Woodland Caribou Park - Good Land for Canoe Travelers

The Story of a Solo Canoe Trip Through Ontario's Woodland Caribou Provincial Park
By James Hegyi

CHAPTER 2
Into the Wild Land

It's a relief to wake up not worrying about car troubles or taking the wrong road. I can take any path I want here, and if I get lost, it'll be an adventure, not a disaster.

channel in woodland caribou provincial park

The portages from Leano to Kilburn are extremely pleasant. The landings are muddy, but the weather's been dry recently and I have no problems. There are beaver dams to cross, and one, at least is active with fresh branches poked into the gaps. There's a musty smell, barely perceptible, that lingers around these dams. In the springtime, beavers build small mounds of mud and vegetation, then mark them with a sweet smelling caster. It's not so far from springtime, and I can still catch this faint scent as I slide the canoe over the dams.

As I enter the central "arm" of Kilburn lake I stop on an island for some lunch. This island saw fire recently. It looks like the fire started at the campsite on the southeastern shore. I can't find a lightning struck tree near the camp, so it probably was a camp fire that got out of control in the wind. I find a few small green bottles marked "DAVIS" in the fire pit, along with a rusted coil of snare wire and a leather strap. There's other paraphernalia, matches, bandages - evidently the camp has seen some use. I walk into the fire area where the soil is burned and discover a partially exposed beaver skull.

There's a fly-in campsite south of the island. Three motorboats are cached here, but no one is home right now. I reach the southern bay of Kilburn by one-twenty, and turn north again. I apparently timed my passage well; I see two planes take off and another land as I make my way to the north. It must be turn-around day at the fishing camps. By the time the new visitors get settled in, I should be through the portage and out of sight. I pass another island fly-in camp and find a cached motor boat on the portage into Middle Kilburn Lake. I suspect that the new visitors will tackle the portage only after they start getting bored.

kilburn lake woodland caribou provincial park ontario canada

The shores of Middle Kilburn rise quickly, there are no lowlands here. Middle Kilburn, and the lakes beyond are smaller, not worthy of attention by the leisure fisherman. There's an island here, and I decide to call it a day. My island home for the night had some trouble in the past. It looks like it was once a beautiful place, but fire came recently and destroyed most of the island. Near the shore there's a tree that's been cut and pushed into the water. Within twenty feet are live trees that were cut down. They're not burned at all. After thinking about it for a while, I imagine a scenario where some careless camper builds a fire that gets out of control. My imaginary camper has a chain saw, and frantically cuts down trees to keep the fire from spreading. It sounds good to me, but later I will learn from Claire that a fire crew in a helicopter needed a landing zone, and they're the ones that cut down the trees.

There's still flat, dry ground here so I decide to stay. By seven o'clock I'm in the sack. The latitude here is about fifty degrees north, and there's almost four hours of daylight left, but I'm tired and I quickly doze off. Later that night, as the sun finally goes down, I'm awakened by a loud, persistent chorus of Cicada's. It seems like dozens of these critters are whooping it up just beyond the clearing. Now the loons start their mournful cry, and gulls join in the chorus. The sounds fill the air, a boreal jungle chorus that chatters and sings as I drift back to sleep.

I'm looking forward to the next few days. Sylvia Lake and Dowswell Lake are at the very southern tip of Woodland Caribou Park. Both the park map and my topographic maps show a good part of my route ahead as a thin line. I'm thinking creek, but who knows - maybe I'll run into less than a creek. It's reasonable to assume that the low lands may have few, if any decent camp sites. Today I plan on getting close to the low lands so that tomorrow I can make it to Sylvia, come what may.

It's almost three kilometers to the first portage, and I'm enjoying every minute of it. I pass a small cave on the north shore. The underlying rock eroded or fell away. There's just enough space to crawl under to get out of the rain. Perhaps someone did just that, back in a time when travelers slept under canoes or natural shelters. There's no sun this morning, and the wind blows a few gusts here and there, but by the time I reach the portage, it's calm.

The two portages into Dragon Lake are in great shape. Both start wet, but well used paths rise to high ground with few rocks or roots. The 800 meter portage into the Lake above Landing Crane might be a bog after a few days of rain, but today it's fine most of the way.

A weedy area appears in Landing Crane so I throw in a black and silver diver and try my luck. The small floating divers seem to be the ideal lure when I travel. I generally carry a 6 foot and a 12 foot lure, both black and silver with two treble hooks. They work well when trolling with a canoe because they float up when you stop. I don't get snagged very often with these lures. First I land a small jack fish (northern pike) - too small to keep. After a few minutes a larger fish grabs my lure and I play it for a minute. I manage to net a decent sized jack so I pull into shore and cut it into fillets. I'm getting a little tired, but it's too early to stop, so I head east and take the 325 meter portage into the next lake.

Like most of the portages today, this one is in very good shape. A small poplar seems to block my path ahead, but then I notice that the path goes off to the left. I come back with the canoe and launch myself into what appears to be a small pond. Somewhere to the south there should be a little channel into the next lake. There should be, but there isn't. It's not until I've landed on a muskeg shore and walked into the brush that I think of checking my map. The scale on the park map is pretty large, and it's hard to tell where the portage should end. I suspect that I ended up on a winter trail, but the thought of walking back through the muskeg, loading the canoe, unloading it... I take out my compass and scout out a path that leads down a steep hill and through dense brush. I find the lake, and half an hour later, as I suspected, I find the correct end to the portage. I should have stepped over the fallen poplar, rather than taking the path to the left.

There's an island near the 90 meter portage that heads south. I'm confident now that unless I run into trouble, I can make it to Sylvia Lake by tomorrow night. It's a bit windy, so the canoe gets propped up between some trees, and I cook the jack behind it. It's a delicious way to end the day. I'm not in bed until nine o'clock, pretty late for a tired and sore traveler.

Woodland Caribou Park - Good Land for Canoe Travelers

The Story of a Solo Canoe Trip Through Ontario's Woodland Caribou Provincial Park By James Hegyi

The Story of a Solo Canoe Trip Through Ontario's Woodland Caribou Provincial Park
By James Hegyi