Day 4 - Helen Falls to Fat Man's Falls
(8 km)
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.
Day 4 - Helen Falls to Fat Man's Falls (8 km)
After waking up and trying some uneventful fishing, we made breakfast and coffee, packed up, had a quick dip and were on the portage up and over Helen Falls by 10 am. From the take-out, the path pretty much went straight up to the high point at the top of the falls. Lactic Acid!
There was a small campsite there. On the way up, it was a bit difficult to follow the path as there seemed to be a few to choose from. Thankfully, the main portage was well-marked with small rock cairns.
From the top of the falls, the trail was a wet, 480-meter rocky scramble over rocks until the put-in, which was precarious at best. There was a bit of a current at the put-in and there were a number of large rocks that required us to perform a balancing act to get the gear into the boat. The river above the falls was very pretty.
Paddling upstream got a little easier the further we moved away from Helen Falls. After about five minutes, the river opened up to another large swampy pond. There, we passed a couple paddling in the opposite direction, the first people we'd seen since the family back at Centre Falls the previous afternoon. As we passed them, the man tossed a water bottle into our canoe and asked us if we could pass it to a group of young campers who were staying on the site at the end of the portage leading into Katherine Lake. Apparently, they had left it on the portage that we were about to take.
The portage was on river-right and was as rocky as the rapids that it was traversing around. Again, the portage seemed considerably longer than the 265-meter measurement on our map. Hap's map stated it at 345 meters which seemed more accurate.
Putting in after the portage, we continued travelling upriver. Once again, we were only on the river for a very short time before we were out and carrying again. There was a campsite on river-left tucked away in some dense trees just before the next portage. The put-in was a bit of a challenge and required us to get out and wade the canoe a bit before we could get to the point of taking out. The Lady Evelyn River is strewn with boulders, and though it creates an amazingly picturesque landscape, it makes getting in and out of the boat challenging.
This portage was shorter and easier than the previous one. At the put-in at the end of the trail was a nice campsite overlooking the south end of Katherine Lake. Indeed, it was occupied by a large group of young paddlers in their twenties. One of the young ladies was grateful when I returned her water bottle to her and offered me some snacks as a thank you, which I politely declined.
We put in and knew now that we had to immediately head down the south branch of the river. We decided to stop for a quick lunch and a swim before doing that, so we paddled west and saw that the next campsite on the south shore was vacant. We pulled ashore with the food barrel and made our daily fix of peanut butter and honey wraps.
We weren't there long before two canoes of MNR wardens paddled around the bend and in front of the site. We greeted one another and they stopped to chat with us. We learned that they were also heading down the south branch of the river to meet up with a cache of thunder boxes that they were planning to install on campsites along the south branch. They looked inside our canoe to see that we complied with having the proper gear and extra paddle. We got into a discussion about why the permit pricing for fees had recently changed. Previously, each person paid a nightly fee for access to camp in the park, but this summer the pricing had changed to $32.50 plus taxes and fees per night per group. This is advantageous for groups of 4 or more but ends up being considerably more expensive for pairs or solo paddlers. To me, this smacked of yet another cash grab at the expense of backcountry paddlers since the majority of paddlers in this area would not be in larger groups. It is discouraging. For example, a solo paddler, doing the trip that we were on, would have to pay nearly $250 after all fees were in. That is ludicrous...but I digress.
After saying goodbye to the wardens, we had a quick dip to cool off and then headed back to the south end of Katherine Lake. We came upon the set of rapids that starts the south branch of the Lady Evelyn just a few minutes to the right of the take-out of the north branch. We were now heading downstream and I toyed with the idea of trying to run some of the easier rapids, however, since we were in a lightweight kevlar canoe that I had just purchased, I was nervous for the health of the bottom of my boat. This first set of rapids was one that I thought we could try.
We got out on river-right and scouted the run. It looked ok and I could see a tongue that looked doable. So, we tried it. I should have consulted Hap's guidebook beforehand though. In it, I would have seen that he had classified this run as a technical one, probably due to the sharp left I needed to make at the very end of the run to avoid getting hung up on some rocks, which was, of course, what happened to us. For my inattentiveness, my boat received a nice little gash -- thankfully no punctures, though. Also, I would have seen that Hap had named this little run as "The Labyrinth". Sheesh -- slow down and read the guidebook!
We were only in the canoe for a couple of minutes before we were at our next obstacle. This one looked a lot more intense than the last, so we got out to portage. Besides, I wanted to get out and check out the bottom of the boat for any serious damage. The river was incredibly bony. The put-in at the end of the portage involved scrambling over a bunch of boulders to gain access to the river. My dad did not approve. I would definitely not want to be doing that on a wet day -- an ankle injury waiting to happen.
As we were putting in, a man and a woman came up behind us. They were in a whitewater canoe that weighed more than ours but was appropriate for the conditions of the river. Little did we know at the time, but they would be our river and camping companions for the rest of the day and evening.
We had a bit of a longer stretch of river to paddle before arriving at the Cabin Falls portage, though when I say longer, it was only about 15 minutes. At that point, the river traveller has a couple of choices. At the top, there was a Class 2 technical run that would have taken us to Hap Wilson's Ecolodge on the west bank of the river. There was a portage on the west bank past these rapids but it was marked as private property. The other option was to take the longer, full 315-meter portage on the east bank, which bypassed all rapids, falls, and the Eco-lodge. Despite the strong urge to go to the eco-lodge and sign Hap's guest book, we opted for the latter. We didn't want to run the risk of damaging our canoe, nor trespassing on the private portage.
The portage we took was not an easy one. It climbed up a large rise to a bluff where there was a dark campsite in the trees. We knew this site existed from the map and might have considered staying there, but it was only mid-afternoon and the site was not appealing at all. There, we ran into the MNR wardens again on their thunderbox replacement run. On the other side of the bluff, the trail descended dramatically down a rocky, boulder-strewn slope to a pool just below the falls. It was definitely a portage that produced Lactic Acid (sorry, last time, I promise!)
At the put-in, the couple from the previous portage caught up to us. They had taken their riverboat through the rapids, investigated the cabin and only needed to do a short, but steep 55-meter portage past the falls. We greeted each other again, then paddled out to take shots of this gorgeous scene. Hap's cabin could be seen at the top left of the falls.
Hap Wilson -- author, artist and adventurer -- is THE source for backcountry canoeing in the Temagami region. His guidebook, Temagami - A Wilderness Paradise contains 25 paddling routes detailing trips throughout the region. He and his wife, Andrea, stay at the Ecolodge during the paddling season and host guests. Clicking on the button below leads to Hap's website and contains more information about the man himself. Had it not been during a global pandemic, Dad and I would have contemplated spending a night at this incredible cabin.
The next hurdle on this extraordinary river run was the fabled Bridal Veil Falls, about a 10-15 minute paddle past Hap's cabin. Again, we took out on river-left and began carrying up over a rise. From there the sound of the falls was loud and clear. We were hoping to be able to stay at the campsite that overlooked the falls, but it was just after 4 pm and we knew the chances of it being vacant were probably slim -- and upon seeing the orange tarp perched on the ledge overlooking the falls, we knew we were right. We did manage to get a couple of nice bird's-eye shots of the falls from that point though.
The descent down to the base of the falls on this portage was crazy. It was a sheer vertical drop down a rock face. A log had been nailed in at the top of the ridge so that portagers could have some footing to move along the edge and over to a better spot to descend. I managed to get the canoe down without mishap -- easy to say with a 42 lb canoe though. A heavy plastic beast of a canoe would make that much more challenging.
The view of the falls from below was sublime.
Paddling downstream from Bridal Veil, the eroded banks of the river were striking. With every new bend in the river, the scenery on this trip only seemed to get more amazing.
At the put-in below Bridal Veil Falls, while we were taking photos, the couple that had been behind us caught up to us yet again. We learned their names, David and Gwyneth. With the site on the Bridal Veil portage taken, the next one available was the one at Fat Man's Falls and that was a 900m portage away still. It was already 5 pm at this point and the four of us were getting a little worried that we would have trouble finding a site. We agreed that if the one on Fat Man's was vacant, we'd share it.
Moving downstream, we paddled for another 15 minutes or so until we heard the sound of moving water and saw a portage on river-left. We'd come to Temptation Alley, described by Hap Wilson as a "canoe-munching Class III". I did not want to take the lightweight Kevlar down that, so we opted for the 900m portage. Thankfully, this walk was more like an Algonquin carry. It was a well-worn path that descended somewhat gently through the woods rather than the mountain climbing we'd been doing earlier on the portages upriver. It was a good thing, too, because by the time we'd finished the double carry and back on the water, it was after 6 pm and we were getting tired and hungry.
Dave and Gwyneth were now ahead of us and paddling toward Fat Man's Falls. They chose the water route through Temptation Alley in their hefty riverboat. I think it must have been a challenging run though because we saw them wading the last rapids as we were dropping off our first load on the 900m portage. It took us about the same time to cover the distance even though we had walked it. We, however, had to go back for our second load. They must have had to stop a lot to scout, or perhaps the river was simply too bony at this time of year and they needed to wade or line the majority of the run. I snapped a quick shot of the tail end of the rapids.
Within five minutes, we arrived at Fat Man's Falls. Luckily, the site was vacant and we could see Dave and Gwyneth setting up camp at the top of the bluff just to the left of the falls. As we were unloading our canoe, Dave came down to say that it was a double site which worked out perfectly. There was a fire pit only about ten feet from the top of the falls, right where the portage through Fat Man's Squeeze was, and ten feet east of that was a clearing for Dad's tent on a bed of pine needles. I found a great spot next to the main portage to hang my hammock.
We got a fire going after we had set up and had some rehydrated pad thai that was quite delicious.
Afterward, as night fell, Dave and Gwyneth joined us at our campfire for some cheer. We learned that they were from Montreal and were out on a 10-day excursion that had taken them through the Yorston and Upper Lady Evelyn Rivers. They were both experienced river runners.
We had a nice evening sharing camping and canoeing stories with Fat Man's Falls just steps from our campfire.
