Reservoir Manicouagan QC Aug/Sep 2025

Introduction

I am basically a river paddler, I can count on one hand the flatwater trips I have done over the past 40 years. Sure, some of those river trips have included long sections of flatwater. For example, my 2018 George River trip started with a 100+km crossing of the Smallwood Reservoir and then later in the trip the 110km of Indian House Lake but that trip included well over 125 sets of rapids some of which were up to 10km in length. This year I was looking for an “easy” trip with little if any portages and minimal moving water drama.

I have driven Hwy 389 (north) from Baie Comeau to Labrador City four times in the past and returned south two times in the past (great drive if you don’t mind the +/- 200km gravel sections!). From Hwy 389 you only get a couple of places where you can actually see the reservoir from the Hwy but it has always struck me as a place I should paddle some time.

I planned to do this trip last year but had to cancel at the last minute due to health issues (my partner not me), figured I would be a considerate person and not say “I’m going paddling; hope you are still alive when I get back”.

Getting There (August 18/19)

It is 1540km from my home in Toronto to the put in at Relais Gabriel. It is a truck stop and one of the few places you can buy overpriced gas and get a high fat content meal along Hwy 389. I planned for one or two “stealth camps” along the way. If you know anything about Toronto, you would be aware that rush hour starts at 7:00am and ends sometime after 7:00pm. Since I am in the west end of the city and am driving east I planned to leave around 1:00pm to avoid the worst of the worst. No big surprise I did not leave until 3:15pm and paid the price, two hours to cover the first 70km (in the middle of the night it would be 45 minutes).

Once past the bumper to bumper it was smooth sailing, I got to the Big Apple before closing to pick up my pie, Belleville for a quick stop at Wendy’s for a burger and then the final stop at the Rez in Marysville for cheap gas and a spare carton of smokes. I used my sneak route to get past Montreal and get on Hwy 20 for Quebec City. Stealth Camp 1 is about an hour past Montreal, I was aware that it was closed for renovations (highway rest area) so I had to go past, take the next exit, backtrack a short distance to the rest area for westbound traffic. This stop is not quite as nice but there was some parking available near the back that I could use. Parked there are managed 4 – 5 hours of sleep in the back of my Tacoma (already set up with my Thermarest and sleeping bag). When I got up I made some tea and a quick breakfast and headed east to Quebec City.

Having done this route many times, I actually took all the right turns, got across the bridge, did NOT end up in the old city and took the correct exit off the expressway to get to the local Costco. Why Costco? Well multiple reasons, I wanted to gas up (gas prices in Quebec are out of hand), I wanted to see if they had local strawberries (YES!) and of course, no visit to Costco is complete without a rotisserie chicken! It’s a nice drive along the north shore of the St Lawrence all the way from QC to Baie Comeau, good highway but very hilly which is a bit of a challenge for my fully loaded 4-banger Taco. One has a short break to stretch when you reach the ferry that crosses the Saguenay Fjord. Sometimes you get to see whales here (I have but only once). 25 years ago, there used to be a good stealth camp right after the ferry but about 15 years ago, they built a police station right next to it! In any event, it was only early afternoon, far too early to camp again. I continued east contemplating a stop at Stealth 2 (a dirt road turn off with a good parking spot just a few hundred meters from the highway). I was feeling good and only about an hour away from Baie Comeau and the turn off for Hwy 389 so I continued. I gassed up to overflowing, the return trip on 389 is a bit over 600km, my tank will get me about the same distance and while there are a couple of places you can refuel the price of gas on that road is EXTREME. There is an ongoing 30 Billion Dollar project to upgrade the road, one day the whole thing will be paved and in many places, they will blast out some of the hills and the twist and turns but for now only the section up to the Manic-5 power station is paved, the next 100km to the put-in is gravel. It’s good gravel but by the time I reached Manic-5 it was dark so that 100km was a bit of a white knuckle ride given there are trucks going both ways and they don’t slow down for anyone!

It should be noted, the paved portions are extremely well marked with signs for upcoming turns and the center and shoulder lines always seem to be freshly painted. The gravel parts are not so good, the surface, especially if recently graded is also good but the ditches are deadly if you need to move over to get away from an oncoming truck. I arrived at Relais Gabriel around 11:30pm, parked on the other side of the highway, tore a drumstick off my Costco chicken for a quick “dinner” and crashed out in the back of Taco as usual. Tomorrow my trip will begin!

Crossing the Saguenay Fiord



View of the mouth of the fjord

It was nice (and funny) to get a firsthand honest account of many of these places and not the glossed over travel book report.. Thanks

“I’m going paddling; hope you are still alive when I get back”

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From the viewpoint of someone who has not always made good choices, I must say: This one seems solid.

I can confirm the high gas prices in Quebec. Not twice as much, but almost.

recped said:

I can count on one hand the flatwater trips I have done over the past 40 years.

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That yellow canoe looks more like a whitewater hull with its blunt end.

recped said:

tore a drumstick off my Costco chicken for a quick “dinner”

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Hope to hear what happens to the rest of it in the canoe.

Thanks for beginning such a detailed report, recped.

The 30-sneak was necessary unless you wanted to make a long day of it driving straight thru, what with construction, Fairmont bagel, traffic, Wilenskey's Light Lunch, construction, poutine a La Banquise, construction traffic, Schwartz's Deli...don't forget Drogheria Fine for some of Nonna's gnocchi. The food almost makes the driving de merde worth it, almost. Nevertheless,
excellent start to a fun TR.

Glenn MacGrady said:

That yellow canoe looks more like a whitewater hull with its blunt end.

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Yes it is, an XL14 spec'd at 3" of rocker. Later in the story you will understand the reasons I took it rather than one of my more flatwater oriented boats (less rocker and sharper ends). The only true flatwater boat I own is a w/c Lakefield tandem from the 60's, last time I paddled that one was in the 80's when it was still my only canoe.

Odyssey said:

The 30-sneak was necessary unless you wanted to make a long day of it driving straight thru, what with construction, Fairmont bagel, traffic, Wilenskey's Light Lunch, construction, poutine a La Banquise, construction traffic, Schwartz's Deli...don't forget Drogheria Fine for some of Nonna's gnocchi. The food almost makes the driving de merde worth it, almost. Nevertheless,
excellent start to a fun TR.

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The real sneak is if you take exit 14 (highway 201 south) off the 20 you bypass the 30's toll.

Background

The Reservoir Manicouagan was created in 1970 when the Daniel-Johnson Dam aka Manic-Cinq (Manic-5) was completed. It is one of the largest dams of its type in the world.



This map shows what the area looked like prior to the existence of the dam

After the dam was completed, the two crescent lakes were joined and it looks like this:


If you are interested in the project and the history of the creation of the crater there are tons off online articles to dig into.


August 20 - Day 1
Distance: 10.1km
Time: 3hr 5m

I had a nice long sleep to recover from the long drive. From where I parked next to the highway I took a quick trip down to the launch area connected to Relais Gabrial, they operate or have operated a fish camp there (it seemed inactive to me). Previous reports are that they do not take kindly to paddlers using this access and definitely do not like vehicles parked there for extended periods. This is not really a problem as just a couple of hundred meters north on the highway there is another access road that I planned to use. This access is rough; you drive in a short distance on a track that is slowly becoming overgrown. There is a small parking area beside a mostly collapsed cabin. Beyond this point there is a VERY rough track that leads down to the water. No way am I carrying all my gear and canoe down that path and after all this is why I have a Tacoma (you don’t want to try this in a regular vehicle). I got about halfway down when I encounter a guy with a motorcycle coming up the hill. He appears to be stuck at a particularly rough section. We played standoff for a minute and then I got out and walked down to where he was. This guy is on a road bike, he tells me his buddy on another bike will be along shortly to help and then suggests that maybe if I have a chain I could pull him back up the hill. I have no chain and I am not in the mood to provide towing services. I switched to low 4 and back up to the parking area to wait for buddy to come along and help him. A few minutes later, both bikes are coming up the hill and exiting to the highway. I am now on my own and head down the hill to the water. At the bottom there are a few spots suitable for camping and I find a place where I can park and unload only needing to carry my big pile of “stuff” about 10 meters to the water.





I am in no hurry; my plan for the day is to paddle a short distance and camp at the first available island 10km from the put-in cove out to one of the smaller islands beyond which is the actual main part of the reservoir. It is a very pleasant day, mix of sun and cloud, not too hot and not too cool. I take my time loading up, triple checking to ensure I don’t leave something important behind. This is when I made my first “mistake”. It always seems to be true that the bugs are the worst at a put-in, this place was no different, I fail to prepare, the black flies swarm and before I can get out my head net, I am already dripping blood! To be truthful the bugs were not that bad and might have hardly been a problem if I had adorned my head with a net and ensured my wrists were tightly sealed. After getting the canoe loaded, I drove back up the hill to the parking area where I would leave my truck. As a safety measure, I disconnected the battery; I would hate to have to attempt a bump start going down that rough track, Taco has barely any electronics but in the past I have finished trips and found that the battery has leaked enough juice that it would not start, don’t want a repeat of that situation.

At 2:00pm I finally set off, the black flies continued to chase me until I was out of the small bay and onto the open water. It was almost immediate that I became aware of the massive scale of this place. I had considered paddling across to the big centre island, it looks so close but the map shows it is much further than it appears. I am finally on my way, there is just a slight breeze, just a few small ripples on the water, I am so happy to be out there on my own and looking forward to three weeks of peace and quiet. Once out of the bay I head for one of the islands, when I get there, I realize I have gone slightly off track to the SW, I take another look at the map and realize I need to veer off to the right(NW) to correct. I’m finding it confusing, the island I took to be small turn out to be larger, the gaps between the various islands don’t seem to match up with the map, ultimately it will take a couple of days to adjust to the scale of the place. I reached my target island, I know from the Sat images that the east side doesn’t offer much in the way of camping so I head around to the west side. Initially the “beach” does not look that great, although wide there is a bit of a slope and the area is littered with small boulders. Out of the corner of my eye, I detect something moving up near the tree line. As I get closer, the “something” starts moving down to the shoreline, when it gets to the water and I move closer to the island I can now see that it is a young moose. We have a prolonged stare down, he is looking at me and I imagine he wants to ask “how the hell do I get off this island” while I respond with “sorry, I am looking for a place to camp, can’t help you, did your mommy leave you out here?”. A little further along the shore turns to solid rock, but just past these mini cliffs the shore flattens out with lots of flat sandy areas. It is now 5:00pm; I am ready to camp and abandon any idea of doing an open water crossing over to the big island.












I picked a nice spot close to the water, perfectly flat sand. I set up my shelter (POD-2*), moved all my gear in, went on a black fly squishing binge then got out my chair and finally had a change to relax in comfort. The location is about as far east as you can go and remain in the Eastern Time zone thus sunset is about 30 minutes earlier than what it was in Toronto. No matter, I still had plenty of time to get set up, relax & snack before dark (not that it matters as I rarely head for my sleeping bag until Midnight).

* It’s called POD-2 because it’s the second one of these shelters I have owned, I bought the original POD in 2010 as a heavily discounted discontinued model (It’s actually a Sierra Designs Meteor Lite Shelter (kind of appropriate for this trip that it’s a “Meteor”). It is not the perfect shelter, one of the “defects” is the huge zippers on the doors, in 2018 the zippers failed, the repair cost would have been outrageous so POD-1 was retired. I really missed it and set up online searches in hopes of finding a replacement. In 2024 one finally popped up on eBay and I was able to obtain it for an incredible bargain price (brand new with tags still attached!). This shelter is 9’ x 9’, floorless and perfect for a solo user!



After a while, I figured it was time to actually eat something, I had brought some peaches (yeah I know, peaches not known for their hardiness) so I had one of those then I got out the Costco chicken and made a nice sandwich. The sunset of which I had a great view was underwhelming, I brought my notes up to date and put on some more clothing as it was getting rather cool (overnight temps during the first week were getting down to the low double digits Celsius). After that, I set up my Mondo sleeping pad and fluffed my sleeping bag so that It would be ready when I felt the need to pass out. All that effort made me hungry for another chicken sandwich, most of one breast now consumed, of course I also had another peach (don’t want to get scurvy!). You may recall that I stopped at the Big Apple on the way, I bought a pie there, an Apple Caramel pie, incredibly sweet so I could only handle a small piece. After having another round of the pipe I went outside, lots of stars, a couple of meteors and the usual assortment of lights that seemed to be moving but were definitely NOT planes, satellites or the ISS. Right around Midnight, I crawled into my sleeping bag and passed out.