Day 3 and 4: Perkins Lake to Obabika Portage

For today's entry I have made the decision to combine days 3 and 4 together. I have done this because my memory of the route has already started to go foggy and there are very few pictures of this section to aid my memory. The only pictures I do seem to have of day 3 are of my arse so apologies for that in advance...
Day 3 brought much of the same as day 2. I tried my hardest to stay in bed as late as possible. Enjoying the warmth and comfort of my Hammock and sleeping bag. When I finally awoke I noticed the ache of my muscles in my shoulders and across my back. The feeling was not completely unpleasant. I felt worked and it felt good.  The morning provided perfect weather with temperatures in the low teens and perfect clear skys. We found on the expedition that as it got later in the day the temperature rose but with this the wind speed often increased too.
Day 3 had initially worried me in the planning stage with a large amount of portages adding up to a total of 2km as well as 24 sets of rapids to navigate once again broken up by a handful of beautiful little lakes. If any of these lakes had existed in the UK, they would have been accompanied by a £7 daily car park charge, a tourist information centre, a little cafe that only opens every fifth Sunday in the summer months (providing its not raining) as well as a tonne of litter. Thankfully though, each of these magical little lakes are as common as muck in canada and in the middle of nowhere. This means that once again we spent the day completely by ourselves in the unspoiled wilderness.
I needn't have worried about the challenges that day 3 presented. As a lot of the rapids that were marked as portages on the map were easily navigated and none really exceeded class II. It's really unfortunate that we dont have any pictures of this section as Ray and I were enjoying ourselves just a little bit too much. However I do know that we have some video footage on the Garmin that I shall upload soon.

A classic snapshot of the day 3 environment.

One of my favourite memories from day 3 happened on a particularly horrible portage that extended between 2 large waterfalls. The portage trail was in an absolute state and it took a considerable amount of time for Ray and myself to clear it when we returned for the final trip we realised that a considerable amount of the portage ran alongside a section of easy class I. Making it possible to get on after the first waterfall and grab an eddie and continue the portage before the next drop. The problem was the paddles where already waiting at the bottom having taken them on the first trip. Rather than giving up and fighting my way through the portage with the canoe I had time to improvise. I found a solid looking 7 foot piece of driftwood and trimmed away some of the excess quickly using the parang. This left me with a rather solid, lightweight paddle that was surprisingly easy to use.

Breaking out using driftwood.

 Having safely navigated into the eddy all that was left to do was to portage round the remaining 50m into the lake below. We began the search for campsites early on day 3 at around 3:00pm this allowed us to have a good look round each site and test them for their mosquito factor. The first 2 were duds, as there were no ideal locations for both Rays tent and a hammock so we were left with a gamble of camping at the other side of a 200m portage. At this time of day the temperature was at its hottest and the portage was sticky and bug ridden. When I finally made it into camp the only thing I could think of was going for a swim. However this required a little bit of forward planning to avoid the onslaught of mosquitos the second I got out. So having laid all my clothes out along side a bottle of DEET I dived straight in. It felt brilliant.

Sorry Guys.

A welcome relief.

View from the Hammock.

Campsite number 3, Pilgrims Triangle.

Camp duties; filtering water.

Day 4:
I woke up early on day 4 and was treated to an amazing spectacle of large amounts of steam rising from the lake, with the sun just breaking through over in the eastern corner. I took the time to have five minutes to myself and just sit and enjoy the view the 'bear' was still happily sleeping. I could already tell that this day would be a good day, After I had spent some time alone I decided to get Ray up, he quickly jumped into the canoe as he couldn't resist the opportunity to go for a paddle in the mist.

The view from my tarp.

A lake to myself.

Ray ventures out.

The mist thickens.

A happy Ray.

After Ray had gotten off the water the mist disappeared in a matter of moments. Ray and myself both had big smiles on our faces and we were really looking forward to the day ahead. Once we had cleared Pilgrims Triangle we had a good 15km of river ahead of us. Early on, this consisted of frequent swifts and class I rapids that kept our smiles going throughout the morning. We decided early on in the day that we would not attempt the 10km upstream leg today. This allowed us to take the remainder of the day at a very leisurely pace. After the initial excitement the river began to open up towards mid morning providing a small amount of flow around large meanders. The nature of the river changed once again as we began to get closer to Upper Goose Falls another of the impressive falls on the Sturgeon river.

Credit: Angus M, 2007

It was around here that we began to encounter an abundance of wildlife. Firstly we intruded upon a pair of turkey vultures feasting on the carcass of a moose that had some how become stuck in the mud. This provided an incredibly eerie effect, of this rather dead, headless moose standing on all 4 legs in the water. Although very common in Central and Southern America the Turkey Vulture is quite uncommon further north in Canada. It has an incredible wingspan of between 160 and 183cm, thats taller than me! The first Vulture fled quickly  however the second wasn't disturbed until it heard the sound of the camera shutter from just a few metres away. Ray did a brilliant job of silently sneeking up on him.

Enjoying Lunch.

Taking off.

We were very happy having already seen some Bald Eagles and Turkey Vultures as part of our trip. However this day was only set to get better. We continued to float gently down the river talking away and enjoying the sunshine. As we floated around one large meander I stopped to grab a drink. After I had spun around to offer Ray some I turned back round to be face to face with a very large moose. The female cow stood at around 2m to the shoulder and was an incredible sight making it the second largest land animal in Northern America. I think it was as surprised as we were because in a matter of seconds it had fled from its little island in the middle of the river into the safety of the pines. It was then that we noticed the calf alone and rather lost on the island. Given the mating season was back in September and October and the animal has an 8 month gestation period this would put this baby at less than 1 month old. The calf waited around on the island whilst the mother called to it from the trees. After 30 seconds the little calf decided to take the plunge and swim over to join its mother.

The calf makes a break for it.

Trying to find mum.

Throughout the expedition we were often faced with the challenges that the beavers left in there wake and we were also regularly teased with the smack of there tail. It wasn't until today that we actually managed to get a good view of one for the first time.

Abit difficult to spot but I promise thats a Beaver. 

Continuing on with our day, we pottered on down the river. Unfortunately, today there were no nice lakes to float on whilst we took lunch. Instead I decided that the next best thing would be to hold onto some blow down mid river to stop us floating away whilst Ray prepared lunch. It was soon after lunch that we encountered our final beast of the day and this one, was a big one. Sat precariously on the edge of the river having a nap under the shade of a birch tree slept a black bear. Unfortunately, I was too excited to remain stealthy, It soon awoke and pottered off back into the woods after a final look over its shoulder. Every single person we had  met spoke about how lucky we would be to see a bear on the trip as apparently sighting in Temagami are quite uncommon. I felt incredibly blessed to have seen one up close and personal, however the same cannot be said for Ray... Especially after I nicely pointed out to ray that we were less than a couple of kilometres away from camp and quite comfortably in that bears roam radius.
The rest of the Sturgeon continued uninterrupted floating along an unusual sandy gorge that demonstrated well the volumes of water that would have been travelling down the river less than 3 weeks before us.

High banking with debris from spring floods.

A pleasant float with a little flow.

The Obabika confluence.

A moose print on the portage.

Arriving at the Obabika confluence meant that there was only one 800m portage standing in our way between us and the nights camp. This portage presented a lot of challenges before we could make camp. Firstly we had to track the loaded canoe up a small 2 tier rapid. Then we thought we had found the beginning of the portage trail only to get 50m along it before realising that a recent landslide has caused the next 100m of the portage to wash away. So it was back to the canoe to continue up river for another 100m until we found a small eddy to get ourselves into. From here we had to clear a way back onto the trail. Despite large amounts of blow down the rest of the portage was surprisingly pleasant and soon enough we arrived at camp and put our feet up, with enough time for an afternoon nap before tea.