Day 4 - Monday, June 10 2024 – Black Otter Lake to Carroll Lake (15 kms, 1 portage)
After an excellent day on Sunday, I was excited and a little nervous as Monday dawned on our cozy camp on Black Otter Lake. Today we would be traveling out of Black Otter towards the south end of one of my favorite lakes in WCPP – Donald Lake. From there we would have to paddle 6 kms to its far NW end where the Gammon River exits into Carroll Lake beyond. In 2004 I exited the south end of Donald Lake going east to “C” Lake towards Adventure Creek instead of SW into Black Otter towards the Haggart River. I’ve been back to Donald Lake a few times over the years including 2019 and only one year ago, in 2023. Both of those times we entered the lake via Royd Creek before traveling down east shores to the downstream end of the Gammon River. It’s always treated me well, especially the fishing seems to be of another level, which is no huge surprise given that my favorite WCPP river – the Gammon – runs right through it. We were lucky today. We were up bright and early to avoid mid-morning winds that seem the norm up here. On this trip I was using a new method of weather forecasting which also predicted strengthening wind. BoltWx is a free service that allows you to text via satellite devices (I use a Garmin inReach Mini 2) and replies with an accurate 3 day weather forecast for your exact location. Boy! Times have changed since I started canoe tripping! (As I type this report, my iPhone can now send texts to anyone on earth, directly via satellite, making the outside world even more accessible. A good and a bad thing IMHO…) By 06:00 we were paddling through thick morning mists up a narrow channel of water leading into the extreme south end of Donald Lake. The atmosphere was incredible even if the fish were almost non existent thanks to the cold front that had moved through the evening before. I spent quite a bit of time trolling the smooth waters of Donald Lake as we paddled on glass the entire length of it. Despite a lack of biting fish, these are the moments I truly live for. Cool morning air on my skin as I dip the paddle deep into cold, clear water and draw hard on the smooth, warn hemp-oiled handle. Birds chirping on shore beside us as the black beauty carves a “V” shaped ripple on the unbroken surface of the lake on either side. The loud SLAP of a beaver tail as we race past to the song of the paddle. The mellow plop of an early rising, sunning turtle sliding off its perch on a log as two strangers power unexpectedly past. It was frankly, the type of moment that I will hold onto all winter long, until the next set of similar memories can take over – if I’m so lucky to experience such a thing again. In our busy, connected lives we don’t get many chances to experience such moments of absolute stillness. Alone with my daughter with a fierce ball of fire rising slowly through mists over a quiet landscape with no other humans nearby to mess it all up. What a privilege we Canadians have to call this great country our home! We are among the luckiest people on earth and do good to meditate on that fact every once in a while. It’s too easy to focus on the negatives and forget all the miracles around us. I did manage to catch a few reluctant Donald Lake walleye on a trusty black and white Len Thompson spoon along the way. Too soon we were already done the 6 kilometer paddle and looking for a 400 meter portage around a set of falls on the Gammon River leading to Carroll Lake. I knew that this trail would be easy to spot and follow – there are lodges on both lakes and they would maintain it for their guests. Sure enough! A lovely morning paddle was followed by a lovely morning portage. Today was certainly not a dud – other than fishing which continued to be very slow. We were under a cool, deep blue sky that blew in from the north the day before and fish don’t generally love those conditions. No matter. There’s more to canoeing than fish and we spent a long time checking out the falls next to our portage. After completing the portage we spent time fishing the bottom of the falls for walleye. They weren’t exactly jumping out of the water into our boat, but as expected we did manage to catch a few decent sized fish out of the current seams beneath the falls. Something I learned many years ago while fly fishing small streams back in the Alberta Rockies has proved true here as well. Currents in water act as a giant conveyor belt for waiting fish that position themselves in the eddies and calm water just out of the pull. They dart in and out of the current as detritus floats by – including my 1/8 oz pink jig with white Berkley GULP bait attached. ?? Another thing I’ve learned over the years is using 1/8 instead of 1/4 oz jig heads. The smaller heads don’t catch as many rocks and trees on their way down the “conveyor belt” and as a consequence I spend more time releasing fish than tying jigs back on my line. After a relaxing coffee on a spit of rock just off the bottom of the rapids (campsite 93 on PaddlePlanner) we continued along the Gammon River into the giant Carroll Lake. Measuring at 22.5 kilometers from the SE where the Gammon flows into it to its far northern reaches where it exits towards Craven Lake, Carroll is not a body of water to take lightly in a canoe! Thankfully there are many islands and narrows to break down inevitable choppy waters but still – it’s a huge stretch of unbroken water. Our original plans called for us to do the entire 22.5 kms towards Craven, Ford and Artery Lake but we were having doubts. So far, despite good weather overall, there was a clear pattern of strong afternoon winds stretching into the evenings. This would obviously compromise our ability to safely paddle large bodies of water and we were waking up to the reality of hard travel through all the burned portages too. We decided to call off any final decisions until later in the day. A short way past the exit of a second falls coming out of Donald Lake we came on a very interesting scene along the shore. At least a dozen large Turkey Vultures and two Bald Eagles were feasting on a moose carcass floating in the reeds. We spent some time photographing the chaotic scene before continuing up the lake, hoping to check out site “8E”. We chose this site as it was near the outlet of the unnamed stream we hoped to use as our exit back into Carroll Lake after exiting the Bloodvein up Simeon Creek through Dunstan, Wanda and Terry Lake. Looking back, I realize that as we set up camp on the open site we had already made up our minds to shorten our trip. The waters were still easily calm enough to paddle the entire length of Carroll Lake but we set up camp at noon instead. It’s easy to have doubts about our decision months later as I sit in my home office typing up this report but at the time it made good sense. There were a number of factors leading us to change our plans.
1. The forecast was calling for a pretty dismal following day with strong winds and rain – we had to paddle another 20 kms up Carroll Lake for a 35+ km day, just to have any chance of paddling again the next one in less-than-ideal conditions. And there was no guarantees that the weather would improve further on.
2. My back was fine but not perfect. How hard should I push it while out in the wilds with only my daughter? It’s different when you’re traveling with your kids – you are naturally more cautious, or at least I am.
3. I was still feeling the effects of what turned out to be Covid (my wife caught it from me and lost her sense of smell) before the trip and probably still had the tail end of it early in our journey. Again – is this supposed to be enjoyable or a suffer-fest?
4. I had been warned several times about the 2,000 meter Ford to Artery Lake portage – including in an email from WCPP staff just before leaving on our trip. I knew we could do it, but it was another factor in a long series.
5. KC was enjoying the trip so far, but wasn’t sure she could take it up several notches which is what was required to make it all the way up to Artery Lake back to Simeon.
Sometimes we overestimate our own capabilities – the important thing is to recognize it and adjust accordingly. In the end, we made our decision and felt good about it. Instead of doing a giant loop in big waters, we would do an up-and-back from our current position up the unnamed creek to Dunstan Lake before transitioning to Simeon Creek. We would paddle downstream through South Simeon and set up camp on a large island on Simeon Lake before exiting the same route back to Carroll. (We still had the option of coming back down Artery, Ford and Craven from Simeon Lake, which we kept in our pocket as an unlikely scenario.) I usually don’t like returning on the same path but c’est la vie. We were going to slow down, take what the weather gods gave us and settle into the wilderness over the next 10 to 12 days. Sounds pretty darn good to me! In the end, as you’ll see, we definitely made the right decision. We spent the rest of a beautiful day at the lovely site, relaxing, fishing (not much success) and reading. I was a little concerned about the forecast south and west winds blasting us the following day. On hindsight we definitely should have stayed at site “8G” but it’s always easy to make decisions after the fact. We were concerned about strong winds and being so close to the unnamed creek was advantageous. I buttoned down camp with extra attention for the oncoming weather before settling in for another lovely evening in the park.
Day 5 - Tuesday, June 11 2024 – Carroll Lake Stormbound (0 kms, 0 portages)
As forecast, Tuesday dawned with low, grey clouds, strong gusts of wind and sheets of cold rain blowing through camp. Just as I suspected, our open 4-star site quickly deteriorated into a 1-star affair as I passed time adjusting the tarp and keeping a small, smoky fire alight. When we first woke up, after sleeping in until 08:00, we almost decided to start paddling but a few hours later we were very glad we didn’t do that! Today I finally felt myself settling into the wilderness. As a city boy now (hard to admit), it takes me between 4 and 6 days to adjust to the stillness and isolation. So far we’d seen no other paddlers and only a couple of fishing boats from a lodge on Carroll Lake. In a first for me, I felt oddly out of place already on our first night in Crystal Lake. It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it, but when you pluck yourself out of the hustle-n-bustle of a city of 1.5 million and 48 hours later find yourself on a tick covered rock in the middle of nowhere it can be a shock to the system. I remember standing there on the first night with thunder peeling off in the distance and nobody else anywhere around except my daughter thinking, “what the hell am I doing?!”. Maybe it’s my age, as I close in on 50-years old, but I’ve never felt this so early in a wilderness trip before. I’ve done fly-in trips to remote lakes before but just being in the wilderness isn’t enough to truly feel and know that you’re all alone in the woods. I know many folks do guided trips in incredibly remote areas of the planet including canoe trips on the Nahanni and others. But just being somewhere remote doesn’t induce the feelings that a canoe trip with only one boat does. We had nobody else to bounce ideas off, nobody else to assist in an emergency, no backup crew, no guide, nobody but the two of us. And as much as my daughter loves being alone and remote, she is not an experienced wilderness explorer – she depends 100% on me for the route and to make the big decisions. Traveling isolated areas like the eastern edge of WCPP with just your daughter is another level of alone. I’ve done solo trips, and they obviously come with their own set of challenges – both mental and physical – but being out here with someone who you love and who depends on you for survival is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It’s thoughts like this that explain why I didn’t push us up Carroll Lake the day before and why we took the trip down a notch or two instead of ramping things up. Looking at my photos of smooth water on Monday afternoon had me wondering why the heck we didn’t keep paddling but reading my trip journal reminded me exactly why we didn’t. I’m not often proud of myself, but this decision does make me proud – the younger me would have definitely pushed on without thought of consequences. I’ve done so many remote trips in my lifetime, including hundreds of solo adventures in the Rockies that I tend to underestimate just how frail us humans are when it’s just one or two of us sitting on a rock in the middle of nowhere. Well, I was realizing it today! The weather settled in worse and worse until the windward edge of the tarp was so low it touched rock – and the gusts still blew rain right under it. Finally, as the afternoon ran on the storm blew itself out and a moody sky settled over the boreal. We turned in early to read books and journal in a warm, dry tent and fell asleep to the dying wind gusting overhead.