Reserve Faunique La Verendrye
Dave and Helen Damouth
www.damouth.org
August 7-13, 1994
This trip was planned to enable us to be far from the lights and haze of civilization with a clear view of the eastern sky on the night of August 11, when the annual meteor shower was expected on a moonless night.
We picked Verendrye as likely to be uncrowded during this peak season. The park, located about 150 miles north from Ottawa, is huge -- it is 180 kilometers along the main highway from the southern entrance to the northern entrance and claims 2200 km of canoe routes. General information about the park is provided in a separate file.
Driving time from Rochester is 5 hours to Ottawa, where we checked into a downtown motel and spent a leisurely evening walking the entertainment district and eating an interesting dinner in an Ethiopian restaurant. The next day we drove 3 hours to park headquarters at Le Domaine, where we studied the annotated topo maps, asked lots of questions, chose and registered a route, and paid the exorbitant fees ($10.50 per night per tent).
The park literature, including all the rules and regulations, is available only in French, and the latest information about water levels, etc., is on hand annotated topo maps, again only in French, so we required lots of help from the registration person. Fortunately, he spoke good English and was friendly, cooperative, and not too busy, so we eventually got it all figured out. It took 1 1/2 hours, however, and another two hours of driving was required before we reached our launching point. The last hour was on a rather poor dirt road labeled "highway 383", where our best speed was 35 mph and we were occasionally down to a crawl, dodging rocks and ruts.
We launched at the Baie Barker campground at 4:45 p.m. -- probably the latest launch ever for us. This campground is at the eastern end of a narrow bay extending east from Grand Lake Victoria. The "grand" is justified -- this lake wanders in several long narrow extensions for over 50 km. (My apologies for mixingEnglish and metric units -- the maps are all metric.) This lake is one of many that form the headwaters of the Ottawa River.
We paddled out to the main lake, turned south, and picked one of the first campsites we saw, stopping at 6:30 p.m.. The weather maps had been showing a low pressure zone moving southeast from Hudson Bay, with a strong front ahead of it, and the appearance of the clouds was beginning to support the forecast so we rushed to get the tent and rainfly set up and secure. Just as we pulled our traditional first-night steaks off the fire, the rain started. We sat comfortably under our large rain fly, eating steak and lima beans, sipping a good wine and listening to the rain and the loons.
The rain continued off and on all night. Next morning, we slept in a bit, ate a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal, and were on the water at 9:45 am. The staff person at the park canoeing headquarters told us that "everyone drinks the lake water. There are no documented cases of anyone getting Giardiasis in Verendrye." Yeah! Sure! But we're the gambling type anyway, so we're cheerfully drinking the lake water. As I write this, 15 days after we left the park, we're past the typical incubation period, so apparently we got away with it.
We paddled past a large group campsite on the East shore, and stopped to investigate. Some of these large sites are quite nice -- either the park staff or the group leaders must do some cleanup, unlike many of the small, undocumented, sites. At this site we saw many large (8") cone-shaped mushrooms. We passed a couple more of these group sites, but didn't stop. None were occupied. In fact, we only passed one occupied site on the entire trip. At 1:10 p.m., we stopped for lunch on a small island. After paddling for over three hours, we're still on the same lake. The island had lots of big blueberries, and we picked a quart plus all we could eat. It's been overcast but dry, and the clouds are now breaking up somewhat. The temperature is quite cool -- perfect paddling weather.
At 2:16 we're paddling again, and finally at 3:00 p.m. we pass from the southern end of Grand Lake Victoria into a small stream. A few minutes later, we passed under a wooden bridge where the jeep trail called "highway 383" crosses the stream. A band of Indians was noisily setting up camp alongside the road near the stream. A pair of Kingfishers flitted from tree to tree alongshore. We portaged into Lac du Chef, paddled quickly across, and quickly found the beginning of the portage to Graham Lake. Helen didn't feel up to carrying a huge pack on this trip, so we packed two moderate-weight internal frame packs and one smaller rucksack containing all our food, planning that Dave would double-carry the portages.
This part of the park has few aids to navigation. Portage trails are rarely marked in any way, and campsites are not marked. Maintenance is also almost nonexistent. This trail climbed steeply from the lake, gaining perhaps 100 feet of elevation. I'm wearing old sneakers with the tread mostly gone, and the steep trail is covered with a slippery mat of pine needles -- one of the few times I've wished for serious waffle-tread hiking boots while portaging (oops -- units again; we have a mix of old and new topo maps. The old ones are in English, with English units, and the newer maps are in French, with metric units). Most of the lake names have been translated from English to French, but some have completely different names on the two maps.
This 965 m portage is a trap for the unwary. After the initial steep climb, the terrain levels out and after a few hundred meters, the trail seemingly joins a jeep road, which isn't on any of the maps. A brief search shows a trail continuing across the road, after a slight jog. After another few hundred yards the trail joins another jeep road, and this time, the correct decision is to turn right and follow the road, then branch right when the road forks, pass a small cabin, and continue down to the now-visible lake. We were aided in navigation only by an occasional old footprint. It would be very easy to wander off into nowhere. And we met two young men just returning from wandering off into nowhere on one of those jeep tracks, carrying a heavy load of rental canoe, plastic food cooler, aluminum lawn chair, etc. They were not happy campers, having wasted considerable time and energy before realizing their error.
Suggestion for future trips: transfer the handwritten notations from the topo maps at canoe headquarters to our maps very carefully. But don't trust them. Double check everything, and carefully note compass headings and distances along the trail, stopping to scout whenever there is any doubt. We carried only one pack each across the trail while scouting it, then Dave went back to get the canoe and second pack while Helen tried to identify the many late summer flowers and snacked from a raspberry patch. At 4:36 p.m., we're paddling again, now on Graham Lake.
Graham is a fascinating lake. It's about 1.5 miles long, quite narrow, and a narrow steep-sided esker runs right down the middle of it, along the long axis. At roughly the 1/3 and 2/3 points along the length of the lake, the water has cut through the esker. Between these points, the esker is linked to one shore or the other. this creates an interesting slalom course back and forth through the gaps in the esker, avoiding the dead-end bays on each side. We found a nice campsite on top of the esker in a stand of sizable red pines, and stopped to make camp at 5:00 p.m.. By 6:15 the tent and fly were up, the fire was going, and we were ready to cook. Great view in three directions, nice fire ring, good seat with backrest near the fire, a little breeze to discourage the mosquitoes -- a near-perfect site, except that the only level tent spot was another 100 feet north along the esker. By 9:00 p.m., we're in bed. It felt like a long day's work, considering that this is our first canoe trip of the year.
Next morning, we slept in, then cooked a leisurely sausage and blueberry pancake brunch. We finally started paddling at 12:10 p.m., paddling to the end of the lake, portaging into Lac La Perche, and beginning the search for a campsite with a good east-facing meteor-watching lake frontage. Several sites were dirty and messy -- fish guts left scattered around the site, bits of rusty junk from occupants of many years past, scraps of paper and plastic, beer cans in the woods. This lake, like most other lakes of any size in Verendrye, is accessible by jeep trail, and apparently used fairly frequently by the "outboard motor and three cases of beer" style of local fishermen. Judging by the size and number of the fish remains (mostly pike), the fishing is very good! At 2:15 we found an acceptable site and decided to stop. It's a fairly small island, but there is still adequate firewood available. Somewhat grubby, like the others on this lake, but 15 minutes of cleanup duty does wonders for the immediate vicinity. We can't do much about the wads of white tissue scattered through the woods.
There are two simple box privies in the woods nearby, one many years old, overgrown and rotting, the other quite new. But people still use the woods! Who placed the privy -- local fishermen, Indians, Park staff? We didn't see any at other sites. The undergrowth in the forest in Verendrye is generally *very* dense. The mature trees just aren't big enough to shade out the understory. Whether it's because of relatively recent logging, or the severe northern climate, we can't tell. So usable campsites are surprisingly few and far between. The park is so big that the maintenance staff concentrates its efforts on a few frequently-used canoe routes close to Le Domaine, and the rest of the park gets little or no attention.
There is relatively little bare rock in the park, and only modest elevation change. The dense undergrowth generally grows right down to the water. So creating a new campsite would be a great deal of effort (although it's perfectly ok to do so according the park staff). In most spots we saw, I wouldn't want to try to clear a tent site without a lot heavier tools than we are likely to carry. It's been mostly cloudy all day -- not auspicious for meteor watching, but the main show isn't until tomorrow.
On Thursday, we didn't move camp, but spent a lazy day reading, exploring and relaxing. An afternoon nap prepared us for meteor watching. Fortuitously, the sky cleared just before sunset, and we had a brilliantly clear night. I never get over marveling at how different the sky is when we get away from the lights of civilization. The milky way initialy seems like a bright band of moon-illuminated clouds. The familiar constellations are hard to find because they are cluttered up with so many other stars. We saw many satellites, many faint meteors, and a few really bright ones. In spite of the nap, we got sleepy and retired only a couple of hours after full dark.
Friday found us on the water paddling well before 9 a.m. The first short portage bypassed a pretty 4' waterfall -- this would be a nice lunch spot. Another short portage, again with a scenic waterfall, brought us into the main body of L. Chartier. At 11:15 am, we left the lake and entered Riviere de la Baie, about 4 miles long and leading back into Grand Lake Victoria. At noon, we reached a 250 M. portage around a long shallow rapids. At this point, highway 383 crosses the river, and an Indian settlement of half a dozen houses is adjacent to the road. Several of the houses had tv antennas mounted on tall slender spruce masts. One cabin had a pair of white ice skates hanging from a nail on an exterior wall. The place seems deserted. Helen examined the flowers along the stream and roadside: blue gentian, white achillea, Joe Pye Weed, Indian Paintbrush, Queen Ann's lace, goldenrod, aster (white and lavender), pearly everlastings, cincquefoil, pink fireweed, purple heal-all, something that might have been primrose, spirea.
We sat near the bridge and ate lunch, then carried the rest of the portage. All along here, the largest trees are being cut for firewood. Only the bottom portion of the trunk, which is clear of branches, is cut up for firewood, and the rest of the tree is allowed to rot. What a waste!
At 1:15 we are paddling again, and half an hour later, as we approached the spot on the map labeled "eau vive", the roar of a major rapid confirmed that we had correctly interpreted the French. I scouted for a landing place above the rapids (dense jungle), then scouted for a portage without success. Looks like we gotta run it! Scouting along shore identified a plausible route, and we charged through it without incident. A few minutes later we came to another unrunnable rapids with an obvious short portage, and shortly after that, we ran another minor rapids. Another half an hour of paddling, through pretty scenery along a gentle river, brought us into G. L. Victoria.
Twenty minutes later, we passed the first island, saw a nice campsite, and stopped for the day. We noted from the map that our campsite is 3 km from our car as the raven flies (no crows up here), but 12 km by water. We're not tempted to portage. Our island has the best blueberries we've ever seen -- bushes high enough so we can often pick standing up, very large flavorful berries, so dense on some bushes that we can pull off handfuls at once. We quickly picked a liter container full, in addition to eating many.
The low areas along shore were covered with cranberry bushes laden with berries, which would be spectacular later in the fall when they ripen and develop their full color. We also walked through patches of wintergreen, with the strong fragrance of unavoidably crushed leaves wafting up around us.
On Saturday, we started paddling about 10 am after a leisurely morning. It sprinkled several times during the night, and there is a solid low cloud layer this morning. Again we saw several loons and a kingfisher along the way. We arrived back at the car at 12:08 p.m., loading gear and canoe quickly, and just beating the rain that started coming down as we began driving. After a couple of hours we stopped at Le Domaine to wash up, change clothes, and gas up the car. We arrived in Ottawa, checked into our motel, and spend the evening wandering around town and eating a very good Hungarian meal.
Sunday morning, we arose to discover that our car had been broken into in the hotel parking lot, and our three packs, containing all our camping gear, were gone. Our small water resistant camera, and all our exposed film from the trip were in the packs. I suppose the good news is that it happened *after* the trip. We reported to the police, bought duct tape and scrounged cardboard to plug the broken window, and headed off to spend the morning in the National Museum. After a nice lunch in an outdoor restaurant, we headed back to Rochester. From Rochester to our launch point is 514 miles, about 10 hours driving time. Ottawa is approximately half way in time, a bit more than half way in miles.
I intend to put together a small file of general information about Verendrye. I`ll send it out when I get the time - perhaps in the next few days.
Afterthoughts: We saw only three other canoe groups and one occupied campsite during our six days in the backcountry. However, we saw fishermen in small outboard boats on several lakes. These low-powered, generally quiet, motors never really disturbed us. The park staff told us that motors are allowed anywhere, and the network of jeep tracks allows a four wheel drive vehicle towing a light trailer to get to nearly all of the larger lakes. The blueberries we picked made it all the way back to Rochester in good shape. That container had fallen out of an open pack pocket in the car, and wasn't taken with the rest of our gear. We made a wonderful wild blueberry pie at home - a nice way to remember the trip.
We saw no big animals. In fact, no animals at all other than birds. I suspect that the local Indians hunt the moose and bear regularly, keeping them well away from humanity.