Day 5, Monday 19
June
A standard morning with early coffee followed by
biscuits made by Brent. Cooking breakfast slowed
us down a little bit, but was worth it.
We were away by 9.30. The
river here splits into three channels. The westerly channel ends in the
un-runnable Sluice falls, necessitating a one km portage.
The easterly channel flows down Great Devil, a class 4 rapid which also
involves a one km portage, and this is the route described in the guide.
However, the center channel, Donaldson, has a series of three rapids.
some of which are class 3 which are runnable by canoeists with reasonable
skills. We have run these rapids many times, at all water levels.
The first riffles are easy.
Then come the second rapids, the S-bend. Having been surprised by a large ledge that appears at the
bottom of the S-bend rapid at really high water, we did check it over before
completing it. There is a nice eddy
half way down, which makes it easy to stop and look over the lower half.
Mike and Daryl navigating the boulder garden watched by Brent and Jason
A small island splits the channel into two smaller
channels. River left is Needle
Falls, while there is a runnable boulder garden down river right.
We have run this at all water levels, but have never made it through
without someone hitting a rock hard in the middle.
One of our favourite memories is Brent’s aluminum Grumman canoe hung up
high on a sharp rock right in the middle, teetering back and forth.
Brent got out of the stern on one side, and discovered that the water was
far too deep. So he climbed back in
and out the other side… Same
story. Back into the canoe, where
the pair of them wriggled until the canoe came free.
Another rapid, and another big dent to pound out.
Brent has since upgraded to a royalex canoe which has improved his
performance immeasurably.
Warren and Peter going down the middle of Donaldson 3
(unfortunately, our last picture of the trip)
The last rapid, Right Angle, was running a little differently from usual, and the normal route close to the rock on the inside corner was not a wise one to take. Screaming down, six inches away from a rock face, with a curling wave filling the canoe, is rarely the best route down the rapid. Brent and Jason charged down the new route, hardly taking in a drop, even though all the canoes had to go through two large, canoe-filling haystacks. Warren and Peter went down next, making it through the hard stuff also quite dry, but they filled in the final haystacks/curling waves . At the stern (this part of the account is according to Warren), Warren could see that the canoe had filled, and we were in some trouble, because they had insufficient floatation for any kind of stable paddling. So, as they turned the canoe out of the haystacks, Warren asked Peter to change sides, and paddle hard for the shore. Peter switched, got one stroke in, and then grabbed the gunwale as the canoe tilted alarmingly. Note that they tilted into the turn, and had NOT been caught out as they entered the eddy. Warren said “PADDLE and BRACE, do not grab the gunwales”. Peter briefly let go of the gunwale, but didn’t manage to brace, and grabbed the gunwale one more time, this time for good. By this time, the canoe had continued tilting, and Warren had could no longer reach the water to brace. So the canoe capsized. Warren was desperate to not get wet, so as the canoe went over, he scrambled around on top of it, ending up sitting on top of the inverted canoe without having gotten his waist wet. With paddle still in hand, Warren paddled for shore on the upside down canoe, while Peter hung on and kicked. They tipped out the water and turned to watch Mike and Darryl coming down the same rapid.
They also filled on the way down, but due to their
experience with filled canoes (!), they had no problem paddling to shore.
We all then set out for Corner Rapids.
In a burst of over confidence, Warren and Peter ran this first without
really scouting it. This error was compounded by back paddling and the appearance
of a new curling wave in exactly the wrong spot.
Warren had a moment of indecision, and then decided that the best course
of action was to let the smaller curling wave hit us sideways, maybe fill the
canoe a bit, and then paddle out. Wrong
decision. The curling wave launched
Peter right out of the canoe, while Warren wasn’t prepared enough to keep the
canoe upright. So, Warren and Peter
swam along with the canoe, waiting to be swept into the vertical wall.
At the wall, the current swept Peter around to the eddy, so Warren
thought he could abandon him and concentrate on the canoe so he continued on
down the rest of the rapid, following the canoe.
Peter was swept around in the strong eddy (the Toilet Bowl) but managed
to struggle to shore before going around again, banging his knee and other bits
on the rocks. Warren finally made
it to shore after bouncing down the boulder garden, skipped over the rocks to
where the canoe was 50 feet ahead, dove in, grabbed the throw bag from the canoe
and headed back to shore. Once
again, Mike and Darryl filled but did not capsize.
Brent and Jason bounced through the big stuff and only took on a little
water. At the bottom, with all
three canoes beached, Peter finally appeared from the bushes above.
Most of us changed clothes.
We ran down the fast water to The Ledge, which everybody
ran OK, although the water poured onto the bowmen's knees as
usual. Crossing Barker Lake we
arrived at the top of Murray rapids, a series of three (and sometimes four!)
rapids. Murray 1 was easy and we
drifted on down to Murray 2. Warren
preferred to take a break in the middle, bail if necessary, and then run Murray
3. Warren and Peter did just that,
with no drama. Brent preferred to
keep his canoe square to the haystacks and run straight down the middle.
This he and Jason did, taking on some water.
(There is a distinct advantage to having a light bowman.)
Darryl and Mike also went right down the middle, but in their case, they
were full by the end of Murray 2. They
tried to get to river right, but since the edge is just a rock face, it would
not have made any difference. The
bow hit the shore, the canoe pirouetted so that it faced upstream.
Darryl later claimed that he really didn’t want to run the rest of the
rapid backwards, so he just let the unstable canoe tip and roll over.
Mike and Darryl continued on down the rapid, hanging on, until they were
swept into the large recirculating eddy caused by the entry of the flow from
Murray Falls coming in on the right. Warren
and Peter landed and Warren threw Mike a throw bag, while Brent and Jason
retrieved a lost paddle. Once
again, Mike bailed while Darryl put on another set of dry clothes.
The wind was quite strong and we debated whether or not to
stop at Otter and send a jogger the 5 km to Missinipe to get our car.
But it proved to be only a hard paddle into the wind, not an unreasonable
one, so we opted to continue all the way to Missinipe.
Everyone was acceptably warm by the time we got to Otter Rapids, even
Mike who was still in only in a wet T shirt (remember those competitions?), so
we decided to run the class 3 rapid. Brent
and Jason went bouncing down the middle, ending up far closer to the large ledge
than they had planned. They
survived, with water in the canoe. Mike
and Darryl took on so much water that they went ashore three-quarters of the way
down, emptied their canoe and then finished the rapid.
Warren and Peter ran a slow and controlled descent and finished
completely dry, so instead of bailing like the other two canoes they stopped and
talked to Jim Carney who was playing in the white water in a miniscule kayak.
We left Otter for the 5 km run to Missinipe, paddling
around the point, to the public boat launch ramp.
While Peter went to recover the car and trailer from Churchill River
Outfitters the others unloaded the canoes and changed clothes.
Peter returned to find everyone jumping around in a cloud of hungry
blackflies, so the canoes and baggage were quickly loaded and we were off.
Peter drove to first stint to La Ronge; the gravel road
portion. However, at km 50
(counting down from km 80) he ran over a rock (it's a rough road up to the
mine), which was larger than the
clearance of the Caprice! There was
a loud bang, followed by a variety of curious noises produced by the car immediately afterwards, so we
stopped. A quick check under the
hood exposed a missing oil filler cap. A
search back up the road did not find it so we stuffed a rag in the opening.
There were no drips under the car, but there was a large dent in the pan
of the automatic transmission. One
of the scraping noises turned out to be the rear window wiper, which had been
accidentally turned on by a front seat passenger, but which was not visible from the driver’s seat because of the car
full of baggage. A hissing noise from the rear was surmised to be a leak from
a displaced muffler. A second stop
revealed smoke appearing from under the hood.
This time the fault was quickly located: the stop-gap oil filler rag had draped itself against the
exhaust manifold and had caught fire. Then, upon reaching the blacktop at km 32,
the car began to weave. We pulled
over to find the right rear tire flat. Rain
had now started and we had to unload the car to reach the spare in the right
rear wheel well. Mike took
competent charge of jacking up the car, removing the flat and fitting the spare.
We threw the flat in the trailer and continued on to La Ronge.
The first urgent order of business was to buy some beer for
the journey. We stopped at Sask Liquor and Brent went shopping. He found
only a limited stock of warm beer but purchased it
anyway. Unknown to Brent, Mike
decided that cold beer was in order and procured an ample and choicer supply
(O'Keefe's Extra Old Stock) from the off-sale of a nearby hotel. Warren
tried two oil filler caps from a gas station, but neither fitted.
A resident American noticed the Virginia plates and suggested the NAPA
store at Air Ronge. We dashed off only to find that they were out of stock.
The owner suggested stuffing a rag into the opening!
We omitted the customary hamburger at A&W in view of the chili dinner
Joyce was preparing at Emma Lake. We
gassed up at the Mohawk, called Joyce, and rearranged the seating to put the two
non-drinkers in the front. The beer
drinkers sipped (guzzled?) beer during the two-hour trip to Emma.
We arrived at Emma at 8 PM, to Max’s delight, to a dinner
of chili, rice, Joyce’s home-made bread and beer.
While the brains of SED attempted to sort out Peter’s computer problem
(lack of access to Sympatico E Mail) two canoes were unloaded, the trailer
hitched to Brent’s Dodge, and the baggage transferred.
The party finally left at 10 pm, with sober Warren driving.
On arrival at Saskatoon, Warren decided that it would be prudent to
deliver everyone safely to their respective houses, so he finally got to bed at
1.45 am, taking Brent’s car home for the night.
We had been very lucky with the weather, it had rained Thursday morning, Day 1, but this had stopped by the time the party reached Emma Lake. Then it was dry for the whole trip, until it started to rain again Monday evening when we were already in the car. We were so confident that not once did Warren erect his usual talisman kitchen tarpaulin at camp sites. A good trip to remember for the millennium.
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