The portage in to Nellie may have been the hardest of the trip, but the portage out was a contender for second. The saving grace of the trail to Helen Lake is that at least it’s downhill. Almost two and half kilometres of downhill, but it does go down. We took our time and had a good breakfast before heading out.
We started out the day with a mistake – I mistook a boat stashed near the end of the portage for the start of the trail. We’d unloaded our gear and I had the canoe on my shoulders before I realized that the trail I thought I was following was just random gaps through the trees. I turned around a few times before putting the canoe down so I could search properly. I finally found the trail, and it was a bit embarrassing to have missed it since it was so obvious. Then it was back for the canoe and the long walk had begun.
This is a pretty trail, but nothing like The Notch. There’s a small lake half way along the portage that can usually be paddled to shave a few hundred meters off. The last time we were here we did exactly that. It’s simply labelled Unnamed Lake, or Faux Lake on some maps. But it requires a short detour, and if water levels are low it’s not passable. I didn’t want to risk going down to the lake and then coming back if it wasn’t passable so I decided to do it all in one go. I was starting to regret this decision as the trail climbed over some rocks after passing the take out for the short cut, but when the lake became visible below I was shocked to see that the water was gone! The trail crosses a beaver dam that used to hold the lake in place, but there’s a gaping hole in the dam now, and what used to be a marshy pond is now a grassy field.
My shoulders were screaming by the time I got to Helen Lake, and I took a break while I waited for Xander. The return trip was longer than I remembered, and I kept thinking that we were almost there. The food pack was now significantly lighter than the canoe, which was a relief after such a long walk.
Helen is a pretty lake, and if you look back you can see the North LaCloche hills poking above the trees. It was a bit surreal to realize that we’d been camped on a lake perched high up in those hills just a few hours before. The portage from Helen to Low is a shelf of white quartz that doubles as a campsite. It’s not particularly long, but it’s pretty steep. Both Low Lake and the portage are quite pretty.
There are a lot of submerged logs at the far end of Low Lake, and I was worried that these might damage our canoe further. Last time we managed to get through this section by doing a few quick lift-overs, but this time I didn’t want to risk it. Fortunately there was an extra portage around this section and we were able to avoid any mishaps.
After Low Lake there’s a marshy pond that’s so covered in lily pads and bullrushes that navigation is a challenge. We wound our way through this confusing but pretty place and then we just had a short portage down to McGregor Bay.
At this point we were technically on Lake Huron, so there were no more portages for a while. McGregor Bay is very scenic, and has a unique feel of its own. Nestled between the north and south forks of the white quartzite LaCloche Hills, McGregor Bay is dotted with small islands of pink granite. Unfortunately with the open water comes boats and cottages. The last time we were here it felt like a traffic jam – there were boats everywhere. We were luckier this trip, and didn’t see any boats at all on our first day.
The cottages are always there however. We were paddling past a large cottage under construction and I was thinking to myself how it broke the spell of being in the wilderness when all of a sudden a powerful stereo was cranked up and the previously quiet air was filled with the sounds of classic rock. My annoyance increased with this new intrusion, but then the owner of the monstrosity ran down his expansive dock and literally greeted us with open arms. He invited us in for a beer if we wanted, or to spend the night. We declined politely, but it was hard to stay annoyed with the guy when he was so friendly. And while his cottage didn’t fit with the experience we were trying to have, it was a nice cottage and seemed to suit him fine. At least it’s outside of the park in a mixed use area.
After passing the cottages we paddled through the Russian Pass. The pass is a small channel blasted between the mainland and McGregor Island. It was allegedly constructed by a logging company in the early 1900s. When water levels are low the pass can require a short portage, but there was plenty of wet today and we paddled through without problem.
We could have camped for free on the abundant crown land in the bay, but just to be safe I’d booked one of the sites in the park. The last time we were here the site on the nearby point was the nicest looking one, so we stayed there. It’s a very scenic site with great sunset views, but if there’s a lot of boat traffic it’s not very private. Jeff’s map warns that the sites in the East Channel are messy and infested with cockroaches. It was a bit messy, but not nearly as bad as our site on Murray had been, and we didn’t find the cockroaches until the morning when some of them scurried away after I lifted the lid of the thunder box. Finding the thunder box was a bit of a chore, because the site’s so open and public the facilities are located quite a ways back in the woods. It’s also a challenging site to set up a hammock. There aren’t many suitable trees, and I had to pitch my hang way up the hill. Not only was it a bit of a climb to get to, the terrain underneath was pretty treacherous.
It was a really hot sunny day when we got to our site, and we had an ample supply of firewood so we made a nice fire almost as soon as the sun set. I was quite surprised when I stepped away from the fire after dark because it had become really cold. Our packs were covered in dew because of the sudden temperature change and I scurried back to the sanctuary of the fire. The cold was a bit of a relief because it chased off the mosquitoes. Until that night we’d seen about one or two of the flying parasites per day, but that evening there was a small swarm of them. Not what you’d experience in the spring, but enough to be annoying while we ate dinner. There were also a few mosquitoes the next night in Baie Fine, but once we returned to the interior of the park the bugs were gone.
I was a bit worried that I’d be cold sleeping in the hammock, but my gear kept me warm. What I hadn’t anticipated was another night creature that woke me while sniffing around underneath me in the middle of the night. I’d left my sandals on the ground, and I had visions of them being chewed up by some misguided animal, so I finally got out and hung them over my ridgeline.