My aunt has been a member of the Ottawa Outdoor Club (OOC) for years and invited me to join them on this year’s Labour Day long weekend canoe trip to La Verendrye Wildlife Reserve in Quebec. I figured this would be a great way to experience my first ever canoe trip, travelling with skilled paddlers.
Thursday: I flew from my home in London, Ontario to my aunt’s place in Gatineau, Quebec.
Friday: This morning we drove to the OOC storage unit where the club’s equipment is stored. Here we met the other 3 members of the group that would be joining us, loaded up the canoes and departed for the park at around 1pm (a later start than I would have liked). From this point we were about a 3 hour drive to the park office. We did not have a route pre-planned so we stopped at the park office for our permits and to speak with staff for a route suggestion. After some discussion we decided on route 70 at the far end of the park.
La Verendrye Route 70.jpg
After another 2 hours of driving we finally arrived at the put-in spot at around 7pm due to our late start and many stops along the way. Luckily for us there is a campsite at the put-in spot. Time for my first ever backcountry hang in my recently purchased Jacks ‘R’ Better Bear Mountain Bridge Hammock.
IMG_0696.jpg
Saturday: After a quick breakfast and breaking down camp it was finally time to get on the water. We paddled for about an hour and a half or so upstream before reaching our first portage. After an easy 120m portage and quick snack it was time to get back in the water, and this is where our leisurely trip turned interesting. The first half of our route was upstream, so this portage had us putting in at the top of a class 3 rapid. In hindsight, we should have had our strongest paddler in the stern but we pushed off from shore and got our nose too far into the current and were immediately spun around. We paddled as hard as we could towards the opposite shore but it was too late, we hit a rock and were overturned. I was lucky and came up close enough to shore that I was able to swim and escape but my aunt ended up riding the entire length of the rapids down.
Amazingly nobody was seriously hurt and nothing was lost or damaged except for the canoe. After collecting all of our gear from the water we decided this was enough adventure for today. We would setup camp for the night and make a game plan for getting out the next morning.
20180902_124239.jpg
Sunday: After a long rainy night it was time to work on getting out of the park. We had decided that it was our responsibility to get the damaged canoe out of the park so we began collecting downed logs to fashion a raft. This worked surprisingly well and actually made decent time dragging the raft back to the cars with the remaining canoe. The rest of the day was spent shuttling our group back and forth from the portage spot to the cars. We spent the final night camping back at the cars.
Monday: Today was spent driving out of the park. We stopped at the park office on the way out to inform them of our accident and come to find out that this route is considered an expert route. We are clearly no experts!
The flight home was spent pondering whether I was going to cancel my Algonquin trip in a few weeks or get right back on the horse.
I did end up taking that Algonquin trip and ended up with another story to tell.
Thank you.
Reply With Quote
Thanks for sharing and glad you're ok.
Glad you're OK. I thought those aluminum canoes where indestructible. Guess not.
Originally Posted by Bubba
Bookmarks