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Hey Everyone,
I did a four day solo from Rain Lake to Canoe Lake at the beginning of August. It was a great trip. Weather was perfect, conditions were great and I got a couple of really nice sites (plus one bug infested swamp site, but two out of three ain't bad). I've got Day One up now. I'll put later days in the replies to this topic to avoid spamming this section.
Drew
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Hey Drew, that island campsite on Islet Lake sure can catch the weather! I was there in early August of 2006. Had a small tree crash down on the canoe during the stormy night of August 1st. During the evening of the 2nd, a dark high-wind rain storm ripped across the lake. In the darkness, a stalled plane kicked back to life right over the island! Turned out the same storm dropped tornadoes on Combermere (). Finally, the night of August 3rd, was a peaceful star-filled clear sky!
9am on the 2nd. Lucky the tree wasn't any bigger, or it would have crushed the canoe!
7pm on the 2nd. It got wetter, windier and darker really fast! (Looking south to the mainland)
10:30pm on the 3rd. (Looking SSW toward Weed Lake)
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Those are some crazy pics Barry. You're right, you're lucky that tree wasn't any bigger. It's true, that little island would be crazy exposed in bad weather. I suppose I've only been there on really nice days, but I imagine there'd be nowhere to hide during a bad storm.
Did you hear the engine cut out on the plane as well as start up again? That would be kind of intense.
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I heard days later that a float plane had lost power west of the lake and been lucky to power up again over the lake. I guess their only option would have been to land on the lake. The wind and rain was so noisy, we were lucky to hear the roar of the engine .. which tells me it was low overhead.
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Hey Drew, you wrote you got a new canoe. I remember you paddling a canoe like that in some of your other TR's. What canoe do you have? What's the story with them? They look light, but also delicate and maybe awkward for kneeling.
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MartinG wrote:
Hey Drew, you wrote you got a new canoe. I remember you paddling a canoe like that in some of your other TR's. What canoe do you have? What's the story with them? They look light, but also delicate and maybe awkward for kneeling.
It’s a Backcountry Custom Canoe solo Brookie. The builder is a guy named Jon and a few years back he lent me his to paddle on a couple of trips, which is why it was in those earlier reports.
I’m pretty happy with it so far. It’s light, under 30 lbs. The material is ballistic nylon, which is tougher than it looks. I scraped it over every rock on Potter Creek with no problems. Jon’s done done pretty extensive testing on them. The first time he showed me one of his boats he grabbed a 2 x 2 and just started hammering on the hull with no problems.
You’re right about kneeling. The ribs are can dig in. I put a thin foam mat down and that made it pretty much unnoticeable. The only main issue I have found so far is that it doesn’t track well when you stop paddling. Every time I stopped to take a picture it would curve left or right immediately. Other than that I like it.
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Day Three is up now! This leg took me from Misty to Brule. I loved the paddle from Misty to McIntosh, I don't know that I need to do the route from McIntosh to Brule again. I do need to revisit one of the sites I passed by on McIntosh though (site 22 in the PCI) it looked incredible.
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The fourth and final day of my trip is up now. This one took me from Brule down Potter Creek and smack into a headwind on Canoe. I also saw a turtle and got visited by a ... something. Here's the link:
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