Enid and Graeme at Nistowiak Falls
We were up at seven and on the water by nine. We first went in to Nistowiak Falls, then paddled on to Potter Rapids. It was a sunny day with a light wind from the south west, so it was easy paddling.We made the portage by dragging the canoe over the skids, and carrying the kayak. There are small rapids below the portage. Enid and I hit a large eddy and turned back upstream, but were fine. We then ate lunch at a point (just before the fallen over cross).
We paddled on to the island at the east end of the lake (13 U 552004 6139368) intending to camp there. However, I walked all over the end of the island and couldn’t find anyplace nice to stay. I thought this was where Enid and I stayed in 2006, but I could find no sign of a fire pit. [This is surprising, as on reading my diaries when I returned home I found that we stayed here in 2001, as well as Graeme and I in 2003.] We talked to some fishermen that were here in a boat, but they didn’t know of any campsites in the area either. We paddled back towards the north, looking at many island areas but really couldn’t find much that was nice. At one point we went through an area marked as the path between two islands, but it was very shallow, and we had to pole hard to get through the shallow weedy water. I thought Graeme, Geoffrey and I had camped on the point at the north end of Wium Bay (13 U 551666 6142642) but that didn’t look possible at all. We finally found a site on the side of the mainland, but it was fairly high and didn’t have a good place to set up a tarp. We paddled a long way out of our way looking for a site.
A couple of canoes came by from the north as we were pitching our tents. They looked at the island across from us, but then continued on. They must have come down the Drinking River.
Graeme and I went fishing after supper, but caught nothing except weeds. It started to sprinkle rain not more than 15 minutes after we got on the water, so we came back in. We quickly got everything put away, and then it started to rain heavily. We got into our tents since we had no tarp set up. It is not late, only 7:30, but it looks like we are socked in for the night.
Paddled: 23.6 km
Camped: 13 U 550885 6142373