We’ve Got a Big Canoe!
Written by Matthew Bombardier
It was a nice paddle towards Trout Lake, the Mattawa River is beautiful and peaceful. We had to paddle Portage des Pins de Musique which was a 450 metre long portage. The rain was falling at a reasonable rate, just enough to be annoying. We unloaded our boat and began the first stretch of the portage. There was an uphill slope right from the get go, rocky and muddy at that. After two to three trips back and forth with all of our gear we were ready to move the canoe. We lifted our boat up onto the shore, and got in to our portage position. Mind you, this is an 860 pound, 36 foot long, 6 foot wide boat. The trail however is no longer for voyageur canoes; they have since been tapered into single lane, tandem canoe portages. Needless to say, the boat barely fit on the trail, meaning us, the unfortunate middlemen, had to walk in the unblazed section of bush. That’s right, the part full of poison ivy, rocks, mud, thorns, and any other misfortune that could befall us. The falls were numerous, as were the cuts and scrapes. I recall the time where I had to yell “STOP!” to halt the boat from moving forward. My leg was caught between two rocks, sinking in the mud, sideways. Had it gone a few more inches, I would have snapped my ankle. It is a good thing that our team is an efficient machine. We successfully pulled our way through the portage in a mere 27 minutes. Resilient like our ancestors.
Once on the other side we had a delicious lunch consisting of bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, dill and lemons. The first menu change for lunch since we started, NO MORE WRAPS AND HUMMUS! (Don’t get me wrong, I love hummus, but every day… come on now). We got back on the water and paddled a lovely 500 meters to the next portage; an equally miserable portage at that. Portage de la Mauvaise Musique was a swampy disaster. We had to jump out fully dressed into a stinky, mucky swamp. Dodging leeches and dragging our load, we finally made it through the portage.
However, our struggle was far from over. We had to manoeuvre our vessel along a narrow, winding water passage until we reached the main waters. As we approached the opening to the main river, we came across a beautiful beaver dam that we had to ram through (The dam, not the lodge where they live). We went at full ramming speed, but it was to no avail. Some had to hop out and move sticks and mud to prepare for another ramming. We pushed through the dam but unfortunately we were wedged half-way. We had to have everyone sit in the front to have the weight move us forward. On we went toward dam number 2, significantly smaller and we were able to push through fairly easy. The rest of the day was smooth sailing.
We stayed the night on a traditional voyageur campsite called Camp Island in Trout Lake. It was a peaceful night, and a dry one at that. I fashioned a tripod out of some paddles in order to dry out my sweater by the fire. As the camp went to bed, the fire crackled on.
