Canada by Canoe

Northern hospitality at its best...a "segment 7 story"

Our friends at True North Aid (our charity partner) were responsible for the food drop at the end of segment 7. This was a tricky one. They are in the GTA and would only have had about 48 hours' notice to get to the location - then a plane trip, then a 4 hour drive.

And, the location was 'along the hwy 599, Wiggle Creek culvert'. Not a town or community - just literally 'side of the highway'. That is how it goes on cross-Canada expeditions!

They did some google mapping and found Latto's Wilderness Cabins fairly close by. Latto's offers remote, fly-in fishing. They picked up the phone and thought, 'why not ask?'.

Holly answered the call right away. "No problem - send the food drop to Savant Lake general delivery and we will take care of it."

Nothing asked in return, no questions other than the map coordinates.
Not sure we'd find this same 'help' in the big city!

So, a huge thank you to Holly and Latto's Wilderness Cabins for literally answering the call for assistance, and making it happen without a second thought. We are so grateful - and ready for our next segment!

4000 calories a day x 3 paddlers - no small order! With Will, Nolan, and Georges paddling 12+ hr days, the time and care that went into their food packing was extensive. We are thankful for Hornby Organic in providing us with granola bars that pack an excellent nutritional punch. They are made in Canada, organic, gluten, dairy and soy-free.

Canada by Canoe 🤝 Sudocrem Canada
Huge shoutout to Sudocrem, the official anti-chafe sponsor of Canada by Canoe.
Canada by Canoe is raising money for a great cause, and Sudocrem is making sure the only thing getting burned is calories.

We set out from Chapleau after an excellent food drop from Temagami Outpost and some amazing hospitality from our local friends. We quickly made our way up the Chapleau River to the height of land and portaged on to the Lake Superior watershed. For the first time in a while, we got to experience some consistent downstream travel, but it wasn’t easy.

The Windermere River was a beautiful, yet vicious and untamed waterway, packed full of rocky rapids. We had to line or drag most of the sets and even had to bushwhack around some enormous waterfalls. We encountered a particularly hazardous gorge which necessitated the utmost care and ingenuity to overcome.

We breathed a sigh of relief as we made it on to the smoothly flowing Shikwamkwa River, which is more well travelled and leads into the Michipicoten. The Michipicoten River was historically part of a critical fur trade route. Its powerful current zipped us down to Lake Superior in no time.

While there were certainly some foggy days, we were extremely fortunate to have very calm weather for our entire paddle on Lake Superior this segment. The northeastern shoreline of Superior is perhaps the most beautiful place any of us have ever seen.

The cold waters were so clear we could see rocks dozens of metres beneath us. The enchanting cliffs of Isacor loomed above us in the fog. The fine sands of countless beaches such as those at Oisseau Bay shone from the shore. Small islands and coves dotted the coastline, providing shelter.

Our food drop was moved from Marathon to further west at the picturesque town of Terrace Bay. We got a new Garmin InReach, so daily tracking should be back on the map on our website www.canadabycanoe.com

Bay

We began segment 5 by paddling a few long days on the Montreal River from Latchford, passing by Elk Lake and Matachewan on the way. We followed the West Montreal River up to Ember Creek, where we crossed over to the Arctic Watershed by bushwhacking and using long abandoned portages.

The bugs were out in apocalyptic quantities! Our hands looked like they were covered in fur because of the hundreds of flies and mosquitoes on them.

We enjoyed a bit of downstream travel on the Grassy River and Hassard Creek before ending up at Mattagami Lake and then Gogama.

We thankfully managed to avoid a nearby forest fire on Wizard Lake as we headed westward into The Dark Lands. Other than one particularly wretched bushwhack off Pebonishewi Lake, things went relatively smoothly.

We descended the Rice and Rush rivers, and ascended the Woman River and the Wakami, seeing several spectacular waterfalls along the way. We were forced to drag the canoe through a lot of shallow waters on the swampy Engineer Creek and the rocky Ivanhoe River.

As we approached the upper reaches of the Ivanhoe, one last challenge awaited us: the great dry, a large area lacking navigable waters. We bushwhacked over to Lackner Road, a former route and began to portage.

Years of abandonment meant that the road was covered in countless fallen trees and walls of alders. Thankfully, conditions improved as we approached the highway, and after 24km we finally reached crystal clear waters and swiftly arrived in Chapleau to an amazing reception from some of the friendliest people in the North.

Big thanks go out to Temagami Outpost for delivering segment 4 and 5 food drops!

📷 credit: Nolan's Flip Phone

A chance to chat with Up North CBC from segment 5 in Chapleau. Link to the interview on our media page: https://www.canadabycanoe.com/media

A great chat with Jonathan Pinto of CBC's Up North https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-84-up-north/clip/16220943-canada-by-canoe

Very proud to be covered by ExplorersWeb - great recap of our trip up to Segment 4!

Canada Coast-to-Coast Paddlers Press On, Despite Mega-Portages » Explorersweb Three Canadian paddlers are now 53 days and 1,241km into their 8,000km canoe journey from the shores of Tadoussac, Quebec, in eastern Canada, to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, on the Pacific Ocean. Will Vyse, Georges Kirijian, and Nolan Aziz left Tadoussac on April 12. Section 1 of 19 The team has...

Sponsor shoutout today, to NRS for providing the crew with drysuits for the trip. A total must-have for cold and wet days, these top of the line drysuits help keep us comfortable and dry, without unnecessary bulk. If you're looking for great paddling gear - check out NRS online for their latest innovations: https://www.nrs.com/