Maps provided courtesy of Toporama which contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. I have marked my route in blue and portages in red. 

Day 2 - Lake Temagami to Iceland Lake (16 km)

The golden glow of the sunrise woke me up at 6 AM. It was either that or my full bladder -- most likely, both. 

For the longest time, when I was a kid, I thought that urine was stored in the testicles. It wasn't until I took my Grade 9 biology class that I learned that it was stored in the bladder. I learned about the vas deferens between the two. (What?! Pee pee jokes so early in the trip report? Urine big trouble here, readers!)  

I emerged from the protective cocoon of my hammock to assess the weather. It had sprinkled a bit through the night, apparently. The sky was still cloudy, but there were some intermittent spots of blue trying to poke through, which was hopeful.  The wind was a little too strong for my liking at such an early hour, however. I was just happy that it was blowing from the southwest, which meant that it would be at our backs as we moved east up the Northeast Arm of Lake Temagami. 

The boys all survived the night, and we were grateful that the nasty weather seemed to miss us much further to the south. Apparently, most of the province had been under a storm watch, and southwestern Ontario was hit hard, remaining without power for some time. I subsequently couldn't find any reports of a tornado touching down in the northeast on July 12th, where we were, however. Good news for campers like us!

After a breakfast of bacon n' egg wraps, which was washed down with a coffee or two, we broke camp and got on the water just after 9 AM.

With canoes loaded for bear, we crossed the expanse of the bay into the Northeast Arm and began skirting the southern shore and its many points and islands. 

At first, we found the wind a blessing as it ushered us forward toward our destination; however, after about 45 minutes, those waves that were caressing us along had transformed into formidable rollers that required a bit of deft maneuvering as we surfed their crests when they crept in behind us. I would have liked to get a photo or two of the big bay, but I was too busy using my paddle as a tiller to stop the rollers from lopsiding the boat. We did manage to get a short water break in the lee of an island at one point. 

After a couple of hours, we found ourselves at the mouth of the South Tetapaga River. With that wind at our backs, we had covered the 11 kilometres up the Northeast Arm in under two hours, and we weren't even paddling hard.

The South Tetapaga River, also known as Black Creek, turned out to be a swampy wetland for the most part. After ten minutes of paddling or so, we found ourselves at the steep rocky take-out for our first portage past a series of shallow rocky drops in the creek. This carry would prove to be the most challenging portage of the trip. 

The 460-meter trail was undulating and fairly overgrown in places. Being in a wetland, it was also buggy. It crossed the creek at one point, which required wading among slippery rocks. We were a bit concerned about J.P.'s ankle on this walk. When returning for our second load, we carried our paddles back with us to use as crutches to make the creek crossing easier. 

We found that this gave us a leg up with our footing. In fact, it turned out that with his hobbled ankle, J. P. really kneed to use it. We wanted to support him, because he really is a stand up kind of guy. (Apologies, these puns are tremendously off balance., but in the end, one has to stand  for something, even if they are lame  jokes.)

There were a couple of large blowdowns on the trail that required both putting the canoes down and sliding them under, as well as hoisting them over the fallen trees. 

At the put-in on the other side, we had to wait a bit for a large group of teenagers from a camp to load their canoes and shove off. We learned that two of them had gotten injured on the trail that we had just completed. They were on the start of a long multi-day trip, and already two of them would be requiring an evacuation. We offered to assist in any way, but they had already arranged for a pickup for the injured teens at the Central Lake Access Road, which the route would cross later in the day. Apparently, the nature of their injuries could allow them to go that far at least. 

After completing both loads, we decided to stop and have our lunch at the put-in to let the large group get further ahead of us. We made some cheese and pepperette wraps and filtered some more water that we mixed in with iced tea crystals. The day had become very hot and humid, especially in the enclosed area of the creek.  Jason ruminated about this with serious contemplation and deliberation, as seen in this photo. 

After a short paddle, we came to a log jam at a very shallow part of the river. My map showed that there would be a short 25-meter portage at that point to get past it, but we were able to wade our way through it, avoiding a carry. 

Past that, the creek emerged at a small, unnamed lake. We were using Jeff's Temagami Map as our guide, and it displayed that we would be taking two short consecutive portages of 145 and 235 meters at the south end of the lake. However, we spotted the camp group taking out on a logging road on the western shore. We paddled over, and after inquiring, they told us that it would be a single 500-meter carry along the road to Iceland Lake. Well, a single portage along a road is much easier than two shorter trails through the woods any day of the week, so we opted to take the road, as well.

We shared the portage with the large group since there was plenty of room for everyone, the canoes, and the gear.  It was an easy walk with little elevation change. 

Jason, being a denizen of Vancouver Island, apparently missed the rocky terrain of his home province and longed for some mountain climbing after spotting an erratic along the trail. 

The end of our portage crossed the Central Access Road, and there, the large group waited for help to arrive for the two injured campers in their party. 

We put in next to the plethora of canoes, and continued up the South Tetapaga River ahead of them. 

At that point, the sky began to get hazy to the southwest. 2025 was, yet again, another horrible year for out-of-control wildfires in Canada, particularly in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Northwestern Ontario earlier in the summer, and the east coast later in August. In fact, at the time of writing this at the end of August, the summer of 2025 has been second only to 2023 as the most destructive fire season in Canadian history. It affected the air quality across vast swaths of the continent intermittently all summer long. We assumed the haze that we were experiencing was the consequence of those fires.  

It was a relatively short paddle up the river before emerging into Iceland Lake, our destination for the day. Iceland Lake was very pretty and interesting. The lake was littered with tree-studded islands that seemed to break the lake up into picturesque nooks and crannies. 

We opted for a campsite on the northeast corner of an island smack dab in the middle of the lake that offered nearly 360-degree views of  various bays, points and other islands. It was exposed, for sure, but our weather forecast wasn't predicting any nasty weather coming our way. 

We immediately set up camp and made it our home for the night. 

We all went for a swim after setting up and then just relaxed for the rest of the evening.  While swimming, a pair of ladies from the Kawartha Lakes area in a Swift Prospector paddled past on their way to Driftwood Lake, and we exchanged greetings. We would end up encountering these ladies intermittently for the remainder of the trip as we leapfrogged each other during our respective progress along the route.

After rehydrating some meals, Scott and I paddled around some of the islands to try our hand at fishing, but weren't getting any bites despite Iceland Lake's reputation as a good bass fishery. The water was very warm, and the fish were sluggish. (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! ) 

What little action I missed with fishing, I received with water from Scott's paddling technique upon returning to our island campsite. It was great, because I was already behind schedule for my evening shower, and Scott amply assisted with that.  

We got a good fire going and enjoyed some nice banter and joking next to it before the inevitable witching hour was upon us and we called it a night.