Enid at rock paintings below Stanley Mission
We awoke at 4 am. It was still dark out, and the wind was already up. Although it had been quite calm by about 11 pm last night, sometime in the early morning the tent started flapping in the wind. Neither Enid nor I had great sleeps as we lay worrying about the weather.
Since it was still pretty dark I cooked breakfast with my headlamp on. A bat flew by. It was just starting to get light as we left at 5:30. The wind was from the south west, the direction we would be paddling, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as yesterday, so we were able to make headway.
We crossed the largest open stretches without incident, though we had to work hard against the wind. Then we were able to sneak in around islands for a ways and avoid the worst of the wind. The strongest wind hit us as we crossed Drope Lake. The wind was now shifting towards the northwest, so it came straight across the lake.
We portaged on the roller portage at little Stanley rapids, then paddled to a point just west of the rock paintings to eat lunch. Several boats were fishing near here, as well as a large group of canoes that was out looking at the rock paintings. As they were clambering all over the rocks I commented, “it’s a wonder that the paintings have survived all these years without damage, given how many people don’t know how to look after them.”
While we were eating a boat came by close to shore and quite fast. Its wake hit the canoe which was sitting on the rocks and tossed it around a bit. After lunch we paddled in to Stanley. By now the wind was either down, or had shifted so that it no longer was a problem for us to paddle into.
A full boat of tourists were unloaded at the dock. Just as we arrived another boat arrived with all their gear. They had so much with them that I commented sarcastically to Graeme, “they must have been out for a month.”
I picked up the Tahoe, got a bag of ice for our fish, then we loaded up our gear. On the way out of Stanley we stopped at the Co-op to buy a pop. I was struck by the lack of any good food in the store, though they did have a huge stack of cases of pink marshmallows right by the door. They were labeled in Spanish, so I’m not sure where they originated from, but not likely in Canada.
Paddled: 21.4 km
If you’re looking for a few pictures of the trip, they’re online here.