This year we decided to head back to the Dumoine River for our annual canoe trip. We'd been to the Dumoine back in 2001 during Jim's first year whitewater canoeing so it was time to try this beautiful river again. The river has numerous challenging class 2 and class 3 rapids but your chances of a mishap are not as high if you make a mistake and given last year's challenges on the Coulange we were interested in tackling something a little more forgiving.
Jim and I drove up Wednesday May 30th night to Driftwood Park minus Andy who was staying home in order to have arthroscopic knee surgery. Just as we got into Driftwood we noticed it looked as though they'd had a bad storm. As always Steve left directions on the park office door and we managed to find them at a beautiful spot right on the beach overlooking the Ottawa river. When we got there Steve asked how the driving was through the bad storm they'd had. Luckily, we'd missed the whole thing on the drive up.
View From Driftwood Campsite
As soon as they had arrived up at Driftwood Steve started putting up his tent and then they saw the bad weather coming in over the Ottawa river. Steve managed to finish putting up his tent and they decided to head for the car and watch the storm come in. They decided it was a good thing they made it to the car as the storm was pretty violent bending trees and actually tossing a canoe across the road near their site. Steve feared for his tent which managed to weather the storm okay but took a fairly good pounding in the process.
Jim and I were introduced to the 2 new canoe trippers Charles Hodgson and Steve Todd both from Ottawa. Steve T. was a cub scout leader with Steve F. and had displayed some fantastic camping skills on one of their beaver trips so when Steve F. asked Steve T. if he'd done white water canoeing before and Steve T. indicated that he had, it seemed like a match made in heaven. Steve T. had been whitewater canoeing many time and regaled us with some harrowing stories of mishaps. Steve T. brought along his partner Charles Hodgson who had been his partner on many previous white water trips and also had much white water canoeing experience.
Steve T. and Charles Getting Gear Ready
Getting another tandem canoe group for our trips is very important in case we have an accident where we lose a canoe as we almost did last year plus Charles is known for having an excellent Wannigan :). More important is the fact that you get along and work as a team. Steve T. and Charles fit in really well with the group.
The next morning we awoke bright and early at 6 am to a porridge breakfast and coffee made by Steve F. who is usually one of the first up to make sure everyone starts their day off right. We began weeding out the duplicate items. I even convinced Jim to go with only 2 pairs of socks which I regretted for the rest of the trip.
After breakfast and preparing our gear, we met a friend of Jacques who was going to shuttle us up the Dumoine this year. We picked up Jim and my canoe up at the Air Swisha base. This base will shuttle you up the Dumoine in a float plane. We'd done this previously but this year we were going to try the shuttle in a van.
Once the van was all loaded we ventured into the logging roads to get up to our drop off point which was just above Lac Benoit. Thankfully Steve T. had his GPS with him as we attempted to find our way to the dropoff point. This is not easy as logging roads aren't well marked.
The road was very bumpy and thankfully we hadn't attempted to do this in our cars as they would have bottomed out. Especially my Honda Civic! We arrived at the dropoff spot which was Bridge rapids. This is a nice Class 2 rapids that travels beneath a railway bridge. It is an excellent rapid to practice your skills on before venturing into tougher rapids downstream. We had chosen this spot wisely as just up the river is Triple Play, a nasty mixture of C3-C4 rapids which would have been quite a challenging start to the trip.
Even with the Bridge rapids, my experience from last year was still fresh in my memory and hence I was fairly uncomfortable to begin with. The adrenalin began surging through my veins at the site and sound of this rapid. We surveyed the rapid from the bridge and it wasn't too bad. The flow was fairly fast but there were no major obstacles to avoid. We loaded up the boats with the gear and then all of us did this rapid with no problems. Thankfully as having a spill this early on would have been an ominous start to the trip.
Bridge Rapids C2
After Bridge rapids we played in some C1 rapids practicing our eddying and other techniques before getting to Lac Benoit. We canoed across Lac Benoit and saw the float plane bringing in another group. We were thankful for the shuttle since the float plane could only take 2 people at a time. This would have meant the good part of a day shuttling up the group since it would have been 3 trips.
Below Lac Benoit we had a C1 and then all managed to get through a C2 rapid called "Tight 'Round the Bend". The main danger to this was the set of falls after a fairly calm finish so we were thankful not to dump on this one. We portaged the falls and got to the next rapid "Canoe Eater" close to the end of the day.
Lookout From End of Canoe Eater Rapids
"Canoe Eater" is an ominous sounding C3 rapid. After taking one look at the boulders in this rapid we decided that we didn't want to walk the rest of the way out so we portaged the rapid and we set up camp at a nice site at the bottom of this rapid.
Try This At Your Peril
At the end of the day, we attempted a swim in the cold but wonderfully refreshing river. It was nice to let the body go numb after being bug bait for a good part of the day. The water is beautifully clean and after swimming we felt very rejuvenated.
We started the next day with a wonderful breakfast of authentic bannoc cooked up in Charles fabulous camping wok which was produced from the wannigan. We got going at around 8:30 am and immediately confronted with rapids with ominous sounding names such as "The Sleeper", "The Snake", and "Thread The Needle". Each of these were C2 rapids with lots of technical challenges. With my new-found training from the previous year, Jim and I practiced giving more control to the bow person and this enabled us to miss some of the more dangerous aspects of these rapids. We still had a few mistakes, on rapid "Double Choice" we missed the recommended path through 2 boulders and thankfully were able to take a second route through closer to the middle using an active paddling approach which means we paddled faster than the rapid flow and this kept us in control.
Steve T. and Charles proficiently paddled through each of these rapids using techniques such as backferrying to get out of harms way in a very controlled fashion. Something Jimmy and I can learn from.
Towards the end of the day we did a mandatory portage around "Little Steel Falls" and then put in at the bottom of this rapid and continued on through "S" rapids which as its name sounds was quite tricky and finished the day off running a series of swifts that finished a challenging but thoroughly enjoyable day. Finally I was starting to get my gumption back!!
Jim with Little Steel Falls In The Background
We bypassed a campsite called "Hobbit Campsite" and continued on and found a fantastic campsite on a peninsula. The route to the campsite ascended up a steep bank to a plateau at the top with spots along the plateau for 4-5 tents single file. This was easily the most picturesque campsite of the trip.
Steve and Jacques Surveying The Campsite
Tough Getting the Gear Up The Steep Bank
View From The Top
The only problem with this campsite was that there wasn't a lot of wood so Jim volunteered to canoe over to the campsite just across the strait and pick up their wood. Steve F. also noticed a nice grill so he scooted over and picked it up. No sooner had we depleted the site of its provisions when a tired crew of canoeists pulled in at this campsite. Needless to say we kept pretty quiet as we enjoyed our nice fire-cooked meal on a stable grill.
Before dinner a few of us went for a refreshing swim in the bay beside our peninsula. Because the bay was sheltered the water was much warmer. Then we went to explore some scenic chutes that were tucked away in the forest in a creek that was a short canoe paddle from the campsite. It was a pretty set of chutes and well worth getting a little wet by climbing through the forest.
After a thoroughly enjoyable meal of Jacques' Thai Green Chicken Steve T. brought out an orange bag. I'd seen him portaging the bag and figured that it was an elaborate fishing pole of some sort. Instead of pulling out a fishing pole, he pulled out an acoustic guitar. He then proceeded to tune it. He explained that he'd gotten it for $10 at a garage sale. While tuning it he managed to separate the string bridge from the body of the guitar which had been previously glued together by its previous owner. I thought this was the end but not for this group. Steve T. asked if anyone had a screw driver and drill and to my surprise Jacques produced both. They then proceeded to repair the guitar by bolting the bridge into the body of the guitar.
Steve T. Repairing the Guitar While Jim is Drying his Good Pair of Socks
After a couple of hours Steve T. and Jacques had repaired the guitar. Then out came the song sheets much to the chagrin of the guys in the campsite on the island across from ours. Jim Kerr picked up one of Jacques harmonica's and we belted out campfire songs. Including a lively rendition of "The Blackfly" by Charles. Jacques who surprised us all with his amazing guitar playing and singing did a beautiful rendition of Claude Dubois' "Labrador" song.
After a pea meal bacon and egg breakfast we headed off the next morning through some flat water paddling. That was until we got to "Big Steel" rapids. This is a challenging C3 rapid. Most of us decided to take a pass on this one. It looked like it was very tough technically as you had to pick your way through a boulder garden at the top and then get through some haystack waves without swamping the boat. Steve T. and Charles decided to run it so the rest of us portaged the gear and waited below prepared for the worsed with throw bags and Steve F and Jim ready in the canoe in case of a mishap. Well Steve T. and Charles manouevered through "Big Steel" in fine fashion eddying out at the bottom of the C3 to wild applause from the shoreline as we were happy not have to stage a river rescue. At the bottom of "Big Steel" we all put our boats in to finish off the remaining rapids which were C1 and C2.
We ate a floating lunch which was very comfortable after our portage at "Big Steel". The bugs were nasty on the portage and we were happy to bring the boats together and just float down the river during lunch. The wannigan served as a wonderful table and Charles brought out a huge bag of pitas and we ate brie cheese and sausage slices on the pitas.
Floating Lunch
After our floating lunch we paddled some more flat water until we got to the Margaret Spry Shelter. We visited this public shelter and each of us carved our names and the date in the walls of the shelter as many canoeists before us had done.
We began to see more cottages around this stretch of the Dumoine because this area has good road access along the Eastern shore. We paddled through a final rapids for the day and all managed to get through successfully at the "Shoreway" rapids. Just after this we decided to check out the campsite on a point. Even though it was early in the day we decided not to pass this one up. After surveying the campsite we saw that it had an ample supply of firewood, picnic tables, a shelter and a beautiful breezey peninsula to put the tents. To top it off, the campsite had a johnny on the spot which was a luxury given what we encountered earlier. Jim remembered this site from the first trip. We'd seen a pile of Merganzer eggs in the tall grass and heard the howling of wolves when we went to bed. We put up our tents and dried out most of our gear and I went for a swim out to a nearby island and did a loop around it. Perhaps a little too long of a swim as I felt like I had hypothermia on the way back.
The Luxury Campsite
Because we had made camp early the previous day we knew we had a lot of paddling the next day to keep on our schedule so we were up bright and early and had a light breakfast in order to get on the river by 8. We knew we had the portage at the Grande Chute ahead of us. The portage is 1.5 kms and is really tough if you hit it mid-day. As we approached the Grande Chute, there was no mistaking this rapid for anything else as we could hear the thundering roar from far off in the distance. We arrived at the rapid by 10 and immediately took the canoes on the portage to get the worsed part over with.
After first portaging the canoes along the road trail we planned on coming back on the scenic route which goes along the shoreline but we had a tough time finding the scenic route back along the shoreline. After enquiring at the Zec office, we found out that this area had been heavily hit by last summer's July tornado which had devestated that area. The Zec office lost a big garage and there were many trees down along the scenic route beside the river and they were still attempting to clear the backlog of trees. We had seen much of this devestation during our portage.
The Bridge Overlooking "La Grande Chute"
Zec Office at "La Grande Chute"
After finishing the portage, we decided to have another floating lunch to get some breeze and get away from the bugs. We canoed mostly flat water until we reached a series of rapids called the "Red Pine Rapids". The first part of these rapids was runnable and we all made it down to the middle section called "The Ledge". This was a nasty C3 with lots of souse holes. We portaged most of our gear down most of the portage route known as "Fat Man's Misery". This really was no fun (even for skinny men) as the terrain was rough and the forest was very dense and we were portaging on a high bluff beside the river. This followed our tough portage of the Grande Chute so I think most of us were sick of portaging at this point. We did have enough sense to put in after "The Ledge" and we ran a challenging C2 where we had to hug the left bank and then brace through some rather rough water before eddying out in a pool to give us time to figure out the next section of the rapid. The next section of this rapid titled "Keyhole" had an ominous ledge on the right side so we stuck hard to the left side of the river which was a little shallow but better than venturing over the ledge.
Thankful to be passed the "Red Pine" rapids we continued on through some simpler C1 swifts. After finishing the swifts we came around a bend and saw the Bald Eagle Cliff rising out of the water. This is a 500ft granite cliff that seems to rise to the sky. Last time we attempted to do some novice rock climbing up the cliff face but this time we were a little more sensible and decided to stay in the canoes and admire from afar.
Jacques And Steve Beside Bald Eagle Cliff
We continued on until we came to the Bowman falls campsite. This was a fantastic spot for our final campsite on this incredible river. There were many flat cleared locations to pitch a tent beside the falls. The hypnotic roar of the falls served to drown out any other noise making it much easier to sleep. It threatened to rain so we all pitched in and got camp setup and dinner ready. I really noticed how the group was beginning to gel as a team as some people were putting up tarps, others preparing the dinner and others getting a fire going. We had a nice meal of mushroom soup mixed with vegetables and pasta. A recipe that I had stolen from Dave Hunsberger from previous canoe trips.
Mealtime at Bowman Falls
After eating the meal, it appeared as though as storm was coming. We were on a point so the wind came howling through. We decided to take down the tarps before they flew off like kites. We had an early night which was fine with all of us as this had been our longest day on the river.
Bowman Falls
Pink Lady Slippers
The next morning we had a light breakfast of porridge and then set off to reach the Ottawa River in the morning. The wind is known to get stronger and stronger as the day progresses and the Ottawa river can also produce some heavy rolling waves which can make it dangerous to cross. Thankfully the wind wasn't too strong although it was raining fairly hard as we crossed the river. We all stuck closely together and Steve Todd's GPS came in handy as we were able to take the shortest route across the river to Driftwood Park.
We arrived at the park at around 11 am and gathered the cars. We then kept our tradition of heading out for a wonderful breakfast before saying good-bye to everyone. It was another great canoe experience for us all. Hopefully the start of many more with our 2 new members Steve T. and Charles.
For all the Dumoine pictures click on the following link:
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