Day 1- Duke Lake to Tenth Lake
We left from our house in Sudbury at around 1:00 in the
afternoon for the put in at Duke Lake. Tony and Rick plus his dog Casey in
Rick’s van and myself, wife Jan and a friend Dave in my vehicle. Jan and Dave
would be shuttling Rick’s van from Duke Lake back down the highway and through
the bush roads to the “Elbow” where the 3 of us would finish our trip. It was a
gorgeous spring day and we quickly unloaded the canoes from the vehicles and
said goodbye to Jan and Dave and hit the water. As it was later in the day we
planned to only canoe down to the first campsite on Tenth Lake and setup for
the night.
Day 2 - Tenth Lake to Expanse Lake
We awoke to another beautiful day and after a leisurely
breakfast we packed up and headed off for the day’s paddling. This section of
the Spanish River, the “East Branch”, is a series of narrow lakes nestled in
amongst hills on either side of them as you travel downstream. The lakes are
connected by narrow channels of moving water. Duke Lake is the starting point
and you next enter Tenth Lake and travel downstream through to First Lake and then
into Expanse Lake. From here it is about 3 kms of river travel to “The Forks”
where you meet the “West Branch” of the river which flows out of Biscotasing
Lake.
After we passed through into Ninth Lake we detoured to the
northeast corner of the lake to look for some native pictographs on a small
cliff. The water levels are high and many of the connecting channels between
lakes are little more than a few riffles with a noticeable current pushing the
canoes onward. The forest cover is typical of this section of Ontario, which
lies between the Boreal forest to the north and the St Lawrence - Great Lakes
forest to the south. It contains species from both zones such as pine (white,
red and jackpine), spruce, balsam fir, cedar, white birch, poplar, maple and
ash. The leaves are only beginning to flush on the hardwoods and the ferns and
wildflowers are easy to pick out as we travel along. We finally reach Expanse
Lake in late afternoon and stop for the night at a campsite about ½ way down
the lake on the east shore. We enjoy a couple cold beers and chicken quesedillas
for supper. The evening sky shows some high cirrus clouds and the wind dies
away leaving the lake like glass.
Day 3 - Expanse Lake to Lower Athlone Rapids
The morning brought an overcast day. The past 2 days had
been fairly benign when it came to the bugs, the mosquitos and blackflies had
been quite manageble with just enough breeze to keep them at bay. This being
spring in Northern Ontario they can be quite fierce but we’d been fortunate to
this point. We were prepared with bug dope, head nets, bug jackets etc and of
course my Eureka VCS 12 bug tent. The ability to get under cover from the bugs
while cooking and eating makes a trip like this bearable. However, today was to
be a different story! The winds were light, the humidity and cloud cover spoke
of possible rain later and the bugs were out in force and looking to feed! We
didn’t dawdle too much while packing up and headed on our way. The trip changes
once you leave Expanse Lake as it becomes much more of a down river trip from
this point on with only Spanish Lake to cross before you reach our take out at
the Elbow. After leaving Expanse Lk. you travel through the Kingfisher Swifts
down to the Forks where the West Branch meets the East Branch and you begin to
see the CPR railway line. We arrived at the forks just in time to see the Budd
Car heading west on it’s way to White River. It’s about 3 km from the Forks to
the first serious whitewater of the trip - Upper and Lower Athlone Rapids. The
rapids are runnable however caution and scouting are required especially in
spring high water conditions. The first set is the most difficult with a large
standing wave river centre and a chute available river right. We headed out and
to make a long story short - the gods decided we needed a bath! We missed the
chute and the standing waves filled the tandem and Rick’s solo as well. We all
swam ashore and picked our gear out of the eddy and repacked the canoes, lined
down stream to get across the break and ran the rest of the rapids sucessfully.
It’s a short haul down to the Lower Athlone Rapids and here discretion carried
the day and we portaged the set. There’s a nice campsite at the end of the
rapids and we decided to spend the rest of the day here as it was mid-afternoon
and it had been raining a bit off and on. We changed into some dry clothes and
took stock of our gear. Everything came through mostly dry and the only losses
were a sponge and my hat.
Day 4 - Lower Athlone Rapids to Cliff Rapids
We got up to a grey sky and more bugs! The plan for today
was to head for the campsite at Cliff Rapids with a stop along the way to
explore an old logging camp just south of Pogamasing. Water levels are high and
we encounter no difficulties with any of the rapids or swifts along the way
today. Once passed Sheehan I began to look for the area where the abandoned
logging camp is situated. It is located below Pogamasing and before the mouth
of Path Creek on river left. The area has grown up considerably since the late
40’s when the camp was active and can’t be seen from the water. I stumbled
across it the previous fall when in the area on foot doing a reconnassance for
a winter camping trip. We landed on the bank of the river and had lunch and
then wandered into the bush to find the camp. We spent an hour or so poking
around the old building remnants and looking at old bottles and cans found
laying around the area. From here it was only about another hour to Cliff
Rapids and our campsite for the evening. Cliff Rapids is aptly named as there
is a high cliff river right as you enter the rapids. The campsite is also river
left at the bottom of the run. We pulled in set up for the evening. The sky had
cleared and the sun was once again out making for a pleasant late afternoon and
evening. Once supper was out of the way Tony and I decided that the cliff must
be climbed. We found a way to scale to the top and were rewarded with some
great views of the river valley from the top.
Day 5 - Cliff Rapid to the “Elbow”
Our last day on the river would prove to be the nicest day
weather wise. We were under a huge high pressure ridge and the temperatures
climbed to the mid 20’s and there was hardly any wind at all. The river was
like glass in it’s calmer, deeper areas. We stopped for lunch on the campsite
at the north end of Spanish Lake and the lake was a huge mirror. After lunch we
headed off for the last stretch to the Elbow. This consisted of Zig Zag and the
Tofflemire Rapids interspersed with swifts and fast flowing water from Spanish
Lake to the Elbow. We stopped above Zig Zag to scout the rapids and picked a
line although with the amount of water flowing downriver there wasn’t a huge
need to do much of any zigging or zagging. The Tofflemire Rapid was just as
much fun and consisted of one long wave train after another. Soon we arrived at
our journeys end and reluctantly pulled the canoes and gear up to the van for
the trip back to Sudbury.
It was another great trip with good friends and considering
that it had been snowing and raining on the weekend before we did the trip, the
bugs and a couple of light showers along the way wasn’t much of a hardship at
all for the excellent conditions and trip we had.
| Photo credits: RP - Rick Pargeter, unattributed - Sid Bredin | ||||
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