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| Paddles and gear, piled up at Air Swisha
in Rapides-des-Joachims |
In what is quickly becoming an annual tradition, several of the
friends I had made on Canadian Wilderness Trip's Spanish River
trip in 2001 arranged to book as a group a little more than half
of the spaces on CWT's Dumoine River trip in 2003.
The Dumoine is a tributary of the Ottawa River, located just
inside Quebec. It's a very popular whitewater route, and the most
travelled of the three major Quebec-side tributaries (the others
being the Noire and Coulonge Rivers). Hap Wilson's write-up on
the river is in his book, Rivers of the Upper Ottawa Valley.
Saturday, August 9, 2003 (Day 0)
Because we were scheduled to depart CWT's
base camp at 9am on Sunday, all the participants on the trip arrived
the night before. Aviva, Tom, Don and I drove up in Tom's truck.
We stopped for dinner at my favorite Huntsville restaurant/pub,
The Cottage. The experience was marred only by perhaps, no...
certainly... the worst bar band I have ever heard. They played
all the classics from the Steve Miller Band, Neil Young, the Beatles
and so on, each one more off-key or off-tempo than the last.
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| DeHavilland Beaver C-FODA landing for
its first run to Lac Benoit |
We arrived at CWT's base camp on Lake Kawawaymog ahead of the
van carrying the remainder of our group from Toronto. Once they
had arrived, the guides and group met to discuss the trip ahead
of us. Our trip was fully-booked: 10 clients and two guides. Of
that group, five of us had first met on the Spanish River trip
(Tim, Don, Aviva, Tom and me). A sixth (Karonne) was a friend
I had made through the Toronto-based Virtual Voyageurs Canoe Club.
The remainder of the group was: Ben (actor/bookstore employee
from Toronto); Eddie (auto shop owner/operator from Pittsburgh,
PA); Walt (retired, from Pittsburgh, PA) and Darrin (accountant
from Toronto). Our guides were Don and Graeme (who had been one
of the guides on the Upper Missinaibi trip the year prior).
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| The view to the south from the Rapides-des-Joachims
floatplane base |
Sunday August 10
(Day 1)
The early morning was rushed. We had to leave the basecamp by
9 am, so that meant a 7:30 wake-up call (via the large bell in
front of the main cabin) and a quick pack-up and breakfast. The
drive from CWT's base camp to the float plane base in Rapides
des Joachims was about three hours, including a quick stop-off
in Mattawa, Ontario for muffins and coffee.
Rapides des Joachims is a small village on an island in the Ottawa
River. It is on the Quebec side of the border with Ontario, which
could be handy if you need some cheap beer or wine for your trip.
Quebec, unlike Ontario, allows beer and wine to be sold in corner
stores (known as depanneurs in French).
Though we were required to be at the floatplane operator, Air
Swisha, by noon, it was probably 1:30 pm before any of our group
was in the air - they were well behind schedule. Most of the flights
were via a small deHavilland Beaver plane. Its maxim
um capacity is one canoe, two passengers, and some packs. As
the round-trip to and from Lac Benoit (our starting point on the
Dumoine River) takes about one hour, we were in for a long afternoon
of sitting around and waiting. Just to improve our spirits, it
started raining heavily in the mid-afternoon, making loading of
the planes an unpleasant chore.
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| Canoes are secured to the side of the
plane, on a rig attached to the left float. |
Late in the afternoon, a larger deHavilland Single Otter plane
arrived from Air Swisha's parent company, Air Kipawa. The Single
Otter can carry two canoes and several passengers, which enabled
us to finally complete the ferrying of people and canoes to the
river. In total, four Beaver flights and one Otter flight were
required to get us all to the river.
I flew on the Otter, which, according to the plate on the dashboard,
had been built in 1960. It's almost a youngster compared to the
Beaver, registration C-FODA, which was built in 1951 and was depicted
on the November 1999 Canadian Heritage quarter (in that year,
a different quarter was minted for each month).
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| Our pilot (who doesn't seem to be watching
the sky!) |
Everyone was at a campsite on Lac Benoit by about 5:30 pm. Before
dinner, we practiced some paddling on the lake. The guides demonstrated
draws, cross-bow draws, etc. and showed us how to use them. For
most of us, this was review, but given the number of rapids we
were to face the next day, review was exactly what we needed!
On our previous trips, braces hadn't been a big part of the lessons.
For this river, the guides told us that a strong brace (a stroke
used to right the canoe when it's in danger of tipping) was essential.
To practice braces, we took the canoes into shallow water where
two people could get out of their canoe, take hold of the bow
and stern of another canoe, and try to tip it. Aviva (my paddling
partner) and I were eventually tipped by Tim and Karonne.
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| Me, trying to cook CWT's traditional
first night dinner (chicken stir fry) |
After the practices, we headed back to the site for a chicken
stir-fry dinner (traditionally, the first night meal on most CWT
trips).
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