Day 3

Paddling: 16.1km
Portages: 185m (Jeff’s Map) or 160m (Ottertooth Map), 490m (Jeff’s Map) or 450m (Ottertooth Map)

Another beautiful day in Temagami! It was all sun, so lots of water was mandatory amongst the group.

Our first portage around some falls was interesting. You come out immediately to a dirt road and can cross to pick up the portage, or walk down the road a little bit to pick up another part of the portage. I would recommend going straight across the road.

The put-in on Dewdney Lake was stunning. It was exciting each time we came out to a new lake, because the landscape was so beautiful.

Dewdney had an old ranger’s cabin on it that is still standing. It was neat to see from the canoe.

When we got close to the portage to Chiniguchi Lake, I could really start to see the old growth trees. You couldn’t really miss them tower high above all the others.

As soon as you start the portage, you’re surrounded by huge old growth white pines. What is amazing to me is that it’s not a designated trail or place, they’re just there. Growing, towering, standing.

When I got to the put-in at Chiniguchi Lake, the old growth was everywhere! I even saw my first huge red pine!

Take a look at this photo below. Can you see how tall these pines are over the under layer? It’s not just one tree, it’s many! Amazing.

And, looking out at the lake I couldn’t help but stare at this one pine. Like, my goodness. Seriously. Wow. Unbelieveable. How lucky am I?

What I loved about this area was seeing jack pines! Old growth red, white and jack pines. This beautiful land we live on, this beautiful land.

I remember reading that a group of volunteers had put a new thunderbox on the Caribou Island site last year, and that the box had a Levon Helm quote. Mr. Helm was a huge part of my life before he passed away a few years ago, so seeing this box was kind of important for me.

After the thunderbox stop, we gathered on an island to have a quick bite to eat. We were going to camp there, but it was taken and I hope the people didn’t know we were there, or that they tolerated our presence while we stopped.

We paddled on to find the pictographs and maybe camp at the site next to it. Out of respect for the spiritual place, we didn’t take any photos of the pictographs themselves, but rather the rock face they were painted on. We left an offering of tobacco and paddled to the next campsite.

It wasn’t big enough for our 3 tents, so we pushed on to the island site in the channel before McConnell Bay.

It was a long day for us, but the island was a really neat place. It isn’t listed as a campsite on Ottertooth’s Map, but it is on Jeff’s Map. There was no thunderbox, so we had to dig cat holes, and there wasn’t really enough space for that even. Our 3 tents were almost on top of each other too, but the island had a lot of character and ants. Lots of ants.

Dying of thirst, we filtered water, swam, washed and made camp. Did I say it was a long day?

We had a few stiff drinks around the fire as we always do and watched the sun go down.

 

Thank you so much for reading! Please contact me if you have any questions.

Want to keep reading? Check out PART THREE