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Oskatukaw Rapids--we did these wow
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Scott in gorge
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pretty rocks
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One bear, two scenic gorges, eight sets of rapids, pork chops and cheesecake (Entry by Scott)
(Aug 10th, 2005) Matt wrote four days ago from the little Echimamish River. My memories of it are of a little river that wound through the boreal forest. At times the spruce and tamarack crowded in close. The spruce are skinny and stick way up and are sometimes bunched together so thick nothing could get through. The tamarack are wispy and soft looking. Sometimes there were Jack Pine, too. The river was sometimes as narrow as our canoe is long, other times fairly wide. It’s name in Cree means ‘water that flows both ways’ and we saw evidence of that. It was strange; at times it seemed to be flowing one way, at times another.

We made it to the famous Painted Stone Portage, where the height of land is. We’d been climbing in elevation from the Nelson River up the Echimamish. We reached about 680 feet above sea level and now have that far to go down to get to Hudson Bay—68 stories down. Good thing we don’t have to do it all at once! Painted Stone portage used to have a tall stone that stood on it—it was a sacred site to the Native people. White folks knocked it down a century or two ago because they were sick of Native people hanging out there. I think they wanted them to go ‘get to work’ trapping furs or something. Racism—not cool. We would have liked to seen that rock.

Instead we saw a bear. Matt was tired and breaking down a bit as it was, and then I told him he should probably move over by me and the canoe as there was a bear a bit behind him. This didn’t seem to help Matt’s spirits much (we’ve both been irritable more often lately; the stress is getting to us a bit I think—we’ve done pretty good so far about taking turns being pissy and, as we call it, ‘broken’). The bear was munching on some plants and playing in a hole by where some tree roots used to be. He didn’t seem to give two hoots about us. We grabbed our bear spray and started to portage the 25 feet over the stone (25 feet of stone is all that divides the watershed—pretty cool). The water was about 4 feet lower on the other side. Eventually the bear ambled off. That made us happy. I got an OK picture…Matt didn’t have a lot of patience for me playing, as he put it, ‘American tourist’ with the bear.

Also on the Echimamish we saw a sign saying ‘York Boat Route’. This is, we think, a remnant from just a few years ago when public television filmed ‘Quest for the Bay’. We are on the same route they were. The show comprised four two-hour segments, I believe, showing a crew talking a York Boat to the bay—just as the Voyageurs did two centuries ago. York Factory was the main processing site of the furs. As we’ve traveled we’ve marveled at how they could have done some of the same things we’ve done with a big old York Boat. In our last journal entry there was a picture of a modern aluminum one.

I’ve gotten to eat wild blueberries twice. Nice.

The Hayes was much bigger than the Echimamish right away. Not much flow initially. Weather has been cooler-in the 60’s I’d say. We paddled til we hear thunder. We came upon a bridge over the Hayes. Here we are, ‘middle of no where’ and there is a bridge. But Mike had told us about this one. It’s new and it’s only used in the winter. In the winter there are many roads made all through this area that make areas accessible by vehicle that are, in the summer, only accessible by air. It’s pretty amazing. There is just so much water and swamp that summer roads don’t work. So we took refuge from the impending rain under the bridge, but then it went south of us. We thought we should go on so we gathered our things. Then it thundered again. We decided to heck with it—we’ll make camp here. We promptly set up camp on the flattest place around—the bridge. Pretty cool camping on a bridge, I must say.

Next day we woke up and the west wind was howling. Up went the sail and we were off—cruising down the wide, rock lined Hayes. We got to Robertson Lake and sailed and paddled some 10 miles in about an hour and a half with some rockin’ and rollin’ waves to boot. Rained a little—clouds of many shades of gray and states of puffiness rolled across the sky. Robertson Portage around Robertson Falls. The Hayes drops some 60 feet here, and the portage is about ¾ of a mile long. Uff da. We tried to do it in two trips. First trip I took the canoe and a pack. The canoe is unbalanced towards the bow with the weight of the sail so we tied a full water bottle on the stern. More weight for me. I made it all the way! And collapsed in a pool of sweat. Then we walked back. Lutz was a big stud and took one pack on his back and threw another one on top of that. I took our biggest pack and was slow. But we did it. Very happy.

Next up was our first rapid. HOLY COW! Oskatukaw Rapids is a classified as a Class 2 rapids by Hap Wilson, but with the high water rumbling through I think it may have been closer to a 3. We needed an adrenaline boost and this was going to be it. Maybe we should have portaged, but sometimes in life you take risks. We scouted it thoroughly and picked our line. I was to hold the angle of the canoe so that the bow would hit the current and get shoved to the left to take the left turn and avoid the rocks. To do that you have to point the canoe right at the rocks—a counter intuitive prospect. It worked perfectly! And then we hit all the standing waves and Matt got hit by one, I the next. Water flooded over our canoe and shed off the spray skirt. Next thing we knew we were in calm water. We’d done it!!! Whoooo hooooo! We were shaking with fear and excitement. This ended up being the biggest rapid we’d run that day or the next. It was really awesome.

Next was a rocky gorge that was beautiful, and then ‘Hell’s Gate’—an even more beautiful and narrow gorge filled with rapids. They split around an island. The right side is class 3 but hard to scout. The top of the left side looked runnable but for where it narrowed up and fell 4 feet and a tree was across it. We portaged the top. The lower was a straight run as long as you kept to the right and missed the rocks. We did—whoo hoo!
Some of our pictures are from this area.

We paddled to Opiminegoka lake. We were tired and looking for a campsite and it was getting late. We came upon an island our map said should have a site. Instead it had a ramshackle shack on it. We were desperate. We went up—people were in there! We waved through the window. They said hi—and promptly invited us in for tea. Next thing we know they say we can camp there and have we had Dinner. Ruby just happened to have Pork Chops, Rice Pilaf, potato salad, creamed corn and bread all ready to go—it was 8:00 and they hadn’t eaten. Wow! Turns our Ruby and Leon are employed by the Molson Lake Lodge—run by the Norway House Cree Nation—to staff this remote outpost as a fish camp for lodge guests. Amazing. We hung out with them and actually watched a bit of TV—on this little rocky island in ‘the middle of nowhere’ they have a generator and therefore electricity.

The next morning we had eggs, potatoes, heaps of bacon and bread and strong tea before setting off. Ruby and Leon we will keep you in our hearts forever! We showed them pictures from our time in Norway House and they obviously missed York Boat days. Leon said he knows Mike Muswagon and is probably in some way even related to him. One of the pictures we had had Leon’s sister and sister-in-law in it. So cool. Also Leon is a trapper in the winter—cool.

Off we went on a rainy day. More rapids. At Wipanipanis Falls we had to negotiate through current to get to the portage trail. Tricky! We set up in a pool on one side and prepared to execute an ‘upstream ferry’. This involves turning the boat upstream (back to the rapids of death below!) and angling across the fast water. We set it up perfectly. Then we realized, half-ways across the fast water that we were going to have to let it carry us backwards before we pulled into the slow water on the other side, in order for us to avoid a rock. We did it perfectly. We slid in behind the rock, well away from the raging torrent below. But then—whoa! Next to the rock was a little side channel, streaming off in the other direction through the forest to the main falls! It sucked the bow of our canoe in! We back paddled furiously but could not stop it—we only slowed it down. In we went, but I was pretty sure we’d get stuck in the channel right away as it was narrow, and we did. But our hearts were pounding. Matt could get out on the portage trail side but my end of the canoe was on the small island. After some fancy footwork, Matt was able to pull my side over using our ‘lining ropes’—thanks Dan Cooke once again.

We let our nerves settle before proceeding. We made it to Oxford Lake and set up camp as a cold wind poured in. We decided to eat our no-bake cheesecake that we’d reserved for a special occasion. It was great.

This morning we got up to paddle across big Oxford Lake to Oxford House, our last community before the last 240 miles to the bay. We got up and started paddling, hoping to sail. The wind was not in the right direction and it was cold. Then it started to rain. I got soaked to the bone and chilled to the core. It took some intensive layer management to bring me back up to speed, but we got through. We were discouraged by the wind and weather though. But after lunch we got a break and sailed and paddled across the main part of the lake to our current campsite. In the morning we’ll paddle to the town and meet with the Chief Bailey Colon who hopefully has our maps (Mike Muswagon helped set that up and Todd ordered the maps for us—Todd has been doing all kinds of things to help us out). From there we have a mad dash to the bay and only 37 more rapids, polar bears and a few changes in geological zones. Should be wild and we’ll try to keep you posted though our journals may be a bit more spaced out (in more ways than one!?)

One sponsor we’d like to thank is Hilleberg the Tentmaker. We have the Saivo model, and it is a dream tent for long canoe trips. Never once has it leaked. It breathes, but can also keep us quite warm. Right now it’s probably 50 degrees outside, but it’s probably 75 in here. Two vestibules house our stuff, and it has room inside for 3 people, which means we can have some stuff in here too….like a computer. It’s double-walled, well sewn, bright happy yellow on the inside and woods-matching green on the outside. It rules.