Day 2 - Lookout River to Smoothrock Lake (18 km)
Day 2 - Lookout River to Smoothrock Lake (18 km)
When we awoke in the morning, the sky was still overcast. It appeared to have sprinkled a bit in the night, but not much.
We made our usual first breakfast of warming up pre-cooked eggs and bacon while sipping on coffee and sat for a bit listening to the rapids. It was nice and we were in no hurry.
Wabakimi is infamous for having very dynamic weather that can turn quite quickly. It certainly helped to have a satellite device to do regular weather checks to help plan each day. On that particular day, it was forecasting a sunny afternoon, so we took our time.
As we were packing up, we saw four canoes heading our way from upriver. We greeted them as they portaged through our site and we learned that they were from an American all-female camp and they were on a 20+ day trip. They were heading for the Kopka River. They looked to be in their teens and the counselors were not much older. It was great to see young people out, working well together, and exploring the backcountry on such an ambitious trip. We lent them a hand with their canoes at their put-in, which was dangerously close to the top of the drop.
All maps shown on this page are provided courtesy of Toporama which contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. I have made additional markings to show route information
We soon loaded our canoe, got out on the water and began fishing beneath the rapid next to our site. Immediately, we were having success tapping into pickerel (walleye). It was amazing. We kept one particular larger one.
We almost lost it, though. I had the pickerel on a stringer dangling in the water from the canoe next to me for a bit. As we continued fishing, a massive pike emerged from below and nearly swallowed the thing whole! I literally had to give the pike a smack with my hand from the boat! It let go of my precious pickerel, leaving teeth marks near the pickerel's gills. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Pike or freshwater sharks!? I wasn't sure for a minute.
The pike incident pretty much finished the pickerel off, so I processed it onshore, bagged it, and kept it for our meal that evening. It would be the first of three pickerel meals that we would enjoy on the trip.
We paddled for about a half hour and came to a substantial drop in the river, where we were forced to portage. There was a nice open campsite at the top on the right across from the 185m portage which was across the river on the left.
Twenty minutes later we came to a series of rocky ledges where we also opted to take the 100m portage.
Almost immediately after putting in, we were faced with more whitewater. We debated over this one for a bit. From the top, we could spot a nice line on the left side, but again, we couldn't see the end of the run as it curved to the right. The terrain on the left side of the river made it difficult to scout. The river there also had a bit more push to it and there wasn't really a spot to eddy out that we could spot from where we were. Again, we erred on the side of caution and chose to take the short 38m portage on river right, which had an awkward rocky take-out to negotiate. That set of rapids was very pretty, though!
Within a matter of minutes of paddling downriver, we were scouting yet again; this time standing up from the boat. It was a straightforward C1 that we easily ran. As we emerged from that one, we caught up to the group that got off the train with us. We paddled next to them for a bit until we came to the final obstacle before Spring Lake. For that one, we lined over a shallow, rocky ledge at the top and then had to choose one of a few options to take as the river maneuvered around a series of small islands. We ran the swifts there and then had to descend a final Class 2 drop over a ledge into Spring Lake. Dad got a little moist in the bow seat after hitting the standing wave below the ledge.
We paddled north against the cool north wind on Spring Lake which was pretty in the rocky areas in the south, but a little swampy at its north end. We were alone again since the group we were paddling beside took the portage at the last rapids. We wouldn't see them again for the rest of the trip. There was supposed to be a lodge on the western shore of Spring Lake somewhere, but we couldn't locate it as we paddled past.
We had a little trouble finding the start of the 1083-meter Fantasia portage at first, but eventually spotted a boat cache behind some reeds on the right before the first set of the swifts out of the lake. It was a mucky take-out.
The Fantasia Portage is named as such because it is supposedly the most scenic portage in the north. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it really was a nice walk. It travelled through a spacious forest of pine and spruce, and through a seemingly endless patch of blueberries and bunchberries. It really was pretty and we had our share of blueberries on the return walk for our second load. It felt to me that a forest fire some time ago helped contribute to the spaciousness of the forest there, but I didn't see direct evidence of a burn.
This would be the longest portage of the trip. We couldn't help but notice how much deadfall existed up in the boreal forest compared to the mixed forests further south.
On the portage, we met a second group from the same camp that had portaged through our site that morning. A couple of the girls looked like they were having a tough time carrying a 70lb plastic canoe up the hill from Smoothrock Lake. They were grinding it out, though!
The portage ended at a nice campsite overlooking the bay that received the water from the Lookout River. It was just after 3 PM and we hadn't really had any lunch yet, so we whipped up a couple of peanut butter and honey wraps there.
Putting in and back on the water, we encountered 4 fishing boats from a nearby fly-in fishing lodge on Smoothrock. When we also joined the mix to cast a couple of lines at the base of the rapids where the Lookout dumped into Smoothrock, they didn't seem too pleased, but we didn't care. I don't really understand the attitude that some fly-in fishers have. Just because they've paid to fly into a location doesn't mean they have any more right to be there than anyone else. One might even argue that canoe trippers have earned just as much right to access the fish, maybe even more so, through their hard work and toil to portage into these locations. I find that sense of ownership over the wilderness a little bewildering. In the case of Wabakimi, there is enough wilderness for everyone!
The paddle out of the Lookout River and into Smoothrock Lake went through a narrow channel that had an easy swift to run. We turned to head north up through the narrow south bay and eventually spotted the lodge on the west shore where we assumed the fishermen were staying.
We were facing a stiff headwind, but after about an hour, as the lake widened, the clouds began to pass us by and the wind subsided somewhat.
We continued paddling for another 45 minutes or so and passed a number of islands along the way. Besides the lodge at the south end, we didn't see any other people or structures in this section. It was amazing to paddle through this large, gorgeous undeveloped lake. At this point, we recognized how the lake got its name. Many of the islands and points sported smooth mounds of light coloured granite at the water's edge.
A massive bald eagle watched us for a while from the western shore before spreading its massive wings and soaring across the lake. Its wingspan was easily six feet or more. We saw so many of these majestic creatures on this trip.
As we rounded the corner of a large island that dominated the centre of the lake, a large bay opened up behind it with a small island in the middle. There was supposed to be a site on that tiny island, and since it was about 5 PM, we paddled over to investigate.
The site was fantastic. It was at the northwest tip of the island and sported a 'smoothrock' front porch that was great for swimming. We found flat spots for our tents on blueberry patches. In fact, this occurred on most of our sites on the trip. Many of the sites lack cleared-out tent pads as one might find in a park such as Algonquin.
Most of the clouds were gone by sunset, which ended up being stunningly beautiful. There were some that remained and they had very interesting shapes. Dad and I often play the "What does that cloud look like?" game at sunsets. On some occasions, perhaps that game should not be played.
