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| Featured Trip: Nation Lakes Canoe Route |
| Author | Eli |
| Date | August 23, 1930 |
| Report |
Nation Lakes Canoe Route
Photos: Nation Lakes Photo Album
Our second canoe trip was a 110km trip which included 4 lakes and 3 river sections. This route is up north of Prince George, BC which is 1000km from Vancouver. From Prince George, we drove 2 hours to Fort St. James, a small logging town on Stuart Lake. We arrived during a wind storm and camped next to Stuart Lake. The next morning, we drove 2 1/2 hours on logging roads to the home of Doug and Doloroes who run a shuttle to the start of the route and rent canoes. We spent the night in their guest cabin and at 7:30am the next day, we did the 5 hour shuttle on logging roads to the start of the route. After 5 hours of bumpy logging roads, we were really ready to be on the way.
After Dolores dropped us off, we paddled 7 days and only saw one other canoe (on day 2). Other than that, we were on our own (although there are a few lodges along the way if we needed civilization). It was a really beautiful trip -- lovely large lakes, great views of the surrounding mountains, animals to see (from the boat), great camps with sandy beaches, and lots of solitude. I highly recommend the trip.
Logistics:
We rented canoes at $140 per week from Doug and Dolores French who run Nation Lakes Canoeing Camp during the summer. They shuttled us in their truck ($500 for the shuttle). They will also shuttle you in your car for $175. Why the difference in price? Wait till you see what the roads are like! The roads are fine for 2-wheel drive, but expect your car to take a beating and make sure your spare and jack are in good order.
Maps:
You can download a basic map from www.nationlakes.com and Doug gave us a more detailed map. I also downloaded the detailed map on the BC Parks website: BC Parks Map
Rivers:
This trip involves three river sections. Note we did this in late August during low water.
Tsayta-Indata (6.5km): This section was very tedious. Water was low, there are snags everywhere and the river is very twisty. We had to use a lot of river-technique to paddle most of this. We had to teach the girls how to do a strong river draw to be able to paddle the twists and avoid the sweepers. We could have lined the boats. The water was shallow and the river narrow. But that seemed both slow and boring, so we paddled as much as we could. There were 3 big log jams that we had to portage around. It took us 4 hours to do this 6.5km section. A saw would have been handy for the first section. Ug.
Indata-Tchentlo (4.8km): This section was fine. It was wider, there was more water, and it was straighter. There were just two or three parts where we needed to use river techniques. At the end, there was one log-jam, but we were able to slide the boats over the one log that blocked out way. We took this jam on the right. This section took us two hours.
Tchentlo-Chuchi (5km): The section was easy. Wide and straight. We zipped right through this in 1 1/2 hours.
Camps:
We stayed at the recreation camps because it works better with kids to have a bigger area for them to explore and to have a privy. The recreation camps had tables, fire rings, privies, and sometimes "bear bars". The bear bars were logs put about 10 feet off the ground. I don't think they'd keep a bear away from your food, but they work of the smaller critters. All camps that we saw were placed where there was a nice sandy beach. The map on www.nationlakes.com shows the locations of these camps that have big sandy beaches. There are other places to land too, but these are the better/bigger sites.
Bears:
We saw signs of bears (tracks) only at one point (not a camp) near a big stream. Dolores said that people see black bears sometimes, but the bears are shy and there have never been problems.
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