Day 1: Allanwater River

19 km, 10 portages, 2 lines

After a restless sleep we woke early to discover another group of canoeists had been sleeping 100 meters away!  They were just finishing their canoe trip and catching the eastbound train that morning back towards Armstrong.

Instead of cooking breakfast at the clearing (which was pretty buggy), we decided to just get on the water and stop at the first campsite we could find. 

Looking around we couldn’t find any public water access and ended up quickly scooting through the outfitting property north of the tracks.  Jumping in the boat, we were on our way before 8:00AM.  

Paddled about a kilometer and turned up the Allenwater River.  The entire area has been recently burnt, a trend that would continue throughout our trip.  About 500m later was portage #1 (marked “P1” on map), a burnt campsite island.  Portage is located across the middle of the island, through the campsite where we stopped for breakfast. 

This was the start of a very long day of portaging, lifting and lining down the river in our carbon boat (she doesn’t like rocks, lots of shallow moving water in the fall).

 

Rest of the river

-          1.5km later portage 2 (P2), river right (RR)

-          1km P3 river left (RL)

-          2km P4 RR

-          1.5km swift, 500m swifts, 200m swifts

-          3 km P5 RR

-          1.5 km P6 across an island (I think, memory not so good by this point)

-          200 m P7 RR

-          2km P8 RR (up the left channel around the large island)

-          1km P9 RL

-          500m P10 RL

It’ was a gorgeous hot (20+ degrees) and sunny day, unusual for September. In addition to the portages, there were a couple places we lined the boat (in some swifts – we weren’t chancing it with the carbon boat) and by 2 pm we were done.  No sleep the night before, heat and numerous portages had taken their toll and exhausted us. 

Found a beautiful campsite to swim, read, relax and dry out our gear (heavy dew the night before).  Rested up for day 2.

** lost red throw-rope bag, if found – please email (address is on the bag!!)**