Drew,
Can't tell you how much I've enjoyed reading your posts. I especially enjoyed your notes about the beaver dams this summer, but too late.
My daughter and i did a 3 day paddle Smoke - Ragged-Porcupine_ Bonnechere-Harness Head- Cache- Smoke loop in early July. Weather was scorching and the deer flies horrendous in the river sections. And here I'll admit my mistake.
Not wanting to lug our cedar canvas Langford 1600m Head Lake to Cache I had convinced my daughter that the Head Creek/Madawaska River paddle was a better option. After all, last time I did it, lots of water, easy paddle and lots of wildlife. Turns out last time was about 20 years ago...
As soon as we completed the portage from Head Lake to Head creek I realized things had changed. The water level was much lower than i remembered- duh!!!- and we dragged, pushed and prodded until there was enough water to float us. And then the deer flies arrived in force.
Quickly the promise of "easy paddle with lots of wildlife" disappeared and we were left with a slow drag, push, paddle down the Head. That was ok however because I knew the much larger Madawaska would render this all just a bad memory. Wrong.
The half hour paddle down the Head turned into an hour, then 75 minutes when I recognized the portage towards Lake of two Rivers. we had missed the turn up the Madawaska and had been travelling down the Madawaska for 45 minutes.
So turn around paddle back( 45 minutes upstream in hot muggy conditions with angry daughter in bow. Oh did i mention the deer flies? )
With water levels so low, confluence of the Head and Madawaska wasn't very distinct but after anoyther hour we were paddling towards cache on the Madawaska. And then the fun began. Not 5 minutes after proving that I knew what i was doing and yes this was a better choice over that long portage into Cache, we hit our first beaver dam. Not too big, but out of the canoe, into knee deep leech infested muck dragging the boat up and over the sticks. And then re-load and off we paddle. Until the next beaver dam.
Within a 4 km section of "river" we had to drag our poor Langford over 13 beaver dams and one tree!
Never again.
We made it and now the trip is just a fond memory. My daughter even asked where we were going next summer.
Thanks for the memories Drew.
Cheers! Bruce
