow  of the river under a logging road. 

Peering through the culverts, we could see a drop in the river nearby on the other side. We saw a portage sign at a campsite on the left about 50 meters back from the culverts and a shallow landing area immediately to the right of the culverts. Portages typically exist for a valid reason. Not being able to clearly see the intensity or proximity of the rapids beyond the culvert, we thought it'd be a little reckless to blindly paddle through the culverts without scouting first. Thinking we could just paddle through them was just a pipe dream. Bad pun, I know, but a little humour never hurts the drain. Most paddlers wouldn't feel comfortable paddling through a culvert anyway; apparently, those who like to do so have a real underground following. 

We took out on the right and walked across the top of the culverts on the logging road to meet up with the portage that was on river-left. We said goodbye to the culverts. Sewer later, alligator. 

The rapids were under a canopy of cedars and went over a couple of rocky ledges. They might have been runnable but rocks would definitely be scraped. It was also a decent-sized drop over the final ledge. With the portage being clear and only 100 meters long, we erred on the side of caution and decided to carry past the rapids. 

We put in on a small unnamed lake at the base of those rapids. I turned to take a shot of the final drop over that last ledge behind us. 

The unnamed lake was quite pretty and had a lovely sloping rock face on its eastern shore under a gorgeous cover of pines just beyond where the Somme River dumped into Neville Lake. Sadly, my photo of it didn't turn out. 

There was a C1 rocky drop from that unnamed lake into Neville Lake. At the top of the run, I stood up to scout it from the boat and could spot a clear line through the exposed boulders. It was a fun little ride that we enjoyed.  There wasn't a portage that I noticed to bypass those rapids, but I expected that they would have to be waded or lined in lower water. We got away with only portaging once the entire day! 

We could see an island about 500 meters away near the western shore of the lake. It was supposed to have a campsite on its northern point, so we made our way to it. It was a gem of a site and it took us no time to decide to call it home for the night.  It had a sloping rock face down to the lake and had wonderful views looking west, north, and east. 

As we were setting up camp, most of the clouds blew away and we enjoyed incredible blue skies while the sun edged its way into the western sky. After 48 hours of clouds, grey, and rain, it was a welcome relief to have sun on our faces. 

Unfortuneately, along with the sun and heat, the stable flies joined our party. We each doubled up our socks to deter those b@$&#**$ from ravaging our ankles. 

Realizing I had forgotten to get a shot of the last set of rapids that we ran to enter Neville Lake, I lazily tried to shoot one from our campsite rather than paddle back over and take a proper photo. Without a zoom lens, it was a poor shot, but here it is nonetheless.  

After a swim to wash off, we ate our rehydrated meals while we basked in the glory of the sun with a sip of whiskey. We didn't bother lighting a fire or putting up the bug shelter that night. On Day 8 of a long trip, we welcomed the thought of retiring to bed early and simply did so after sunset and before the mosquito-witching hour.  It was a pleasant evening.