Coulonge River

Up until late August of 2024, if someone were to ask me why it has taken me so long to try paddling one of Quebec's amazing Three Sisters of the Pontiac -- the Dumoine, Noire, and Coulonge Rivers (only a four-hour drive from my home)-- I would have given them two reasons. 

The first would be that in the past I felt my whitewater skills were simply not up to snuff. Until three years ago when I purchased a T-Formex Esquif Prospecteur, I was predominately a flatwater paddler. I would have portaged past most gurgles or bubbles on the surface of a river for fear of damaging my boat. At the time, with my lightweight kevlar Swift Prospector, I certainly had neither the boat nor the experience to tackle any of the Three Sisters. A seven-day 2021 run down the Mississagi River in my father's kevlar Swift Mattawa made me change my mind and provided me with motivation to buy a boat that is meant for rapids. We had a great trip on the Mississagi, but we ended up portaging, lining, and wading a lot more than necessary and some of those rapids that we carried around looked darn fun to run! By 2024, with river trips like the Spanish, Sturgeon, and Kopka Rivers under my belt, I felt I had more confidence in my abilities to read and run rapids. 

The second reason is that running any one of the Three Sisters requires a lengthy and potentially expensive shuttle. With just my father and I in one boat, we would either have to take two vehicles or dig into our pockets and fork out the shuttle price. 

When my father and I finally decided to give one of the Three Sisters a try, we decided on the Coulonge. There are a variety of opinions on which of the three rivers is the best. Each seems to have its charms. After a bit of online research, we decided on the Coulonge for its good campsites with incredible river scenery and accessibility. Besides, the general opinion online seems to be that it is the easier of the three to start with in terms of difficulty due to the many CI and CII runs. Anything really difficult has a well-established portage around it. 

In Hap Wilson's Rivers of the Upper Ottawa Valley, our primary source of information for the route, the author wrote, "The Coulonge could present itself as the most dangerous...because of difficult chutes that normally require creative running." We felt that comment would not apply to us. We do not possess the type of whitewater skills to attempt getting creative in a big rapid -- certainly not anything that could be deemed a "chute". As mentioned, we are not whitewater junkies, but still learning, and are both very comfortable with not being comfortable running anything that looks iffy. We have never once felt ashamed or 'lesser canoeists' because we have decided to portage. Besides, without a spray deck or float bags, our limit would in all likelihood be drawn at a Class II Technical.

The next consideration was timing. Due to events happening in my life, I only had about a week available to do the trip in the third week of August. This meant that I wouldn't have the time to run the river in its entirety from La Verendrye Park. I thought it would be best to contact some outfitters to get an idea of the price and put-in location. Online research revealed two outfitters that provided shuttle service for the Coulonge -- Aventure Rivière Sauvage and Esprit Whitewater. Well, after two attempts to contact Sauvage and not getting a response, I turned to Esprit. I found that their website had prices listed for shuttles. The prices of the two options that would work within our timeframe were the following at the time: 

Five to Seven Day Put-In

Bryson Lake Bridge of Chutes Gauthiers • 5 Hour Shuttle CA$ 650

Seven to Ten Day Put-In

Meanders • 6 Hour Shuttle CA$ 950

I gave them a call and was told by Jim, the owner, that we could do the trip from the Meanders easily within seven days. Ok, that was good, but at $950 for only two of us, we found it expensive. Also, it would be a long day of travelling from my house to the put-in. From Peterborough to their location in Davidson, just outside of Fort Cloulonge, it was 4 hours. From there, it would be another 6-hour shuttle in Esprit's vehicle to the put-in location at a spot called the Meanders (...or so we thought. More on that on Day 1!) 

We made tentative arrangements with the booking but held off committing to the trip until closer to the date. We did this because we wanted to ensure the water levels and river conditions would make it a good trip. The previous summer, we had abysmally low water levels going down the Kopka River and we did not want a repeat of running our canoe down a boneyard. About a week before our intended put-in date, I called Esprit again and was told that the water levels were unusually high for mid-August. Good news! We booked the trip.