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Churchill River Country - Saskatchewan

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I finally took the time to put together one of my trip videos, or I should say, part 1 of this particular trip video. I have a big backlog of other trips, so if I can find the time maybe this will be the start of a series.

I have always thought about driving straight north from Montana to check out the shield country in northern Saskatchewan. On maps, the density of lakes, and the fact that a big river flows right though the middle of them, reveals endless opportunities for canoe trips. In 2018 I drove up to the Churchill River Area near Missinipe to check out the country and did a short 9 day canoe trip through a series of lakes that lead to the Churchill River. Once on the river, which is really just a series of big lakes with drops in between, I traveled upstream to the west until finding a route south and eventually back east to my starting point. For those of you familiar with the Saskatchewan Historic Canoe Routes, this is route #18. I don't know how old the route description is, I assume most of them are very old and maybe were last updated sometime in the '70s. I can't seem to find good links to these routes, which used to all be housed on a Canadian government server. For some reason these have all be removed. If anyone is interested in a pdf of this route let me know and I'll email one to you.

Enjoy, Mark

 
Outstanding Mark !
The best 10 minutes of my day !

Nice stripper ! Details on it ?

Thanks !

Jim
 
Yes, a very nice video. I paddled that six portages route some years ago, before the burns.

Those historic canoe route pamphlets are gone from the Saskatchewan Government web site, but Ric Driediger of Churchill River Canoe Outfitters in Missinipe has preserved them on his web site:

https://www.churchillrivercanoe.com/trips-clinics/historic-sk-route-info-booklets

Looking forward to part 2.

wjmc

Thanks for posting a link to those route descriptions, and thanks to Ric. It seemed a shame that they would just disappear like that.
 
Michael,
Those are Charles Burchill's Manitoba route reports...
Different, but also very useful.

Thanks wjmc for those Sask routes.

And great start to the trip report Dogbrain; looking forward to the rest.

Cheers!
Bruce
 
Awesome video! Thank you for posting. I'm looking forward to more.
 
Thanks for sharing your trip, filming and narration are very good. Looking forward to the next episode.
 
Beautiful trip so far. Very indicative of back country in Canada. And yes, Manitoba has some great routes also. I have paddled most of the routes that Charles does. He is into day trips on very small rivers that are a lot of fun.

Saskatchewan has tons of water to explore if you are a bit adventurous.
 
Here's Part 2 of 4.

This video covers days 3 and 4. On day 3, I traveled north from Little Crooked Lake Lake through two portages to Trout Lake on the Churchill River, then upstream through the Birch Rapids and past the falls, then on to Black Bear Island Lake where I camped for the night. On day 4, I paddled through the mist and rain for part of the day until I was thoroughly soaked and found an early island campsite on Black Bear Island Lake.

Enjoy! Mark

 
Perfect for a Sunday Evening ! Thanks Mark !

Your Walleye shore lunch made me hungry !

Jim
 
Good question Bruce, I can't believe I didn't put that in somewhere. I started the trip on September 9 and finished 9 days later. Didn't see another canoe, but did talk to some Natives in a motor boat on Black Bear Island Lake. I heard a rice harvester on another lake, the people were gone when I got to where it was parked. The country was empty. I only saw or heard one float plane.

Mark
 
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Well done! Wonderful video! I need to focus on getting more video on my future trips and editing it.

One question, it looks like you have at least a partial spray cover for your cedar stripper. Any details on that? Purchased? Homemade? How does it attach to your cedar strip Kite (beautiful canoe by the way)?
 
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