Day 3
We had
not made quite the progress we had been hoping to the previous days due to high
winds so the goal for today would be to get to Maple Mountain. It was mostly overcast but the wind was very
light and made paddling easy. We slipped
into Sucker Gut Lake, into the west arm of it and through a meandering stream
into Hobart’s Lake. I have seen recent
photos and accounts of the water being very low in this area but luckily it was
quite high and made paddling very
easy. We made good time and started off
towards Hobart Lake, the trailhead for Maple Mountain. As we approached Tupper Lake we heard some
rushing water, wondering what it was – there was no portage on the map. When we got to the source of the sound, we
found it was a beaver dam. There were no
obvious lift over or portage spots that people have used so we chose the right
side of the dam to stand on the freshly cut and placed logs the beaver had put
on the dam to stand on while we pulled the canoe over. We paddled to the other end of Tupper Lake,
looking at the map as to where the trailhead would be but it was easy to find
only thanks to the ribbon tied to a branch where we docked the canoe. There’s the ruins of an old ranger cabin, a
spring and an old rusty bed at the beginning of the trail to Maple Mountain.
After
eating a quick lunch and hanging our food in a tree, we headed off up the trail
to Maple Mountain.
The hike was welcome
contrast to the paddling and to give the arms a rest. I have never seen so many
mushrooms in both number and variety in one place before, in the lower
path.
The upper part near the summit,
there’s an old rusty leaning ladder to get up the first five meters or so, then
a scramble to the top.
It was partly
cloudy at the top and the view was spectacular, especially with the changing
fall colors. There’s not many trees at the top of Maple mountain apparently due
to a fire set by the fire tower rangers’s kids playing with fire at the top a
while ago.
After
taking in the view and waiting unsuccessfully for the clouds immediately above
up to clear for some good lighting for photos, we made our way down and camped
at the site on Tupper Lake.
We took
photos of the sun as it set behind Maple Mountain.
It was neat surprise to see the previous
campsite guests had set up a fire so we just had to light the birch bark.
In fact, most of the campsites we saw or
visited happened to have ‘wood fairies’ as we called them, or in other words
some considerate pay-it-forward previous inhabitants that had gathered or
stocked some wood campfires, but I don’t think I have ever seen someone set up
a whole fire ready to go before for someone else – just light and go!
In the evening as the sun was going down, we
also heard first, then saw two moose on the opposite shore of Tupper Lake in
the swamp.
Unfortunately they were too
far to get a good photo of, even with our 200 and 300mm lenses on our SLR
cameras.
Day 4
We got
out of Tupper/Hobart Lake and back to Sucker Gut, then went towards the north
arm of Lady Evelyn River. Our intent at
the start of the trip was to go up The North Arm to Katherine Lake and down the
South Arm to Willow Island Lake (as per the trip in Kevin Callan’s Top 50 Canoe
Routes of Ontario), but since we only had 7 days to deal with and we got
somewhat delayed, we chose to just do two portages and camp at Centre Falls for
the night, then come out the same way we came in. Frank’s Falls has a good practice portage on
it, then a longer one to Centre Falls.
We left the canoe at the portage and just took our gear. Centre Falls is pretty amazing,a wide
cataract about 25feet high. There was
quite a good volume coming over the falls from the recent rains and it was
loud.
Camping at Centre Falls was fun,
if not strange.
I have never had the
opportunity to camp right next to a large waterfall before, let alone one so
large and loud.
But it was a novel thing
to do, although we were grateful to get away from the roaring water and have
some peace the day later after spending 18 hours by it.
I washed up in the chilly river and we spend
much time taking photos of the scenic area both in the evening and first thing
in the morning.
Day 5
After
spending a bit taking some great photos of Centre Falls as the sun was rising,
we packed up and got back to Sucker Gut lake, where we found a couple in a
canoe (one of only 3 canoes we saw the entire time) taking in Franks Falls.
We went north around the point and turned
southward again to get to Willow Island Lake.
The day was absolutely perfect for paddling – bright sun, comfortable
temperatures, glassy waters, zero wind, awesome fall colors everywhere.
We located the first 500mof the portage to
get to the West expanse of Lady Evelyn Lake.
The portage was decent, we did it in 1 ½ carries, leaving the canoe part
way after my shoulders had enough and returning for it after dropping the other
two bags I was carrying at the end of the portage.
This unnamed lake was quite nice and
serene,.
We ate a quick lunch and
paddled the short km or so across.
We
didn’t immediately find where the next portage started and landed at what
looked like a sandy beach campsite just on the right of the creek.
The portage was actually across the small
creek along the left, and we hopped across a log and completed in the next
portage in a single carry.
We were then
back on Lady Evelyn.
We made our way
through all the beautiful small islands in the south of the lake and
northward.
We wanted to go through Sugar
Lake and our goal for the night was two more portages to an unnamed lake south
of Sugar Lake.
We made our way up to the
eastern shore of the Western part of Lady Evelyn and into a beautiful small
creek.
A kilometer or two in we got to
the first portage towards Sugar Lake.
During
the portage there’s a fork towards Angler Lake to the north or Sugar Lake to
the east, and we went towards
Sugar Lake
the way we planned.
There, there was a first
unnamed small lake to be paddled across.
We had a little difficulty locating the start of the portage and Peter
had to get out to find it.
It’s on the
left.
We finished this last portage for
the day and ended up on our destination goal for the day.
The campsite location on the Chrismar map is
a little off, we got out and looked around on a place that looked like it
hadn’t been used in quite a while, although we saw an very old firepit…
the actual campsite is on a rock ledge more
to the west.
This lake was very serene,
the campsite is pretty awesome, too with an easy spot for getting things out of
the canoe, a good firepit, some nice options for tent locations, and rocks to
jump into and easily get out of the lake.
We jumped in the cool lake to wash up and enjoyed the rest of the sun
and the day after we spread all our gear out to dry out.
Dinner that night was great, we had reconstituted
homemade chili, a toasted ciabatta bun and some cheese.
The only trouble we had was finding a place
to hang our food for the night…
we
walked all over in the bush for at least a half hour looking for a decent spot
to do so but couldn’t find any.
Actually
in the end we found a half decent spot in a pine tree pretty close to the camp
that took a few tried to get the rope over a branch.
Links:
For GPS Track:
After
breakfast, we packed up and paddled the very short distance to the
portage. This portage was a bit
nasty. It’s good we tackled it first
thing. The takeout is boulder strewn
into the water has no decent place to land a canoe, and you have to take your
gear and canoe out while teetering on rock points. Then negotiate all the boulders to the other
side. At least it is a somewhat short
portage. But, the worst part is when you
think it is over and get back into the canoe, you round the corner only to find
more rocks across the entire water. We
had to get our gear out again just to portage about 30m over the boulders. Then, after that there are many shallow rocks
in some narrows you have to negotiate to get to the main body of Sugar Lake,
although the good thing is if you navigate properly and go slowly you can
barely manage to do it without scraping up the canoe or running up on rocks.
We
paddled across Sugar Lake towards the long 1500m portage. At the very end of an inlet, there’s a place
with aluminum boats (presumably used for fishing) strewn all over… that’s where
the portage starts, although it wasn’t immediately clear until we got out for
some recon. The loaded up and started
down the portage. It wasn’t too bad of a
portage. We did it in a single carry,
although we stopped twice for rests.
Then we got to the end at the East part of Lady Evelyn, made our way
north to the channel that lead back to the dam.
The weather again was gorgeous.
We got to the second to last campsite before the dam at about 2:00. The campsite looked like a nice one so we
just decided to camp there. The
alternative would be keep pushing to Mowat Landing, return the canoe and drive
back until early in the morning, but it was very nice out, so no rush. That campsite was up on a large flat rock on
the side of the channel, and had a good tent spot back in the woods and a
thunderbox (a rarity in this area). We
had an afternoon nap just lying on the rocks there, while the sun was in and
out of the coulds. We took advantage to
take some good photos in the evening during the golden hour. Again, the fire wood fairy was here, and
there was a good stockpile. Some was
even covered from the rain by an old steel sheet. I think this was the only campsite that we
contributed to the existing wood pile. 
I
suspect during the summer this would not be as great of a campsite, since it is
the main traffic channel for the fishing boats to go over the dam to Montreal River,
but at this time of the year, probably less than 10 went by when we were
there. On the other hand, warmer weather
would mean good swimming, as there are some good jumping spots from the rock.
