Whitemouth River by canoe or how golf is of no interest

I'm home safe and sound after a four day tour by canoe down the Whitemouth River. I don't think I've done anything so physically challenging since the Polar Bear run.

Daryl was my host and I haven't been out to camp with him for many years so it was a great opportunity to ground that part of our friendship again in new country to both of us.

The River is obviously a small one and at it's head waters it's a drain through a marsh. The marsh and low land travel seemed interminable. We did not bring a topographical map with us. Instead we relied on others experience and a 30 year old annotated map by respected illustrator Real Berard. Mr. Berard's maps are filled with wonderful lore of the area. Even thirty years after the map was first published it was very accurate in describing the difficult sections.

However, the map is not to scale and that, combined with not having any other reference, made the time and progress lines challenging to follow. We also had widely differing input from others on the length and difficulty of this section of the river.


Here we are about to put in just below Whitemouth lake. The river was not high, but with any less water our progress would have been very much slower and any more and we would have run significantly more risk of getting into trouble in one way or another with the blockages, rocks and current.







We expected the head waters to be all about the low lying marsh lands and dominion of the beaver. We were right. Travel through this marsh was a long and switch back filled journey. The map intimated that a sighting of a nesting pair of Canada geese was a rare event. We saw hundreds of gosling along with the owls and snapping turtles that feast on them. The call of concerned parents were with us almost constantly as it was us that was the rare species in that part of the country.







The day was stellar. The weather was as close to perfect as we could have hoped for and best of all there were very few biting insects. A fine day to be alive.






Bear scat outside my tent at our first camp site. We passed one young black bear while we were on the water.







Another sweeper and a pack of wolves. As we came around another of the thousand bends in the river this day, we interrupted a pack of wolves crossing this tangle of river debris. We watched as two adults crossed and a juvenile turned back after spotting us. The members that had already crossed were reluctant to flee and leave the juvenile behind. One adult came back to stand back up on the crossing broad side to us when we were very close. An unusual and spectacular look at wolves in their element. I'm sorry I didn't get any decent images of them to share, but the images in my mind are treasured. There are four wolves in this shot on the left, but only one is even a little bit clearly pictured. Great camo.







Even more marsh and a bit of willow







The first three days of this trip were arduous to say the least. We had four portages and countless places where we had to be out balancing on precarious footing with strong current flowing around us as we hauled the fully loaded canoe over obstacles blocking our way. One of the pleasures of getting home was to have dry feet again. I went until late on day two without getting thoroughly wet though.

If there was a likely spot to punch the durable plastic canoe through the tangle we pulled hard and rammed the bow over and through. More often than not we would hang up and I would jump out of the bow and haul the canoe forward then Daryl would get out and we would pull the canoe through. I would then walk the gunnels on all fours or scramble across the packs back to the bow and then Daryl would push off and we'd be on our way again. I should have counted the number of times we did this. My legs say many more than I had trained for.

Although the area was crammed with beavers, we encountered no dams. We sure did evoke our share of slapping beaver tails though. On the first night, one climbed the bank at Daryl's feet, later on in the evening, and hurled itself back into the water with as much of a splash as it could muster. Both of us nearly jumped out of our skin after the silence of the night being broken so completely.







Shallow rocks and sweepers through the forest. One of the portage points.







Our day two camp site cut out of the hazel nut thicket - tent up, fire lit. Both of us were a bit taken aback by how little linear progress we had made up to this point. It wasn't like we didn't feel like we weren't working hard enough. We had scheduled an extra day on Monday in case we were a little late, but by the end of day two we were not a quarter of the way back to my car by the #1 highway. We paddled enough hours that neither of us wanted to go any farther and although we began hunting for camping spots early, we were stuck hacking out a spot in a hazel nut stand to make our dinner and rest.







Camp fire with dinner simmering - Pea soup, some fine cold smoked sausage, medium gouda, banock, a sip of rye and all was right with the world. The sounds of the forest were on display at night. With little or no wind, the critters were all visible to the ears. We awoke to a sprinkle of rain so we went back to bed for a half hour as it passed. Listening with my eyes and seeing with my ears... What a fantastically remote area. We saw and heard very little evidence of human activity until late on day three.







A big spruce sweeper where I had visions of my evisceration as I passed under it on my back, pinned to the canoe luggage.







A big upturned tree root in the river of which there were many. Between the bank erosion, beaver cuts and the fact that the river was often not as wide as the trees were tall, there was a lot of litter blocking our way until St. Labre creek joined the Whitemouth.







The river opening up in the last hour and a half of paddling on day three. After St. Labre creek added it's volume to the Whitemouth flow, the Whitemouth became a different river. It opened up into an idyllic and much more dedicated north bound route. I made a big mistake in not checking the fishing season dates and didn't even bring gear thinking the season didn't open until the long weekend in May. I would have loved to feast on the fruits of this river.







The third night camp was pleasant enough, but by that time we were beginning to see some cottage access to the river.

Given that we had been so wrong in our estimates of time and distance early in the trip, we were up and at it bright and early on day four. We both expected a long day on the water, albeit with easy paddling. The day began with several shallow rapids and riffles that were very pleasant to shoot. I am not used to paddling a fully loaded canoe though and was repeatedly surprised at how much water we were drawing and how heavily we caught on the underwater rocks.

We were surprised to find ourselves finished our trip shortly after mid day and a bit relieved that we had plenty of daylight left to get ready to get back to work on Tuesday.