Day 3 - Rest Day at Chute du Diable  

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. It wasn't a torrential downpour, but it wasn't light either. It was continuing when we awoke, and would continue most of the day. The forecast of a 40-millimetre dump over the day was looking like it would be correct. 

Seeing how far we had come in the first day and a half of the trip, we knew we could afford a rest day and still easily finish the trip in our intended time allotment. With our tarp installment keeping us dry, we just decided to relax and have a rest day. It would not be a whole lot of fun breaking camp and then running the river in a steady rain. The only thing we would need to contend with would be the boredom. 

One way of dealing with that would be to get a fire going and to keep it alive. The night prior, we had amassed a nice stash of wood under the tarp that had not gotten too wet. Likewise, we also had arranged a fire pit on a large slab of rock just at the edge of the tarp which would give both the fire and us protection from the drizzly onslaught. I had a good fire going ready to cook breakfast before Dad even emerged from his tent. 

It would be our little project keeping that fire alive and going for the day. A combination of the unceasing rain and mist from the falls only a stone's throw away made for a very damp chill in the air. Sitting next to that fire not only kept us busy but kept us warm and cozy. Furthermore, it dried out our damp clothes which we hung on the ridge line in the smoke above it. 

During the day, we alleviated the issue of boredom and restlessness in a few different ways. In addition to reading our books next to the fire, we put on our rain gear and wandered about the banks of the falls and explored the area. 

There were a number of large logs that were strewn about the right bank next to the falls. The falls were not a centre drop down the river but on a curved bend which meant that any log floating down the river would likely slam up on the right bank as it sped toward the drop. This left a lot of great firewood as it sat exposed to the sun on the rocks. We took our saw down and cut off the branches of these logs which made for great burning. Even in that heavy rain, it was dry inside and burned nicely when applied to the fire. 

Logging occurred in the area around the Coulonge River; spring log drives started in the early 1800s and continued right up until the 1980s! To get the logs past the formidable drop at Coulonge Falls where the river dumps into the Ottawa River, a 3,000-foot-long chute was constructed. Wow, that must have been quite a construction project at the time! This chute allowed the logs to reach George Bryson's sawmill at Fort Coulonge. 

What we found at our location at Chute du Diable was a bunch of rebar sticking out of the rocks on the right bank. These iron rods were the remnants of a deflection wall built to accommodate the log drive. During the spring drive, logs would come careening into this wall and bounce back down the falls and downriver rather than getting hung up on the banks like the logs in the photo above. The walls themselves were long gone, but the iron rods forced into the rock to support the walls remained. 

We tried to imagine what the falls looked like with a thick wall built on the right bank. 

Another interesting feature on the rocks of the right bank of Chute Du Diable was the striped colouration of the rocks. Geologist, I am not, but I guessed that since the colouration marks also had a bit of striation to them, the colouring was likely formed by many years of water erosion. Or perhaps it was a metamorphic or igneous process causing the layering. If any more knowledgeable person than me reads this and would like to chime in, kindly do so using the form at the bottom of the page. 

Some people might accuse me of being too preoccupied with stripes. They would probably tell me to broaden my horizons. They might be right, because I do dream in black in white. I mean, I once even pitched a movie script about barcodes to producers in Hollywood. They responded uninterested saying that it would be too boring. I wrote back again telling them to read the script again, only this time to read between the lines. 

Anyway...

We poked about the area a little more and guess what? Our friends from NASA or the SSCWP were at it again...

Ok, the first time we saw that 'rocketship' image at Chute Gauthier, it was a little comical. To see it again near our campsite at the next major drop in the river at Chute du Diable was just weird and creepy. 

I scoured the woods around us nervously and went back to my hammock to retrieve my canister of bear spray. I pulled out the safety clip and kept it ready on hand. Then, Dad and I set up a perimeter of knee-high trip wire surrounding our camp. We attached some old discarded cans of food and beer to the wire so they would clang together in alarm should anyone come in contact with our early warning detection system. Then, we positioned ourselves back-to-back so that we had a 360-degree line of sight of our periphery. There, we sat out the remainder of the day, eyes agape and on the lookout for the phallus-obsessed deviant who was obviously biding his time to come charging out of the forest in attack mode. 

Ok...we didn't do any of that, but one has to admit that it is a little...oh, let's just say...'odd' for a person of ANY age to devote that much time and energy to creating that kind of 'rock art' at two waterfalls in a row on a canoe trip. I mean, would we see this at every portage on the trip? Sweet Jesus! The bigger question is why that person felt the need to express their creativity in such a way. I mean, I could speculate here but I'll spare anyone reading this and won't.  

We took a few more photos of the beautiful Chute du Diable. 

By late in the afternoon, the rain was still continuing and our friends in the cabin across the river had had enough of the weather it seemed, because they departed. 

We took turns walking down to the end of the portage where the put-in was off a ledge into deep water. It was a fantastic place to take a swim and clean up. We each did so despite the cool, damp air and rain. I do not have photos of this because I do wish to maintain some readership for this blog. Pictures of 'well-seasoned' canoe trippers taking a dip to wash off the grime may not meet that objective. 

On Dad's return trip from the river, he discovered an old plank from days gone by in the woods at the campsite next to the put-in. When placed just so above the fire, it served as an excellent little cover for the fire when the rain came on strong.