No Country for Old Women

[yellowcanoe]

Tangled in fish.. We do have both walleye and chain pickerel here. So does some of Maritime Canada ..Now I know we here make a distinction and from what I read so do folks in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.. If you have but one fish you can call it one thing!
About five years ago I gave up on Uncle Phils work parties in Wabakimi. The mountain of gear was way too much and so was the incredible heat at times.
60 lb Duluth Packs and a chainsaw were too much to carry. Led to my now lifelong hate of Duluth packs. We had parties of four and two were doomed to carry more than their share of the load. Didn't seem fair.
Now I am more than content to walk in the Park.. whatever park..sans chainsaw.

 

[Mihun09]

I'm letting the fish thing alone.

Up here, only some routes are kept open by the park staff, in Atikaki none are so it is up to paddlers to do it if they choose. In the past we have been discouraged from doing so by the keepers of the parks. The routes that are maintained get the most peoples and abuses so we will keep doing what we do until we cannot do it anymore.

 

[Marten]

I would like a little info about condition of decay of the trees and brush that came down with the "snowdown" of Oct. 2012. Can the smaller branches etc. be stomped and walked over? I am itching to travel a few old trails in WCPP that have not ever seen a chainsaw. I was able to push through the area before the "snowdown" and would like to start going there again this summer. I am hoping that with a handsaw and light axe I could burrow through to the next lake. I know how hard it was with a chainsaw when it was green wood but wondering what you think.

 

[memaquay]

Good work! You can take a break and leave the chainsaw at home when you come up this way, I'll look after that. Can bring a boomstick too if it makes the bear-a-noia less. If you are interested, I could probably procur a 17 1/2 foot Wenona Spirit 2 for you guys to use on the Marshall trip. 44 pounds.

 

[Mihun09]

Hey Mem, I was kinda hoping you would bring something better than my spray or bangers. I also hope the group thing will help, safety in numbers, I usually rely on Christine to protect me but she would likely sleep through my screaming.

We are working on cutting the weight/bulk for the trip, trimming the fat. I'm sure the load we took makes some people absolutely cringe.

 

[Mihun09]

For those of us in Manitoba that may find this interesting, the gold mine in Bisset closed 6 months ago, they officially went bankrupt this week. So all the damage done in the area will remain until either a new company takes over or the wilderness fill it in. No remediation is possible presently and nobody really knows what will happen with the town without the mine.

 

[Mihun09]

I would like a little info about condition of decay of the trees and brush that came down with the "snowdown" of Oct. 2012. Can the smaller branches etc. be stomped and walked over? I am itching to travel a few old trails in WCPP that have not ever seen a chainsaw. I was able to push through the area before the "snowdown" and would like to start going there again this summer. I am hoping that with a handsaw and light axe I could burrow through to the next lake. I know how hard it was with a chainsaw when it was green wood but wondering what you think.

Marten, if the area has never seen a chainsaw then you might encounter what we did in 2013 west of Wallace Lake as seen in the photo's in this report... http://www.canoetripping.net/forums...anadian-trip-reports/518-getting-nowhere-fast

We tackled most of that with just a bow saw so you should be fine, I know you generally travel at a slower pace than most to get the most out of an area.

 

[LF_tripper]

I would like a little info about condition of decay of the trees and brush that came down with the "snowdown" of Oct. 2012. Can the smaller branches etc. be stomped and walked over? I am itching to travel a few old trails in WCPP that have not ever seen a chainsaw. I was able to push through the area before the "snowdown" and would like to start going there again this summer. I am hoping that with a handsaw and light axe I could burrow through to the next lake. I know how hard it was with a chainsaw when it was green wood but wondering what you think.

In short Martin, no, the branches are still mostly good firewood and not moss food. However, the Craven to Artery area as well as the entire Sasaginnigak area was mostly unaffected, unlike the Gammon river west of Carroll area, which was hit hard. I went in the Garner route in 2013 with 3 others, and we had to spend hours on every portage cutting just to get a minimum to pass through, and the old trees had collapsed so badly that we had to crawl over them to the creek on that second portage out of Garner lake, and line the canoes up the rapid. We cut every last portage into Haggart lake that year.

 

[red langford]

Marten There was a german fella who bushwhacked through the southwest portion of the park and I know he read your trip reports from previous trips for info and inspiration. If you are interested in his route from this year I could put you in touch.

 

[red langford]

For those of us in Manitoba that may find this interesting, the gold mine in Bisset closed 6 months ago, they officially went bankrupt this week. So all the damage done in the area will remain until either a new company takes over or the wilderness fill it in. No remediation is possible presently and nobody really knows what will happen with the town without the mine.

They all have closure plans in place as mandated by legislation, until they got no money left. I would look into the reserve fund they will have had set up to fund the closure.

 

[Marten]

That is exactly the information I was looking for but not the hoped for story of all that wood being rotten. I entered WCPP in 2013 as soon as the ice was out and cleared the portages of "snowdown" as I went. A hundred meters of portage an hour was my average during the three week trip and that was with a chiainsaw. Happy to hear that it looked to be light damage in the Craven area as that is where I will head east toward Walking Stick and Dunstan. I want to get from lake to lake and I have my GPS tracks so it is only a matter of evading the worst tangles.

 

[Marten]

I headed down the Wanipigow and up the Brodleaf to Kosteck Lake on July 15,2016. The bypass portage to Kosteck was in good shape so I took the long way around to check it out. A few days later I had taken the long portage out of Kosteck that puts you at Aiken Lake on the Gammon River. A journey up the old east branch the Gammon River and I walked the Tea Pail Portage over to Stonehouse Lake on the Bloodvein River. It was in great shape so I paddled downstream on the Gammon through a few portages and camped at a spectacular rapids before heading back upstream. After a white knuckle paddle across Aikens I camped at the next rapids. I paddled on into WCPP at Carroll and headed up the creek to Walking Stick Lake to be there when my friends flew in for some fishing. In their favorite spot the action was so fast that Jim had to quit casting because Ron never got a chance. When he got Jim's last fish on the stringer another was on the way in, Pickerel to some. After 5 days Jim flew out and Craig, Ron and I headed down the creek and retraced the route to Aiken and back to Wallace Lake. The water had dropped and the vegetation flourished during the month but we were able to use the long way around on the Broadleaf with some extra effort. The portages are all clear and being used by a fair amount of paddlers but I never saw a canoe the whole month. Fishing boats on Aikens and Carroll Lake but no one else but 4 moose and 2 caribou.

This is a fantastic country to paddle. The Broadleaf is a neat river if you don't mind a few extra bugs and tight fits. 3 to 6 days would put most parties on the Bloodvein River at Stonehouse Lake but I suggest you slow down and spend some time enjoying the smaller waters and wildlife.

This is a G4 map showing the Manitoba portion of my trip. In the menu click labels to display the waypoint names. Select your map choice from the other menu.

https://mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.p...edirects=0&d=1

 

[Mihun09]

Happy to see you finally made it up that way and got to see what is likely our "home" route. Spent many years on the Wanipigow and Broadleaf. We were kind of legendary at Wallace Lake park with Marty, the two old ladies heading off into the bush for a couple weeks.

Karin

 

[Sweetfancymoses]

I hold people who improve on the world in high regard. My hat off to you two.

 

[Mihun09]

Well thank you. We still do our part when we go out and have an area that burned in 2010 that will require cutting out again, but it should be easier to reroute the ports that needed it.