Info on Chivelston, Harris & Harold Lakes outside Wabakimi?

Gamma1214 · Friday at 3:40 PM

I'm starting to plan for 2025 and thinking of a mid August / early September trip in the Wabakimi area. (hopefully this past July's bugs are dead by then)

At this point, I'm considering parking in Armstrong and taking the train to Chivelston Lake (just East of the Savant Lake stop). From there, go North through Harris and Harold lakes to Savant lake and follow the Savant River to the Palisade River which can get me to Whitewater Lake. I'll check out whatever is left of the Wendell Beckwith cabins then head to Whiteclay lake, go up the Raymond River, check the pictographs on Cliff Lake and exit via Moonshine, Big Lake and Little Caribou.

My understanding is that this loop should reduce cost by starting & finishing on crown land instead of the being inside the Provincial park the whole time, it will pass through some rarely visited areas with incredible scenery, pictographs in at least 2 locations and some good fishing. The trade-off for this is that some of the lakes are huge and the portages might be rough or non-existent.

One thing I really like is that, if the portages turn out to be total bush-whacking, I'll have lots of options to shorten the route when I get to Whitewater (I have 2 weeks vacation from work but I'm figuring on taking an additional week without pay so I'll have 3 weeks at my disposal)

I've contacted Friends of Wabakimi (@jdeerfoot has been especially helpful), Ramblin' Boy, the Saugeen First Nation and Mattice Lake Outfitters for information on the state of the portages between the rail line and Savant (almost certain to be the least traveled section of the proposed route) but, so far, I've not been able to get any information and Google searches have yielded nothing.

(I've been hesitant to contact Bruce Hyer. Although I suspect he may have the best maps and information, he's also pricey and I don't want to waste his time unless I'm willing to cough up the $500 that seems to be his starting point)

Both Paddleplanner & the FOW planning map show portages existing but that's certainly no guarantee... Does anybody here have insight or an idea of where else to look for info?

Unless someone talks me out of it, I'll probably have the train dump me off & see what I find but I'd like to know that there's a reasonable chance of getting through. (and, yes, I'll post the inReach link here so you can follow along / speculate on difficulty / be glad you're not me... heck, maybe we can have a fundraiser with a "how far does he get / does he bail out via Smoothrock or press the SOS button" pool...)

recped · Friday at 6:59 PM

Steve, sorry I didn't get around to responding to your PM.

On my Albany trip in 2016 I took the train to Savant Lake and then got a road shuttle to Harris Lake to start my trip. The first portage from Harris to Harold Lake was a bit overgrown but still easy to follow, My first camp was near the end of the portage, good clear spot there (a bit mucky at the put-in). I camped on a very small island at the north end of Handy Lake. From there to Savant Lake there were six portages, 1+35+45+116+130+47=374 metres total, quite overgrown and a bit hard to follow but I made it through those 6 ports plus about 5km on Savant Lake to a nice camp location on the east shore. It took me 6 hours to get from Handy to the camp on Savant Lake but I was doing 4 gear carries and a 5th for a boat drag (I had 50 days worth of supplies at that point)

The alternative starting point you are thinking about would be to go back along the tracks from the Savant Lake stop (maybe you can get off the train before the official stop?). I had a quick look from the road into Harold, all I saw was a small swampy pond that is the end of the little creek that comes up from the tracks. I would not recommend going that route.

There was a recent post by @jdeerfoot (https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/any-advice-on-8-10-day-wabakimi-route.129359/post-165938) that suggested the ports from Harold to Savant Lake were really overgrown, his group decided to base camp on Harold instead of going on to Savant Lake.

I am unsure how much the ports have actually deteriorated in 8 years, for me I just had a couple of issues where I went off the trail and had to backtrack a short distance.

For my trip I used the guy who was operating the "hotel" at the Savant Lake train stop, @jdeerfoot used somebody from the local rez, not sure the hotel is still active but in any event the the First Nations guy he used is probably a better option. The hotel guys was a bit "flaky".

I really lucked out on Savant Lake, 30km of totally calm water, if the prevailing winds are up then it could be pretty brutal. Savant Lake itself is pretty busy, float planes and motorboats but after that I really enjoyed the the trip all the way to Osnaburgh Lake, all the ports in that section were easy and clear.

Gamma1214 · Friday at 8:39 PM

Thanks so much for the info! I did recall that John had abandoned the trip & fallen back to Harold. I'm considering buying a Silky Katana Boy and putting it to the test (and give a little back by clearing some ports). Maybe that's spending shuttle money on gear but...

Chivelston being a swamp is certainly less than ideal but the VIA train will stop anywhere along the track as long as I tell them the mile marker (and I think that's their phrasing even though it's in km) that I wish to depart.

I've got all winter to think & rethink my departure point... I really appreciate the input though.

memaquay · Saturday at 7:13 AM

If the ports haven't been cleared in 8 years, they will be mostly gone. To put it in perspective, the Marshall lake ports were cleared two years ago.

Aslowhand · Saturday at 7:51 AM

I agree with what memaquay said. Three years ago, part of my trip was south of the park boundary, along a rarely traveled route (Seseganaga Lake via Savoyard Lake and Fog Lake to Heathcote Lake). I knew that part of it had been cleared about 10 years before my visit. The portages were mostly gone. It was arduous, but an unforgettable experience.

Glenn MacGrady · Saturday at 1:51 PM

Admin tangent: I love this! A member in Switzerland gives experienced advice to a member in the USA about portages in Canada.

Gamma1214 · Saturday at 8:11 PM

I appreciate the input and also appreciated the fact of multi-national perspectives...

I might as well make this an all-out route planning thread as Don Elliot of Mattice Lake Outfitters got back to me this morning. He couldn't help much with Chivelston insight but the end of the route will need to change.

He tells me that logging in the area has completely obliterated the portage from Big lake to Little Caribou (a hazard of crown land tripping outside the provincial park boundaries). His recommended work-around is to head North out of D'Alton and portage into the North end of Caribou. I'd suspect that probably adds another day or so to the trip at the tail end.

Still unsure what to do about the start but I've got almost a year.

jdeerfoot · Saturday at 10:16 PM

As memaquay points out, portages which have not been used/cleared in years will have grown in. Since the Wabakimi Project’s last organized trips were conducted in 2018, many of the routes we worked on are no longer passable. One of my favorite one week routes not far from Armstrong ON was cleared in June 2016 and when a friend and his daughter did the same route maybe 3 years later, they encountered difficulty in getting through.

On your proposed trip, at least the early portages of it have grown in. This was a route the Wabakimi Project cleared and documented about 15 years ago. It has probably received some use since then, but not much. If you have the Wabakimi Canoe Route Maps booklet, Volume 2, your route is detailed in it. I will get further info to you.

memaquay · Sunday at 6:03 PM

He tells me that logging in the area has completely obliterated the portage from Big lake to Little Caribou (a hazard of crown land tripping outside the provincial park boundaries).

Interesting, I'll have to check my maps. I wonder when the port was cut. If it is in the Nipigon plan and was cut recently, there might be grounds for a complaint, as I had thought that surrounding plans had adopted my guidelines for the Kenogami plan, with 70 metre buffers on each side of in-between lake ports.

Gamma1214 · Monday at 12:08 AM

If ya want, I can get some pictures for you but not for about a year.

Info on Chivelston, Harris & Harold Lakes outside Wabakimi?

Gamma1214

recped

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Glenn MacGrady

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Gamma1214

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Gamma1214

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