Day 2 - Margaret Lake to Black River (South of Bridge Rapids) - (23 km) 

It was lovely! As I sat watching the sun get higher in the sky, it made me think about putting my sunglasses on. Wait a minute...I didn't recall hanging them up the night before. Normally, I hang them up by their strap on my hammock or a branch or a nail on a tree. Then, it dawned on me. I had put them on my canoe pack after my first load at the Black Lake put-in at the east end of the lake. When I returned with my canoe to the put-in on my second trip, I quickly hoisted my pack into the canoe and shoved off, forgetting about my sunglasses. They must have flown off and were lying around at the put-in somewhere. Well, expensive prescription sunglasses that they were, it looked like I would be having an early morning paddle back across Black Lake to look for them. Sigh. 

I decided to do that right away before making breakfast and coffee. It was a nice, calm paddle in the early hours of daylight, and indeed, I found my shades at the put-in where my canoe pack had been. Alas, it would be a wasted trip, as my sunglasses would once again escape my clutches later in this very trip. More on that on Day 3. 

Returning to my campsite, I snapped a shot of the western end of Black Lake, where it leads into the Black River in clearer, brighter skies than I had experienced the night prior. 

Back at the site, I sat for a bit in the lovely morning calm while I made my usual first-breakfast-of-the-trip consisting of bacon and eggs in a cheese wrap, washed down by some coffee. Yum. 

I was on the water by 9 AM and snapped a shot of my site upon departing. 

I paddled past the long portage from Lower Pairo Lake, where I put in a year earlier. After that was behind me, I began my adventurous descent down the Black River. If only I had known what I was in for at that moment!

In the upper reaches of the river, the river was narrow, but the water volume was good. It was early June after all, and there had been a lot of snow that winter. The river was relatively clear, and I was feeling good about my decision to try the run. As Brad had mentioned in his video, it was quite a scenic landscape.  

About ten minutes downriver, I paddled over a sunken fishing boat that I'm guessing wasn't stowed properly away from the water at spring rush after ice out. 

As I'm writing this, I'm trying to think of some puns about sinking boats, but I'm simply floundering. I suppose I'm not doing a deep dive into my brain. Oh buoy!  The puns on this site are getting worse! It's a good thing, I don't try to monetize this site, I simply wouldn't stay afloat.

Just past that, the topography of the river transitioned from swampy alder to thickly forested banks. I began to see a lot more deadfall in the water. 

Within minutes, I was having to negiotiate logs that were impeding my path downriver. 

From that point on, I would encounter deadfall and logjam madness throughout the day. The ice storm at the end of March had, indeed, hit this area hard and had taken its toll. It would take me over 9.5 hours to paddle the 23 kilometres to my campsite that evening with a steady and strong current pushing me along. Under normal conditions, i.e., in the absence of a freak ice storm and its aftermath, it would have taken me half of that time. 

I was not able to paddle more than 400 meters without having to negotiate a fallen tree blocking my way or a full-on logjam. Sometimes, I went over them. Sometimes, I sawed my way through. Sometimes, I went under. Sometimes, the boat went under, while I went over. Looking back (and I feel compelled to cast some positive light on the experience), it was pure poetry in motion if I do say so myself. On at least 8-10 occasions, I dragged the whole kit and caboodle up steep banks, through alder, and back down to the river. How to lose 5 lbs in one day? Paddle the Black River!

I'll try to highlight a few things in those 9.5 hours. 

On Jeff's Maps, there is a CII rapid marked about an hour and a half downriver. After paddling a couple of swifts at the top of the run, I couldn't even run that unimpeded. I had to pull over and squeeze under a sweeper blocking the run. 

The parts that I could run, were fun, however. Up until the end of the day when I ran Bridge Rapids, these were the only real set of rapids other than a little ledge that I bumped over about an hour later. 

I had the presence of mind to take a couple of shots of some of the logjams before I stopped for lunch, but there were so many of them that they became rather pedestrian after a while. 

At around a quarter to one, I pulled over on a mud flat and dug into my barrel for some repleneshment. 

On one of the many times that I had to leave the river entirely and drag my canoe up the banks and through the alder bush, I remembered to get a picture of the fun! 

What was common were many trees that had bent under the weight of the ice, blocking the river's sufrace, but still managed to cling to life by keeping their root systems in place on the banks. For these, I used my saw to carve a tunnel through. 

At 1:30 PM, I inexplicably came across a sunken dock structure of some sort in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't near any road that  I could see on my map, so I made the assumption that it might have been swept downriver in a spring flood from further upriver. I guess it simply couldn't withstand the incredible pier pressure. 

As I made my way south throughout the afternoon, it was "lather, rinse, repeat" in terms of negotiating the obstacles. Thanks to that dastardly ice storm in March, it was one of the most tedious days of canoeing that I had ever spent. 

Later in the afternoon, I began to hear the noises of ATVs and side-by-sides, so I knew I was finally getting close to roads that were near Bridge Rapids. Just after 5, I paddled past the only structure on the river that I saw between Black Lake and the bridge. 

Just before 6 PM, I stopped to filter some more water and decided to take a shot of the debris littering the inside of my canoe. And that was already after cleaning it out a couple of times earlier in the day! 

About a half hour after that, I was approaching the bridge at Bridge Rapids.  On my map, the portage into South Jean Creek was supposed to start on the road just upstream of that, but I hadn't noticed anything indicating a portage from the river like flagging tape, a sign, or a blaze. I turned around and began to paddle hard against the current upriver for 500 meters or so to see if I could spot it, but there was nothing. I got out at a sand spit and climbed a 20-foot steep bank up to the gravel road that ran parallel to the river on the east bank. 

I walked in both directions on the road. To the south, I came to the campsite that I was hoping to use next to the bridge. It was occupied by a family camping in a large trailer that they had towed into the location across the bridge.  Across the river, south of the rapids, I saw a vehicle and another couple tenting at the other campsite just south of the bridge. Both of the campsites were occupied! Uh-oh. To the north, I walked for a couple of hundred meters to look for the 1000-meter portage into South Jean Creek, but did not see any sign of it. 

Hmmm. What to do? It was late in the day, near 7 PM. I was absolutely exhausted from slogging 23 km down an insanely log-choked river. The only two campsites in the vicinity were occupied. There was no other viable place to camp in the area. Had it been earlier in the day, I could have spent more time locating the portage; maybe I didn't walk far up the road far enough, but to be absolutely honest, I simply couldn't do it at that time. I was spent. I didn't have it in me. Besides, double-tripping that portage would have taken me at least an hour, and I had no idea what condition it was in. Furthermore, there were no campsites on the other side of it marked on my map anyway, and most likely, it would be a swampy creek with no opportunities of carving out a rough site to hang my hammock. I couldn't see getting into any viable site on South Jean Creek before darkness descended. I had to reassess and change my plans. 

While up at the road near the bridge, I was able to scout the rapids under the bridge and saw that they could easily be run in the high water.  I could continue downriver and hopefully find a bend in the river where I could bushcamp for the night. Although I didn't have a printed map of the river further south, as I was not planning on heading that far, I knew the Black River crossed underneath Highway 118 at what I guessed would be a 3 or 4-hour paddle.  The only issue would be getting back to my vehicle at Margaret Lake the following day from there. 

I checked my phone and saw that I had miraculously had one bar of cell service. I gave my lovely wife a call and explained my situation. She said that she was up for a road trip in our second vehicle the following day, under the condition that I took her out for a nice lunch. I told her I would take her out for as many nice lunches as she wanted! Thus, it was arranged that I would meet her where the Black River crossed Highway 118 the following day. We would load the canoe onto the second vehicle and drive back to the Margaret Lake access to retrieve our other vehicle. My wife was a lifesaver! 

I got in the canoe and ran the rapids under the bridge. It was a straightforward CI run with a nice little wavetrain where I moved from the left to the centre in the higher water. I was so focused on looking for a campsite that I forgot to get a photo of the bridge and rapids.

I waved to the tenters on the west side of the river as I paddled past. After a couple of bends in the river and another log to lift over, I found a sand spit leading up to a somewhat flat area on the east bank. I pulled up, did a bit of clearing, and started making camp. I knew it would be buggy, so I put up my bug shelter.  It wasn't great, but I made it work. I rehydrated a delicious pasta meal on my campstove inside the bug tent and called it a night early. 

Here is a shot of the makeshift site that I took while having breakfast the following morning. The river is just past my hammock in the photo.