Wilderness travel has very popular in the time of Covid and we had expectations that we would see lots of people on our 2 canoe trips this summer. However it seems the routes we chose were a bit off the beaten track and there werent many people.
Our first trip with 2 solo kayaking friends was to Dryberry Lake in the Sioux Narrows area. The constraint for this trip was reputed to be the access road which apparently needed a Hummer for safe access. (or a Dodge Ram 4wd) The road was pretty good as long as you kept the speed down and we probably could have taken the Subaru. (There was a low clearance Honda Civic sedan at the landing when we arrived) The ground clearance stats are interesting - Civic 6 inches, Outback 8.7 inches and Dodge Ram 10.3 inches.
Getting the canoe on the truck necessitated the acquisition of a roof rack and the choices were a $900 Thule or a $150 Princess Auto set of decision. This was a no portage trip so we decided to use our 18.5 ft Grumman canoe. This meant we could go fairly luxurious on the gear selection
Our entourage left West Hawk Lake at about 9.00 on July 20th and arrived at the landing at 10.40. The turn off of highway 71 on to the infamous 7 kilometre access road is just opposite Graphic Lake. This road has been recently upgraded with loads of chunky granite but the trip still took about 40 minutes. After a quick unload and pack up, we headed out down the channel. There were a few fishing parties in motor boats but we generally had this part of the trip to ourselves. This is a great entry point to the main lake as the channel is fairly narrow for most of the way. Our paddle time to the main lake and our campsite on an island was about 2.5 hours.
Our camp site could easily be classified as one of the best canoe sites ever as it had a fireplace, primitive toilet (not too disgusting) small table, good tent sites and a view down the lake. There was also fire wood, easy access to the water and minimal numbers of bugs. It was noted that having
After setting up camp, we relaxed and enjoyed a libation with ice. Supper was stew AND blueberry crumble. I took 3 small cans of wine on the trip and enjoyed one with the meal. The joys of a trip...
As noted from last years trip, canoeing is now much better thanks to the Helinox chair (and those wonderful people at Thermarest) After dinner people occupied themselves with various pursuits - I am reading a Wilbur Smith book. It was early to bed for all of us.
The next day was meal 2 for Jan and I (mostly Jan) We had excellent omelettes cooked in bags as well as scones. Before breakfast I did a circumnavigation of the next island in an attempt to catch a fish. This lake has bass, jackfish, muskies and trout (no walleyes) but nothing appeared to like what I was offering.Roy got 2 small bass on his short tour.
It was supposed to be a wet day but just clouds and very little wind. Our original plan had been to camp in various spots but leaving this
campsite was not met with enthusiasm. It was decided to do a long cruise of this end of the lake which is known as Northwest Bay. We left camp at about 10.30 and basically paddled for 5 hours around the shoreline with infrequent stops to land fish. My rate of harvest was about slightly better than 1 fish per hour using a yellow/orange twister tail on a spinner wire.Roy was using a Mepps spinner.
Our late lunch stop was at a nice beach where we cleaned the fish. Then it was a fast paddle back to camp just before the wind got up and gave us a brief rain event. There are no other people in our end of the lake.
Roy was the meal person tonight and did an excellent job with the fish. Our happy hour is a bit constrained due to the inadequacy in size of our liquor container but I did have another can of Bodaceous Red. Roy is doing brandy with orange Tang- was not that bad....
It appears that my mattress has a slow leak which requires middle of the night air replenishments. However I still had a good sleep.
