Sunday, September 23, 2018
Travelled 9 miles from Nameless Lake east of Wiggle to east end of Relief Lake I laid in my hammock quite a while this morning, waiting to hear the pitter-patter of precipitation bouncing off my cuben-fibre tarp to stop, so I could get up without getting my dry clothes wet. When I finally was able to get up, I noticed that my clothing from yesterday was frozen stiff. I wanted to at least thaw them out so I could wear them today, since I’d be hopping in and out of the river getting wet anyhow. Luckily, the sun made it’s one and only strong appearance for part of this day, so the ice thawed out of my clothes while I made oatmeal and coffee for breakfast.
It was about 11:30am before I hit the water today, but I had a pretty casual paddling agenda, with a goal of hitting the end of Relief Lake. I decided to get my fishing pole out so I could troll Tooth Lake and Relief Lake as I paddled through them.
After passing through 1 portage, I reached Tooth Lake at about 12:20 The sun was shining bright, I was drying out and actually getting a little hot. I crossed the lake in an hour, maintaining a trolling speed and picking up a couple of walleyes on the way. Near the outlet of the lake I spotted a decent campsite and got out to inspect it. There is a fire ring which appears to not have been used for some time. There are a few small seedlings growing it, and the nice pile of split ‘courtesy wood’ left behind was rotten. This would be a good campsite to use if someone wanted to spend some time fishing Tooth Lake. While I was crossing Tooth Lake, I heard a float plane takeoff, from what I presumed was Relief Lake, and saw it circling overhead. There is an outfitter cabin on Relief Lake, so if I was going to see someone, it would most likely be here. Therefore I wasn’t surprised to hear the sound of someone talking as I reached a wide spot in the river approaching the inlet of Relief Lake. I could see for a mile at this point, and never did spot anyone, but I could still hear them talking, sounding no further or closer than before. I paddled a little further, with the same result. Puzzled, I remained still and tried to closely listen. It was just one person talking on and on, and he was talking about Mao Tse Tung and the ‘long march’ that the newly formed communist party took in China pre-ww2. It was an odd coincidence to run into someone up here, who happened to be talking about the topic of my latest audio-book that I listened to on the way to Ontario…. Wait.. I checked my life vest pocket and I must have accidentally turned on my audiobook while taking a photo! There was no one on the lake as far as I could tell, and I never did see anyone on my trip. I trolled across Relief lake, catching 2 more walleyes and reaching the portage (P7) at the end in 1 hour and 10 minutes.
There wasn’t an obvious campsite on the portage, but there was a gravel (rock) bar on the far end, and a decent place to hang my hammock rig. This would do for the day so I sent my campsite location with my Earthmate and sent off a couple of text messages to family over the satellite network. This is a new device for me but I thought it was a good idea to have along on a remote solo trip without a lot of good evacuation points along the way. The unit also has an ‘SOS’ button that you can hit if you are in an emergency situation, which will trigger a rescue if necessary. It doubles as a gps and your contacts can track your route as you travel. This is the source of the maps that I am using in this report.
After setting up camp and making a dinner of fish, and mac & cheese, I found that I had a little time before sunset. I decided to fish the rapids that the portage bypasses, which are rather hard to access, being filled in with tangled cedars and tag alders. I caught a few small northerns in the rapids and also caught 2 large speckled trout. The trout were beautiful, but trout season closes September 1st in the part of Ontario, so they were returned to the river. I decided to fish with debarbed hooks from here on down.
I returned to my campsite and started my first campfire of the trip. This helped me keep the dew dried off of my sleeping clothes, and it was close to my river clothes, which were draped over a downed cedar behind the fire. Also it helped me stay up well past dark which was nice since I had to sleep in this morning. As the moon rose I noticed it clouding up, which would bring more rain during the sleeping hours.