Flat Water

We enjoyed a calm evening paddle heading to Blind River on day 3. The area of Lake Huron coast along the North Shore at the mouth of the Mississaugi river is undeveloped and seems to be a jewel of beauty still preserved.

Weather break

On an island next to Turnbull Island east of Blind River we had time to take some pictures while sheltering from the waves...

Portaging on the Mattawa

There are about 9 portages on the Mattawa between North Bay and the Ottawa River.
They're all longer and more technical than the French River though in retrospect not as long or complicated as those on the Ottawa River.

Portaging in Ottawa/Gatineau

Our last day arriving in Ottawa involved a few more portages. Here we are along one of the Gatineau bike trails. The video shows how "Place de la Portage" has developped from Voyageur times.....

Northwest Company store

North Bay remains today an important centre in the fur trade. The Northwest Company...yes descended from the original NWC and Hudson Bay Co......has one of their major exchange locations in the city. They distribute beads, skins and craft materials to aboriginal communities in this sector of Canada and serve the wholesale market taking in furs and other trade goods from as far north as Nunavut.
Note the rack of Narwhal tusks from Baffin Island with each tusk identified by a tag with details including the name of the inuit hunter who harvested the animal......

Driving back to the Sault

Driving back to the Sault we stopped at some familiar places while retracing our steps...strokes.....

French River Sailing

Althought the French River is upstream when going from west to east, the winds are said to be predominantly from the west. Check out some footage of us going upstream....please note that it is difficult to steer a canoe and capture video simultaneously... :-), thus the choppy image.

Here's some Video

This is some evening-scape on an Island between Spanish and Little Current. The geography of this camp site was drastically different from our trip to that point. The Island was made of limestone and not the granite of the Canadian shield. The water was perfectly clear and the layers of limestone formed ideal flat steps starting from beneath the water and rising to the area where we had set up the tent along the shore. We arrived at this site after braving open rough water and rain an hour earlier. We chose not to continue to Little Current due to high waves and this site, in the lea of the wind, proved perfect. We were even greeted by an otter that hung around watching the novel humans. The day ended with a post storm sunset....and of course the moon that followed for the first week.