The first thing we noticed about the water was how incredibly tea-stained it was. The brownish colour of the water is caused by tannins from decaying organic matter. While it may be aesthetically unappealing and a little unnerving to drink brown-coloured water, even after filtering, it causes no health issues and can be safely drunk once filtered.

We were lucky to have very little wind as we made our way south on Duke Lake. We saw another canoe ashore at the campsite on the western side about halfway through the lake. It would be the only other canoeist we would encounter until Cliff Rapids three days later.

We plodded through the rest of Duke and Tenth Lakes taking stock of the fantastic scenery. The East Spanish seemed to have its own character of steep ridges and cliffs adorning both shores. The river flows along a two billion-year-old geological fault line, and as one moves through it and marvels at the high rocky prominences on either side, it soon becomes apparent that it is a special place.

The East Spanish consists of a series of "lakes", counting backward from Tenth Lake to First Lake, which are simply wider parts of the river separated by narrow bits through which the water is forced to squeeze and form fun little swifts between each lake. When we slid into Ninth Lake at 4 pm, we spotted a set of cliffs on the eastern shore and made our way over.

We knew that there were supposed to be some pictographs on a cliff in that vicinity. As we got closer, we were dismayed to see a bunch of white graffiti on the cliff and suspected that some thoughtless idiot might have spray-painted over the pictographs. Luckily, we spotted the pictographs to the right of the paint and they seemed untouched; however, it was troubling to think that some @$%hole with a spray can felt he could "add" to the sacred site with his own inane musings. I have since learned that Ontario Parks is planning to have the graffiti removed, thankfully. An internet search has taught me that the pictographs display a thunderbird, a serpent, and a canoe, though I have no idea how authentic that information may be.

We continued our way south through Ninth Lake which turned out to be one of the nicer lakes at the top of the route. It was a little larger than the others and had large cliffs on its eastern shore.

The swifts into Eighth Lake were fun and we spotted a nice clearing at the campsite immediately to our left. Most of the sites that we had seen up to that point appeared to be rather bushy, particularly the ones on the western side; and in mid-July, we knew the mosquitoes were going to be an issue. This year seemed to be a particularly bad one for mosquitoes. The site was a bit more open than the others and was situated at a nice spot just below the swifts emptying into the lake, so we decided to make camp. It was around 5 pm and we were getting hungry, so we enjoyed a lovely steak and potato dinner over the fire after setting up and having a swim.

By 11 am, the weather became excruciatingly hot -- I'm talking 30+ Celsius type of hot. Dad, a sun junkie, took his shirt off when we were finally treated to a light breeze which provided some much-needed relief.

From Eighth Lake to Third Lake, the route is fairly static in terms of terrain and scenery. We paddled through the small lakes dominated by lofty ridges on both shores. It was very pretty terrain.

The reward for paddling each lake was the fun swift that gave us some acceleration as we spilled into the subsequent lake. After a while, by the time we got to Third Lake, it started to feel like we were getting deja vu. Hadn't we just run that swift? Hadn't we just paddled that lake? Lather, rinse, repeat. Were we in some sort of backcountry version of a Twilight Zone episode? Was the crazy, hot sun playing tricks on our minds? The cycle was finally broken when we actually spotted an unnatural structure in the river ahead of us -- a bridge!

Ok, so we weren't losing it. We moved through Second Lake and came upon Cavana Rapids, which was a gross misnomer on that particular day. A more apt name would have been The Unrunnable Cavana Rock Garden. We immediately realized that we were dealing with very low water levels and were concerned about our ability to run rapids for the rest of the trip.

We waded, lined, and scraped our Esquif Prospecteur down the trickle and made our way into the pool below where we bumped into a young man and his father fishing in a tiny motorized aluminum fishing boat. We chatted a bit and they said that they had come in at the bridge that we had seen earlier. They had a few pike and pickerel on a stringer. As they departed with a bang or two getting their boat up Cavana Rock Garden, Dad and I enjoyed fishing in the pool for a bit where Dad pulled in a nice pike.

We were getting a bit peckish and low on energy. We were also both dying for a swim to cool off. When we got out onto First Lake, we immediately headed for the campsite on the northeastern shore across the lake from the mouth of the Snake River. It was one of the only sites we had seen thus far that had a nice rocky front porch and was high off the water. We ate a couple of wraps and enjoyed jumping into the deep water there to get some cool relief from the relentless heat.

After lunch, we crossed the lake to check out the spot where the Snake River dumps into First Lake. The Snake River connects the West Branch to the East Branch and some West Branch trippers choose to take it to avoid a series of rapids and falls on the lower part of the West Branch before the Forks. The base of rapids and falls is always a good place to cast a line; however, when we got there, our hopes of reeling in a fish diminished. What would normally be a cascading falls over rocks was nearly bone dry. There was barely a trickle of water coming off the Snake River.

A series of casts yielded nothing, so we didn't waste much time. We passed the nice-looking cabin on the western shore and made our way down First Lake, which was the largest and prettiest up to that point. We enjoyed gawking at the massive cliffs on the eastern shore, known as The Rampart.

We had a 2.5 km run of the Kingfisher Swifts before reaching The Forks and we were both dreading the possibility of dragging the boat over rocks the entire way as we had done on the Drive Road Rapids. Luckily, that wasn't the case. In fact, we had enough water to run the vast majority of the swifts. Finally, we got a little taste of what we had come for!

In that section, there were noticeable changes in the river topography. It was considerably more marshy. A few sections had some wonderful sandy bank-erosion on some bends.

As we approached The Forks, it did get shallow in a few spots and we got hung up a couple of times.

Before we knew it, we were at The Forks. I turned to take a shot of the West Branch in anticipation of running it in the not-too-distant future. The flat area on the left of the photo was our first glimpse of the infamous railway line that runs parallel to a large part of the Spanish.

We paddled alongside the tracks for about a half hour and then the river veered to the east away from them.

Just as we moved out of sight from the railway, we heard a train clacking down the tracks from the north. It was quite a noise!

We rounded a bend and on the left bank and I spotted a very large male bear bound from the water onto a sandy spot on the river bank. By the time I was able to hiss the word, "Bear!" to my Dad, it was into the bush and gone. It happened so fast; Dad didn't see it. It made me wonder how many large mammal sightings I have missed on my trips. I simply didn't see them because I was looking in the wrong place and they were gone before I even knew they were there.

Fifteen minutes later we came upon the Upper Athlone Rapids, the first real set of whitewater on the trip thus far. With the West Branch adding volume to the river, there was enough water to run them. We got out on the left bank and scouted. The first set at the top looked to be the most challenging bit. I could spot a technical run that required a bit of needle threading at the outset, followed by a Class II wave train. We knew that this would be one of the more challenging runs of the entire trip and we hadn't really worked our way up to it yet due to low water levels, so we chose to line the canoe down the left bank over the first set.

Getting into the pool at the bottom of that first section, we rounded the bend, paddled out and scouted the last half of the rapids. Again, a little technical, but we found our line and ran them perfectly. What a rush! It felt great to actually run a proper set and gave us some confidence.

Lower Athlone Rapids followed and again we got out to assess. This time, I remembered to take a photo!

We ran the entirety of those and really enjoyed the ride. We decided to celebrate the fact that we just bypassed two 400-meter portages by paddle slapping and having lunch; we stopped at a gravel bar on river-right. We didn't notice it at first, but as we munched on our wraps we spotted half a canoe jammed on a rock across the river from us. We guessed that someone from days gone by wasn't so lucky in getting through the Athlone Rapids.

Over the next hour, we enjoyed running a series of swifts as the river veered west again back toward the rail line. We really understood the appeal of the Spanish and were thoroughly enjoying the scenery and the ride.

Just as the river began running alongside the tracks, we heard that familiar clackety rumble in the distance and knew we were going to be visited by a train. It ran right next to us and the sound was deafening. I took a video, but unfortunately for some unknown reason, the audio didn't work. The train seemed to go on forever; after a little googling, I discovered that the average freight train in Canada is 1.54 km long. Some are as long as 4km!

After the train noisily departed northward, we came to The Flume, a small river that dumps water under a rail bridge into the Spanish from Pogamasing Lake. A 780m portage is there that connects the lake to the river and bypasses Pogamasing Dam. This allows paddlers to loop back north through the West Spanish Forest area to Biscotasing to complete a circuit route -- a trip I plan on doing someday. On that particular hot day in July, there was very little dumping into the river, however.

Immediately, we came upon Railway Rapids, which were simply too bony to run. We lined the canoe down the right-hand side, and stopped to filter more water and have a much-needed swim amongst the rapids.

For the next 15 minutes or so, the river quickly carried us over a series of fun swifts to the "town" of Sheahan. This series included Bridge Rapids, a set that was easily run on the right under a bridge where the rail line crosses the Spanish. The history of the logging industry and the building of the rail bridges is interesting. This link leads to a website with more information:

https://andythomsonbooks.ca/2019/10/25/spanish-river-railway-bridges-1884-and-2019/

Sheahan used to be a thriving rail town called Wye. The history of the town is interesting. The following excerpt is from the site https://www.ghosttowns.com/canada/ontario/sheahan.html

"William Bell Plaunt started a sawmill at a rail locality named Wye on the C.P.R. and renamed the location Sheahan after a doctor from Chapleau, Ontario. The site contained the mill and mill buildings, a few cabins for families, bunkhouses, a post office (Wye P.O. 1929-1942), station, and a small company store. The mill which began operation a few months before the depression clung on for its survival after the crash of October 1929. It managed to continue sawing until the pine was gone. That became apparent by 1940, and production decreased slightly. The mill closed two years later, all moved away. Submitted by: Yvan P.Charbonneau"

Now, it is nothing more than a few summer cabins on the east bank. The first one appeared to be occupied, but the others looked vacant. We paddled past the remnants of a series of log booms and bridges in the middle of the river and a boat cache on the west bank, where there was a second portage up to Pogamasing Lake.

Not long after that, we spotted a very large prominence on the left and knew we were approaching the rail stop of Pogamasing.

Apparently, a small town existed there, as well. Perhaps, it was an extension of Wye, a few kilometers to the north. All that can be viewed from the river now is a sign next to the tracks.

Continuous swifts took us to a couple of vacant campsites on river-left just north of The Splits. They were connected by a trail and we chose to make camp on the lower one due to its easier access to the river. After setting up, we walked up to the first one with our PFDs, waded into the river, and floated down the swifts to our site. It was a fun way to wash off the dirt and sweat of the day.

We made dinner and enjoyed sitting by the fire as the evening retired, thankful that the bugs weren't nearly as bad as the previous evening. We heard a couple of trains just to the west in the evening, but none woke me through the night.; it had been an eventful day with a lot of fun river play and not even a train could have disturbed my slumber.

Below The Splits, the river ran a straight southward trajectory next to a high ridge on the west.

It didn't take long before we could spot the canyon overlooking Cliff Rapids up ahead.

After scouting the drop, we found a line and ran a slightly technical run through them. We bumped and scraped a couple of times, but nothing drastic. It was a fun run followed by a little fishing in the deep pools below the cliffs.

There was a couple staying at the nice site at the base of the rapids. We chatted a bit and they told us that a large group of young people had gone through earlier in the morning before us. That surprised us since we had seen no other canoe trippers since Duke Lake!

Below Cliff Rapids, the river slowed down and was pretty uneventful until we saw a cabin on the right and ran a rapid over a ledge. Below that, it really slowed down and got quite marshy as we entered Spanish Lake by paddling through some weeds.

We stopped at the campsite at the north end of the lake with the intention to filter water and eat something for energy, but the water was so low and muddy, we decided to move on. There was a cabin on both sides of the lake, but they appeared to be vacant. We could see an ATV trail leading to the one on the east shore.

By that time, the many days of heat and humidity were coming to a saturation point. The skies darkened in a hurry and it began to feel like a storm might be brewing. Checking the weather on my sat device, it indeed was predicting some nastiness later in the afternoon.

We got our water and food at the campsite on the right just above Zig Zag Rapids and paddled toward the final and perhaps most technical set on our route.

After scouting from the portage we had quite a discussion on the best line through them. They were a rock garden at the top and very bottom. We finally decided on a line and gave it a go.

Indeed, we grounded to a halt a couple of times at the top of the Zig. Once we finally got through that, we should have eddied out on the left before the Zag, but I got cocky and decided to run it straight through in one go. This led to missing my line over the ledge on the Zag. We hung up on the ledge there and I had to get out of the boat to ease us into the right spot with a strong flow pushing the boat in a direction that I didn't want it to go. I was able to correct it, but I learned a lesson in patience there. Had the water been higher and pushier, that mistake could have had worse consequences.

We ran the rest of the set without issue, but I was a little angry at myself for rushing the run. It was a good teaching moment; however, in my state of mind, I forgot to get a photo of the very beautiful rapids.

We were planning to stay at the next campsite after a couple of swifts and easy rapids below Zig Zag, but, alas, that large group had already claimed it and were setting up their tents. So, we proceeded through Tofflemire Rapids, which were very bony in spots, but were generally an easy run

Arriving at the Knuckle, we saw the last two sites before our take-out and we weren't impressed. They looked bushy, didn't have great water access and didn't look like a good place to ride out a possible storm. Being only 3km from our take-out, we decided to end our trip. (A good decision in the end, because the area got hammered by heavy rain and thunderstorms that evening.)

The Spanish threw one more curve ball at us in the last straight stretch leading up to The Elbow. The river was quite wide there which made the water very low and we had to wade through a number of parts in this section.

It was 5pm when we arrived at our vehicle. Thankfully, Wayne had dropped off our vehicle a day early. He stated that he always did that as policy in case people get through the trip earlier than expected, which was indeed our case. We were very grateful for Wayne's policy; we had paddled 31km that day in extreme humidity. My look says it all here.