One Time For Old Times

Hi folks,

We are looking for what might be our last interesting paddling trip in northern Canada. My wife and I have done our share of paddling in the north. I started back in the early 90s, but our northern trips have become far less frequent over the years with kids and life in general. The references we have, like our memories, are getting a bit dated and are in need of updating.

We've been able to get enough paddling in with our girls that they still like tripping with the parents, but at 13 & 15, they will be more interested in other things pretty soon. Time is no longer my friend either, besides just age, injuries have piled up and overlapped over the years to the point were I don't have much portaging left in one leg (surgery has done what is possible, now excercise is just delaying knee and hip replacement). I can still do some, but the days of carrying loads up and out of watersheds are gone (don't seem to mind that somehow).

Here is what we are looking for:

10-14 days paddling (unguided).
End of August.
4 people and a dog.
K2 and a canoe.
Limited, simple rapids. With a folding K2, even Class 2 would be a stretch.
Limited portaging. Anything over 300m is getting daunting these days.

Does anyone have a source of up to date information or ideas on:

The Mackenzie River upstream of the delta. Worried about the population density. Yeah, we've been spoiled.
The Slave River, perhaps starting from Ft. Chip or down stream of the dam. Worried about the amount of rapids.
North shore of Athabasca, say Fond-du-Lac to Stoney Rapids or there abouts. Have done the dunes a couple of times and the north shore west of Fond-du_Lac to Ft. Chip, beautiful, but looking for something new. Have flow over the delta and would preffer to avoid it.
The Stanley Mission area. Have done long strecthes of the Churchill, but somehow have missed Stanley.
Any trip you think might work for us but I've over looked.

The Sask government used to hand out numbered paddling trip guides that were invaluable. These were migrated online and the link I have is broken. I'll google it, but if anyone has a current link, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

in canoecampingby Outrageous_Canary159

100%

14d

bendersfembot

14d

Hello, fellow Saskatchewan paddler. I don't have any suggestions at the moment but following thread and saying hi.

Outrageous_Canary159

13d

There are so many good spots in Sask. We're still looking for other ideas, but the current favourite at the supper table involves starting at Stony Rapids and heading west to the mouth of the William River. Half the trip would be covering old ground for my wife and I, but the dunes have caught the girls' imaginations and I wouldn't complain about having to go back either. I shudder at the thought of the flight costs though.

bendersfembot

13d

Incredible territory and the dunes are breathtaking. I went from Carswell Lake to Uranium City last fall and will be precious memories for the rest of my life

Outrageous_Canary159

13d

Awesome trip! Did you go through the delta or east before crossing the lake? It took us 2 trips to go from Carswell Lake to Ft.Chip, going counter clockwise.

What was the water level like on the Carswell and William Rivers? On our first trip, we met a couple who were writing trip notes for publication. They were guides working out of Missinipe on a busman's holiday and had some interesting comments.

These guides had given paddling lessons to the Karpans, who later went to the dunes and wrote a beautiful book about their trips. The guides thought that the book significantly understated the difficultly of the Carswell and especially William Rivers, which they considered unnavigable in places. I kind of agree with that. We did a lot of lining and left a lot of gelcoat. We actually did a longish portage over sand to avoid a rock choked loop in the Willliam.

The dunes are some of the most alien feeling country I've ever been in. On one of the trips, we hiked into a little triangle of forest surrounded on all three sides by the slip faces of dunes. The forest looked like every other bit of northern forest, but was ablosutely silent. No wind in the branches, no birds, no insects.

P.S. I assume you flew out of Ft. Mac. Who did you charter into Carswell Lake with?

bendersfembot

13d

I drove my crappy SUV from porcupine plain Saskatchewan to Carswell Lake. Blew every tire and spare i brought to get to Lake. I went last year August/September during extreme drought, so lower than most anyone has ever seen it. I have a very detailed 107 video playlist of trip on YouTube and shared my sum up video of my experiences.

https://youtu.be/_FnsmeNbC2k?si=tuUjhTIdA1_vxbrS

Outrageous_Canary159

13d

You're a hard dude to get that gear through those rivers by yourself.

bendersfembot

13d

4 tough day's but loved every minute of it.

bush911aliensdidit

13d

Maybe the whiskey-may lake circle?

Outrageous_Canary159

13d

Google provided a number of options with a "whiskey-may lake"search, most of them hiking or ATV routes. Is this the trip you are thinking of part of the Quirke-Whiskey Lake (Serpent River) trip? https://www.myccr.com/canoeroutes/quirke-whiskey-lake-serpent-river

bendersfembot

13d

I had an excellent conversation with the Karpans about attempting my expedition when researching the difficulty as nobody had attempted this route and droughts/forest fires created another level of difficulty. They were very helpful and supportive

bdgfate

12d

Those old Sask guides are hosted by Churchill river canoe outfitters. If you go to their website and click the Resources link, the historical routes are the third section down the page.

https://www.churchillrivercanoe.com/resources

I soloed the Drinking River in 2019. Did a loop from Missinipe thru Stanley Mission, stopped to see Nistowiak falls then up the Drinking River. Cut west to Versailles Lake and then down the remote Stewart River. Vern Dewit has an excellent video about the route on Youtube. You can avoid the long bog portage out of Robertson Lake that he describes by going further west then north thru another lake and portage to Solymos Lake.

Hopefully heading back to do some more soloing in the area late July.

Outrageous_Canary159

12d

Excellent, thanks. Do you know off the top of your head how long your Drinking River trip was?

bdgfate

10 nights which included starting midafternoon of Day 1, a rest day, windbound an afternoon and next morning at French. Ended back in Missinipe around 11 am on Day 11. Double portaged.