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 8
Hidden Portage

It's still cool and cloudy this Monday morning when I roll out at seven. I want to take a quick tour of Jigsaw so I paddle north from my campsite. Most shallow areas are thick with plants. This lake is fertile - different than most that I've seen so far. The lake has many islands and points - it's easy to see how it got it's name. I carefully follow my compass and work my way south on the eastern shore. It would be easy to get disoriented here.

I'm not looking forward to getting my feet wet on the portage landing, so when I spot a few thin logs near the shore I land the canoe nearby. The logs become "swamp shoes" and I use them to get ashore with dry feet. The portage is long again, but no longer interesting. I realize now that I've changed quite a bit in the last few years. For a long time I kept returning to the same area of Quetico, stopping at the same restaurant, taking the same tow boat across Saganaga, walking the same portages. I'd dream only about traveling further along the same route, never about going somewhere else. While traveling up near Mack Lake one year, I met a man that had been taking the same trip for eighteen years! I immediately thought that he was in a rut, and realized that I was too.

Sandy beach on Wrist Lake - woodland caribou park

Last year I was faced with a solo trip, and I wondered what I could do that would make it a little more interesting. Fortunately, I ran into Marc Wermager's article about Woodland Caribou Park. His article put me here - forty five portages into land that I've never seen before. I'm afraid that I may never go back to the boundary waters or Quetico again. There's a lot of land in Ontario, and to the west lies Manitoba. There are a lot of new places to see, and not a lot of years left in my old legs.

Wrist Lake has a sandy beach to the north and another on the southern shore, where my next portage starts. I point the canoe south and roll with the waves as the wind comes in from the west. There are large tracks on the shore and I follow them until they disappear into the forest. It crosses my mind that these may be caribou tracks, but I've never seen a caribou, and can't bring myself to believe that I might be so lucky. I convince myself that I'm looking a plain old moose tracks. I'll find out a few months later that these are caribou tracks. The curve of the hoof in the front differs considerably from the straighter hoof of the moose.

High cliffs and interesting rock formations lead me to the Nutria Lake portage. I'm so entranced by the scenery that I follow the wrong shore and end up in the small lake south of Nutria. I back up and go into the middle bay, but I don't see any sign of the portage landing. Thinking I might have marked my map incorrectly again, I try the western bay, but there's no portage there either. I return to the bay in the middle and land the canoe at a large tipped up tree. The rocks beneath the tree are free of vegetation, so it probably blew down recently. Sure enough, the portage starts behind the tree, and it's probably marked with a large blaze that's now down on the ground.

This portage is bushy and mushy and has plenty of logs to step over. At times the path ahead is completely covered by brush, and I make lots of noise as I push through. I'm glad when I finish my second trip; I should have an easy paddle now to Mexican Hat Lake. At the marshy landing there's a nice weedy bay. It's shallow, so I "dance" my diver slowly over the surface, holding the rod high so the lure doesn't go too deep. Wham! It only takes one cast to hook a big jack! The water is shallow so the fish jumps and thrashes as he fights to escape. I finally get him in the net. He's big and very fat around the middle. I land on a large rock and cut the fish into fillets. I'm going to eat well tonight. Now for the easy paddle to Mexican Hat!

beaver dam and lodge - woodland caribou park

The channel leads through a grassy area and suddenly I'm no longer sure of where to go. The map shows a wide open channel, but I only see thick, tall weeds. There's a narrow opening in the grass - a very narrow opening. I turn the canoe around and paddle backwards. Beavers have been busy here, building their dams and lodges, changing the land with their nocturnal labors. There are three dams to cross, the last one is a giant with a lodge in the middle. I'm amazed at the amount of trees and mud that went into the massive construction. Amazed, but also tired. I didn't expect to have obstacles to cross and a narrow channel to paddle. It's slow and close and narrow as I slog through the channel for the next half hour. Always the unexpected - usually in the afternoon when you think you're done!

I finally make it into Mexican Hat and take a campsite on an island in the middle of the lake. Seagulls watch hungrily as I set up camp. I keep an eye on my fillets, covering my pot with heavy rocks so the birds won't steal my supper. I have such a large fish that I don't want to add any more calories by breading and frying it. Instead I make a fish boil. Just as the first batch is done it starts to rain. I don't care anymore. I don my rain gear, sit down on a rock and eat my feast. Within half an hour it's sunny again, and an hour later the sky is clear. I'm back in the wide open spaces again, far from the fire area. I don't know it yet, but tomorrow will be a great day.

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