Day 2 - Steel River to Punchard Lake - (27 km)

The mosquitoes were aplenty in the dawn of the day, so I enjoyed my coffee and bacon n'egg wraps within the comfort of my bug shelter. Shortly after, I broke camp and said my goodbyes to Camp Chugabrewski.  I was on the water just after 8 AM and took a photo of the site as I departed. 

It was a very short paddle to the south end of the lake, where I happily entered the Steel River proper for the first time.

 Immediately, I had to negotiate some rapids. My trip notes suggested that there would just be a set of swifts there, so I didn't bother to scout the run, but in the abnormally high water conditions, I suddenly found myself negotiating rapids much beefier than I had expected. I got on my knees and found my line through the set that went around a bend. The last bit of the run had a wave train that I hit head-on, giving me my morning shower that I had yet to take. I whooped in delight. 

Just prior to reaching for my bail bucket to empty the boat, I turned to take a shot of the set. The picture from afar doesn't do it justice, but the waves were certainly big enough for my canoe to take on water. 

The last time that happened was when I went canoeing with my friend, Batman. It was a good thing we had Christian Bail in the boat. 

(The author apologizes for that inexcusable, horrible pun. It is, indeed, cruel and unusual punishment.)

Getting whitewater like that on what I had marked as a swift on my maps got me excited, indeed. I was in for a fun ride down the Steel! 

Below the set, I found myself on a widening of the river called Burrow Lake. The ridgeline of hills and cliffs marking the eastern shore continued, making for an amazingly scenic landscape. 

Reaching the south end of Burrow Lake, I could see why the Steel River keeps drawing people to it. That ridgeline on the eastern shore met the river in a dramatic series of rock wall faces. This would continue intermittently on my journey south. Simply stunning. 

I was carried rapidly to the south in what seemed like a continuous swift to the next widening of the river called Stewart Lake. Some of those swifts were legitimate CI rapids at those water levels. 

As I departed Stewart Lake, I was startled by a large bird launching itself from a treetop nearby on the right bank. I hadn't seen it at all before it took flight. It was close enough for me to hear the "swoop" of its wings cutting through the air. It flew barely 40 meters downriver before perching again in a tree, this time on the left bank. 

It was a Great Horned Owl! Being nocturnal predators, they are relatively rare to see in the bright of the day. It was only the second time I had ever seen one on a canoe trip, the first time being on the Opeepeesway-Sakatawi Loop three years earlier. 

Another little-known fact is that owls will never mate in the rain. It's a little too wet to "woo" at those times. 

I paddled as quietly and slowly as I could as I approached it. I snapped a photo, but, alas, my phone camera simply didn't cut the mustard. It blended in well amongst the treed landscape. This was the best result I could get with my camera's limited ability. 

It flew away again to the south, and I followed it for a bit, marvelling at its size and wingspan. With a final 'hoot', it disappeared to the west and into the forest. I guess that owl's name was Hoo-dini. More likely, it was tiring of the sight of the odd-looking creature that had infiltrated its river hunting grounds. I guess it was wondering 'Hoo's that?' 

I smiled in delight, having had the opportunity to follow and witness it for a good 5 minutes or so. 

Continuing downriver and negotiating more swifts, I came to the spot where I had a 120-meter portage marked on my map on river-left. My trip notes said that it was a straightforward run through CI rapids, but contained a boulder garden at the bottom where I would likely bounce off some rocks. 

I could hear the rapids from above as I approached, and I stood up in the boat to get a better look. I saw a clear line starting in the center of the river, moving to river-right. With the water being so high, I was confident that I would be carried over the potential danger of the rocks at the bottom. 

I got on my knees and ran the upper parts cleanly, following my intended line perfectly. As I got to the rocky part at the bottom, I immediately wished I had scouted it more thoroughly, because I saw two formidable rocks directly in front of me. I was forced to do a last-second pry to move left and thread the needle between them. Thankfully, I managed it without touching either rock. Whew! I don't think I would have hung up on the rocks, but had I hit either one at an odd angle, I probably would have tilted and dumped, moving fast in the high-water push. It wouldn't have been catastrophic to dump there since it was the last rapid before a shallow lake with no other rapids below it, but who wants to dump?!?

Again, I whooped in delight, having reached the bottom, dry and unscathed without portaging. I have some whitewater experience, but not a ton. I was happy that my skills were developing enough that I could confidently run a set like that in a remote location on my own. What a fantastic adrenaline rush! 

Here is a shot of the bottom, where a number of protruding rocks can be seen on river-right. 

For the next 45 minutes or so, I continued south on the Steel River through Savoie Lake and some more swifts wherever the river narrowed. The rocky ridge to my left on the eastern shore continued to be my backdrop with its sheer cliffs meeting the water. 

Two sets of swifts that were more like CI rapids in the high water brought me into McKernan Lake. By this time in the day, the blue skies that I had been enjoying began to cloud over. 

There is a nice campsite at a narrows across from a cliff on this lake. It was my original intention to spend the first night at this site rather than at Camp Chugabrewski. Being just after midday, I would make it my lunch location instead, but first, I had to catch some lunch!

Below the last set of rapids dumping into McKernan, I stopped to fish for a bit. The water was fast, and I could only get a couple of casts in before it would scoot me away from the eddies where I thought I would find some pickerel. I managed to get a couple of bites, but in both cases, I lost the fish reeling them into the boat. I pinch the barbs of my hooks to allow for easier release, and in both cases, I apparently hadn't set the hook well. After three times of casting and drifting from the rapids, I decided I would have one more go at it, and be sure to set my hook this time. Well, I didn't need to give that rod an extra yank to set the hook because on my first cast on the last pass, I felt something big snatch my bait and begin to fight. With the weight and resistance that it was giving, I knew I had a largish pike on my line. Pickerel don't fight like that. With a fluorocarbon leader connected to my jig hook, I was worried the teeth of the pike would break the line, so I took my time reeling it in, giving a lot of play with the drag. It put up a good fight; it was exciting getting it in!  

When I got it to the boat, I saw that the pike had completely swallowed the bait and was bleeding from the gills. By the time I got the hook free, I knew it would likely not survive if I were to throw it back. Apparently, I would be having fish for lunch after all, but pike rather than pickerel. I dispatched the fish and paddled over to the site to process and cook it. 

The site was in a grove of cedars across from a beautiful rock face, just a stone's throw away. My notes said that it was a beach site, but in the high water, any semblance of a beach was submerged. 

I processed the pike on my paddle by the water using the 5-fillet method to avoid getting any Y-bones in the meat. Yes, it does waste a bit of meat, but it is the easiest and quickest way to get boneless pike fillets. I gathered up a couple of sticks to get a small cooking fire going and threw some fish crisp and oil into a cooking pot with the pike. 

It was delicious and enough fish for two people. I ate it straight out of the pot sitting down by the canoe and looking out at the gorgeous cliffs across the lake.  It was a lovely midday rest. 

While having my lunch, the sky grew even darker and the wind began to pick up, coming in from the southwest. Dang. I would have a headwind crossing McKernan Lake. Fearing the wind would pick up as the afternoon wore on, I quickly filtered some more water and got ready to get on the water again. I said goodbye to the famous cliff site of the Steel River. 

Just to show how high the water was, as I departed, I snapped a shot of the submerged fire ring on the 'beach' that I have seen others use often in their YouTube videos at lower water levels. 

Paddling over to the base of the cliff and past it into the headwind, I moved to the east side of the lake to do a 'paddleby' of the other site on McKernan Lake. I didn't get out and look around, but from the water, it looked like it was more of a fisherman's site with tables, tarps, barrels, etc. I much prefer a more 'natural' site without all that stuff, given the choice. 

The next half hour was hard work. The wind had picked up enough to be a considerable hindrance, and by the time I got to the south end of Beath Lake, I was feeling it. The narrows between Beath Lake and Milotte Lake contained CII rapids with no portage, according to my trip notes. I was hoping that I could run them.

I was a little disappointed upon reaching the rapids because I could clearly see two sweepers stretching into the center of the run where the tasty wave train was. If it weren't for those two sweepers, it appeared to be a heck of a run! I debated for a second or two about trying it because there was a lot of room to the right of the sweepers, but in the high-water push, I didn't want to risk getting drawn into them by mistake. I made the prudent decision to wade on river-right to a point past the sweepers, and then run the bottom half of the rapids. I guess that dilemma was a classic case of Row vs. Wade? (Sorry...I simply couldn't resist!) 

Oh well! Even though I would have had wade more fun running the whole rapid, half a run is still better than no run at all. The part that I did manage was enjoyable, nonetheless. (By the way, for the KC readers who get the reference, I did not lose a towel on this set of rapids.)

With the wind still up, it took longer to get to the south end of Milotte Lake than it should have -- about 45 minutes. There, the river narrowed again, dropped, veered east and then south again, forming a set of rapids around a bend. My notes said that they are rocky and can be avoided by a steep 140-meter portage on river-right. My notes also said that they can be run in high water, but to be prepared for taking some bumps off of rocks. With the water being what it was, I was hopeful that I could run it. 

I got out at the portage and walked it to scout the run. From the trail, I walked to the river's edge and discovered that the rapids were totally runnable with a beefy wave train in the middle. However, without float bags or a spray deck on the canoe, I suspected that if I hit those standing waves head-on, I would likely take on quite a bit of water in a loaded boat. So, my plan was to stay just to the right of the wave train. I just had to be careful not to knock my noggin on the large cedar hanging over the run from the right bank. 

It was a fun ride, and I kept to my line nicely. I did have to duck under the cedar on the right a little lower than I thought I would need to. I would have hit my head, and I didn't cedar benefit in doing that. I was able to do it, though, and in the end I was just pine. 

Part of me wanted to try the run again by portaging the canoe back up it and running through the center of the wave train in an empty boat, but I had been on the water for nearly 7 hours at that point and was getting tired. With a considerable distance to go to make my goal for the day, I decided to move on. 

I turned to snap one more shot of the run from the bottom as the current carried me downriver. 

From the bottom of that CII rapid to my intended destination for the evening, an island site on Punchard Lake, I had about 7 kilometres of paddling to do. Thankfully, there weren't any wider expanses in the river for the first half of that leg where it would have been harder to battle the wind. By the time I reached the bend where the river veered to the southwest, the wind had decreased considerably. This pleased me greatly in the wider expanses of Punchard Lake. 

I rocked up to the site on the south side of the island that dominated the center of the lake just after 5 PM. It had been a long day of paddling, and I was done for the day. I pulled my canoe and gear ashore and inspected the site. 

The front of the campsite on the southeast corner of the island was small but had nice views of the southern expanses of the lake. I think the high water submerging the surrounding rocky beach was making it seem much smaller than it normally would at lower levels. 

There weren't really any suitable trees close to the water on which to hang my hammock, so I was forced to do so in the spruce forest behind the site.