The person who first declared “You never paddle the same river twice” could easily have been thinking about the French River when they birthed that pearl of paddling wisdom. Sure there’s always rainfall, snow melt and beaver activity but with the French you also get the whims of humankind. The federal government operates three dams on Lake Nippissing that control the flow of water from the Lake into the French River. While there is also a small hydro-electric dam run by the Dokis First Nation, the main point of the Nippissing dams is to avoid flooding, maintain drinking water supply, protect fish populations and, yes, recreational waterways.
The last time I did this trip, with my late friend Martin, the river was ‘engorged’. A rainy autumn and the need to keep North Bay above water meant that all the Channels had plenty of water. Too much, in fact, for us as at least one of those narrow canoe channels was suddenly a swift that almost swamped us. This time Mallory and I launched at the start of August’s second week. And you could see water lines two or three feet above where the river currently flowed.
So the question I had at front of brain was: would we be able to get back home?
It arose because this route, which I took from Kevin Callan’s Paddler’s Guide to Killarney and the French River, (all mistakes and bad advice are mine etc etc) warned readers about water volumes, particularly in the Pickerel River, which Callan described as a reed-choked slog of liftovers and grief.
Admonition against risk
I’m not an expert. And even if I was, you can’t count on anything you read on the internet these days least of all stuff from old Dunning-Kruger cases like me. If you want to launch yourself upon the wilderness in a canoe, seek the help of guides, outdoors clubs or outfitters. Read this story if you will. But don’t take it as authoritative or even helpful as there are a lot of ways you can really make a mess of your life out there.
The tl;dr
- Day 1: wherein we drive from Ottawa to Hartley Bay, get the Near North-style valet parking and paddle. A lot. Out of Wanipatei Bay and down the Voyageur Channel all the way to Black Bay. With a headwind. Uphill. Both ways.
- Day 2: wherein we turn the corner onto the Cross Channel, paddle east through the Five Fingers to Dead Island Channel.
- Day 3: wherein we turn north and head up the Pickerel River and back onto the French through Bad River Turn before settling at campsite #666.
- Day 4: wherein we head back up Wanapitei Bay to Hartley Bay and home.
Day 1: Monday, August 10, 7:44 pm, Site 831
We’re camped on a kind of tucked-away site almost at the junction of the Voyageur Channel and the Cross Channel. As Mallory describes it, it’s ‘a great beginning’. I would have said ‘shit hole’. But we’re going to stay positive here. It is, in point of fact, a very small site, with only one (tilty, lumpy) tent pad that I can see. A wide, fairly freshly cut tree stump will serve as a stove platform (“Look! A kitchen!” Mallory said). The site is tucked into the trees which is unusual in the French, known for its rocky outcrops, points and lookouts.
There’s also no thunderbox, though this is quite normal for the French River Provincial Park. See there’s been human settlement on the French River for quite some time (white humans anyway, the Anishinaabe have been here from the year dot ) — probably between 1910 and 1920. But the park was only declared into existence in 1989. And even then, it was a non-operating park, which is to say that the province didn’t really do much by way of development or access control. Really they just kept it from burning down or being paved. It became an operating (or managed) park in 2004, wherein Parks Ontario started charging for access and camping. So there’s not been a lot of time or budget for building things like thunderboxes. Algonquin Park, by contrast has been operating since 1893. With some of the same thunderboxes.
So the modern managed French River Provincial Park books backcountry reservations right down to the campsite. This began in 2024. Quite a change from 2014 when last I went paddling here and you could stop and camp when and wherever the mood hit you. I do support designated campsites and reserving by zone, or lake. I think it’s the best way to preserve the wilderness and keep things sane. But down to the site? Killarney Park went that way in 2022, which I can understand — it’s a tiny park and campsite reservations are highly competitive. I expect the same reasons apply to the French. There aren’t that many campsites and there’s a strong constituency that would like to keep the campers contained. For the sake of the wilderness but also for their property values. We adapted.
Our put-in point, Hartley Bay is a private marina. They don’t issue camping permits and depending on who’s at the counter they may or may not have useful advice about water levels and other conditions on the river. They can sell you a Jeff’s Map ($25). They charge to park your car. Three nights for us was $83. For that though, you get a ride to and from your vehicle in a side-by-side. And there’s washrooms and snacks for sale. I expect it’s a very popular launch point for canoe trips because it’s very close to the most beautiful parts of the park.
We put in around 12:30pm, having set out from Ottawa around 7am. We stopped for food in the Municipality of West Nippissing (which hitherto one might have referred to as Sturgeon Falls) at a terribly organized Tim Hortons. For the drive-through it’s all hands on deck, but anyone who wants counter service should bring a book or knitting. Mallory assures me that’s how they all are.
There are a fair number of cottages and motor boats along this stretch. I expect all pre-date the creation of the park, are off-grid and rely on the river for water and access.
We had to get to site 831, on Black Bay, some 22km away from Hartley Bay. I had scoured the map for a site that promised seclusion and a wilderness-y feel and 831 seemed as good as one can get on this stretch of the river. A bit further away than the site we picked in 2014. That one, Jeff’s Map says, has ‘Engine remains’. When I stayed there they weren’t quaint antiquities so much as ubiquitous junk.
The swifts at the entrance to the bay marked on Jeff’s Map were liftovers for us. And as we set up to get paddling the last few hundred metres to the camp site we saw a bear. A cute, adolescent black bear, but possibly one accompanied by a much larger, protective parent. Heart rate went up a bit but we had no interaction with it or its family members.
We got in close to 6pm. I think I would have liked to have stopped sooner. We had a stiff headwind and were hard pressed to make the speed needed to get to our allotted campsite in time to cook dinner in daylight. But that’s the system. We arrived and were… underwhelmed. The Parks Ontario reservation system at least shows you a picture of the campsite you must stay on. But think of them like real estate photos. The photo of 831 looks great. It is in fact a tiny dark site with a single tent pad.
Dinner was boil-in-a-bag Paneer Tikka. I had brought instant noodles as a back up (a second course, really) in case the rather slim packages weren’t enough. We didn’t end up eating them but we did devour half of our snack ration for the trip. The main course was actually not bad.
I had a bit of a panic after dinner when I plugged the GPS into the battery pack and it would not charge. The battery pack was on and the unit was plugged in. Other cables were working. My headlamp, which also uses Micro-USB would charge when plugged into the battery pack. I had a second battery for the unit and I re-jigged some settings to make it use less energy, but it was going to be tight.
“Maybe we should turn it off and just use it for emergencies and such,” Mallory said. I have one hardcore kid.
“I don’t know if I can stand to do that,” I said.
When I got home I confirmed that the battery pack’s built-in Micro-USB lead does not charge the GPS. But if you plug a USB-A to Micro-USB cable into the battery pack’s ports, it does charge. ChatGPT tells me this is likely because the built-in leads don’t have the pins the Garmin is expecting. The Garmin uses the USB connection for data transfer, not just charging. So if it doesn’t detect connector pins for those purposes, it won’t recognize the battery pack as a valid charging source. Note to self: next time bring two known-good USB-A/C to Micro-USB cables.
“We’re actually going to navigate by map!” Mallory was excited. I was terrified.
It didn’t keep me awake though. We went to bed on our tilty tent pad, in our brand new MEC Spark 2 tent (installed backwards) and fell asleep instantly.
Day 2: Tuesday, August 11, Site 713
This was supposed to be an easier trip after last year’s jaunt along the Trout Streams in Temagami. Yesterday’s relentless paddling was probably less physically demanding than the portages but the portages do break things up a bit and allow me to stretch my legs and let pressure off my knees and feet. Mallory proposed regular breaks every 6km which proved essential. With the headwind we managed about 4.8km/hr.
So today was going to be the day to treasure. Our path took us to the mouth of the river, across the islands bays and inlets of the archipelago where we could look out upon the enormity of Georgian Bay from our tiny canoe. Would there be liftovers? Would there be a way through at all? What about the rapids?
We were on the water for 9am after waking at 7am. Breakfast was instant oatmeal or granola with powdered milk. Coffee was also available.
We started paddling with the GPS in deep sleep mode. And I missed the turn to the Cross Channel. We had sun, calm and beautiful early morning light so we were pretty cool about it. But it took me about 500m to figure out the mistake. Sounds fine if you’re thinking in bike kilometres, but in paddling kilometres that’s a major drag. I resolved to just hope that the energy saving tweaks would be sufficient and that if we ran out of juice, it would happen on the last day when boats and other campers would be likely to show us the way if the map was ambiguous.
As it happens, the route I had on the GPS wasn’t entirely helpful because it was based on my 2014 trip when, if you’ll recall, the river was ‘engorged’ and you could pretty much point your canoe anywhere and still get there. We discovered that midway along the first stretch of the cross channel where our ‘way through’ was a huge horking rock surrounded by reeds. We found our way through that one relatively easily though. Tomorrow might be a different story.
We paddled on through Cross Channel, the wind a cooling, gentle breeze and the sun the only thing in the sky, into the Five Fingers, a junction of sorts. Stunningly beautiful dun and pink coloured fingers of rock sprinkled amid the river as it flows out toward the bay. It’s the only place on our trip this year where we noticed the river’s current this time. It’s still almost flat — just a gentle flow from the main channel.
We got to Devil’s Door Rapid, where both other times I’ve been here there was way too much water pouring through it to contemplate running it. In 2002, we rant the chute in empty canoes while portaging the packs. Fun, but a waste of time. In 2014 we portaged everything.
This year, for some inexplicable reason (lack of whitewater experience on my part, I think) I didn’t scout the rapid. We just portaged everything. It’s a short (less than 100m) but steep and technical portage. We managed it but my pride took a huge hit after the portage when we paddled around the corner to check out the rapid only to discover that the flow was comparable to your average bathroom sink. I am blushing keying in these words.
We saw an adorable little otter traipsing about on a rock as we paddled by. It nags at me enormously that the camera on the GPS is next to useless as the photos I have do not pay proper hommage to the French and the Five Fingers. It’s so gorgeous.
I hasten to add, though, for the benefit of any wilderness solipsist readers that the French River is not ‘pure’ wilderness. There are navigation markers for motorboats everywhere and there are cottages, lodges and signs of human settlement peppered throughout the area. And yachts. See, you can float a big boat up into the delta from Georgian Bay to take in the scenery while catching the latest episode of Love Island USA from the comfort of your floating mansion.
I like to think, though, that every human that encounters the river — whether from the seat of a canoe, the deck of a yacht or the dock of their cottage — is a potential ally in its protection and preservation. And that uneasy alliance must be based on each group being able to enjoy the French River in their own particular way.
Speaking of which, the collection of white walled, red-roofed house on an island just southwest of Dock Island that I saw in 2014 is still there. It is apparently a now-shuttered fishing camp that operated from 1928 up to 2016. We saw a few places like this — though none quite as large — cottages near collapse or showing signs of neglect. This is another example of the French River being a different sort of managed park. When it created the park, the provincial government didn’t expropriate any private land. The cottages were deemed to be compatible with the park’s mission and remained. The province can’t tear down a building on private land just because they don’t keep the paint fresh. If an owner truly abandoned their property, it would eventually be seized for non-payment of property tax and might end up being turned over to the province. But that process can take many years.
There are also camps, lodges etc that are on crown land with a Land Use Permit. Those permits, while in force, allow the operator to keep any buildings up in whatever shape they care to. If the permit is expired or revoked, the buildings are supposed to come down. Which is I expect usually almost as big a chore as building them in the first place so there may be quite a time lag between permit expiring and land being re-naturalized.
We made it across several stretches of exposed water and were at our campsite by around 3pm. You only get a glimpse of Georgian Bay through the outer islands of the French River delta — the Fox Islands, the Bustards — but still it is awe-inspiringly big. You can see the earth curve. And it goes on forever. It is possible for the wind and waves to come up so much that it’s not possible to paddle an open canoe across these stretches. We had waves that were probably about the size of what you might find on the larger lakes in Algonquin (Opeongo, Cedar, Kioskowkwi etc) but nothing that made us take on water or threaten the canoe’s stability.
I am pretty sure that campsite 713 is where I stayed in 2014 but the trappings of use and the memorial to the couple that used it were gone. I can see why they made it their summer home. It’s a gorgeous setting. Still no thunderbox, though.
Also good news is the fact that ‘Expedition Mode’ on the Montana 750i (as well as fewer checks and a dimmed screen) can reduce battery consumption to the point where six hours of activity requires only 15 per cent of the battery. Down from 50 per cent yesterday. I think we’re going to be fine.
My other revelation is the cling-on pouch that I got from Oostrom Outfitters. It is big enough to hold lunch, snacks, sunscreen, bug spray and even the water filter and be strapped to a pack. It’s perfect for a trip like this where we’re not constantly loading and unloading the canoe.
Our next quandary is how to get back north to our next campsite near Bad River Turn. In 2014 we took the Pickerel River. With so much water, it was a simple task. With the water so much lower it could be difficult or even impossible. We could also do Fox Creek or the main channel. Fox Creek would be more as the crow flies and would allow us to skip another stretch of open water. Maybe if the wind is up early tomorrow. Otherwise, I’m told the Pickerel is the way to go.
A secondary quandary is why our InReach functions aren’t working. I tried to get a forecast this evening to decide whether or not to put tarp up. In the end we decided against it. “If it rains tomorrow we can just eat granola in the tent,” Mallory said, ever the seasoned pro. Post facto note: the lesson I learn is that if you suspend your InReach account in the off season to save a bit of cash, do be sure to reactivate it before you head out. Also ensure that your payment method is valid and not out of date. This applies to all InReach services — weather, email and even SOS messages. They ain’t fucking around.
Dinner was couscous with slivered almonds, feta cheese and vegetable tajine. I would say it worked well. And the quantities weren’t crazy. Mallory made me a crossword puzzle to pass some time while she whittled herself a fork. We had a lot of laughs about both. We headed for the tent (set up properly this time) around nine to evade the mosquitoes.
Day 3: Wednesday, August 12, Site 666
It was available. My preferred site was not. The picture on the website looked good. For what that’s worth. I had to take it. And it is in truth not a bad campsite. Be advised though, that there is a (beautiful, well-kept) cottage across the way. They have a generator and they use it.
We were up this morning at our usual 7am. Blue sky greeted us. We had about the same distance to cover today as we did yesterday. The wind was light but favourable from the south. So we decided to take the Pickerel River, instead of the other nearby channels. I reckoned we could handle some walking/poling/dragging the canoe.
Another quick granola/oatmeal breakfast saw us on the water just before 9am. There were definitely going to be waves later but when we paddled through Dead Island Channel and into Genessee Bay the water posed us no problems.
This stretch of river is beautiful too, but it parts of it were swept with fire in 2018 when a construction vehicle used to build the wind turbine farm ignited a fire that consumed 11,362 hectares — about 114 km² — between the Pickerel River and the Key River. It was quite remarkable to see what eight years of growth had wrought. It’s on its way back for sure.
Paddling up the Pickerel was easy and pleasant. No noticeable current. Gorgeous scenery. But about half way to Pickerel Bay and the Main Channel you hit a bit of a knot. There’s two ways to go. In 2014 we headed right, did a short portage and kept going. This year the portage was signed to the left (west) of the channel. It was clearly a recent innovation. And quite technical. Again, not Trout Streams technical, but a rock hopping event to be sure.
And then beyond the portage was the most modest of channels which led to a cigar-shaped pool with only the tiniest bit of water in it. We dragged and hauled our boat through, probably losing about 30 minutes to reconnoitering, going the wrong way and the actual hauling itself. Not much of an ordeal. I suprised myself that I’d spent so much energy fretting about it. Hindsight is lovely.
After the ‘knot’ we paddled up to Pickerel Bay and past the Elephants, my campsite of choice. I’d organized this whole trip around getting a day when the site was available, but my late-June bike accident meant we had to postpone the trip and by that time the Elephants were booked. We think we encountered the party with the reserve as we paddled west toward our site. We contemplated sinking them but in the end they had the numbers and we didn’t think we could do the time.
So 666 it was. The site is in the more settled part of the park. Cottages and boaters were very much in evidence, although the cluster of sites is around the mouth of Canoe Channel, tucked away from the stretch in Ox Bay that achieves almost Muskoka-like cottage density. The site is up from shore a ways and has a really nice lookout rock and several tent pads. And a thunderbox. When we were there, there were a few beaten up grills and a fair bit of garbage but an excellent camp countertop/kitchen.
We got in around 3pm, set up camp and set the dahl to re-hydrating. Mallory went for a swim/spa treatment. We had a relaxing sunny afternoon. Warm but not hot, and a gentle wind. We sat around, Mallory carved herself another piece of flatware. At a certain point, though, Mallory noticed dark and low-hanging clouds coming in from the west.
Later, just after dinner, she said “I heard thunder.”
“Naw,” I replied. “That’s just a plane or someone doing construction.”
Then it happened again. A minute later lightning flickered in the western sky. Happily I am well-rehearsed in tarp setup and our site had many enticing installation solutions and two crappy old steel pegs, so the tarp was up scant seconds after first rain drops fell and as Mallory finished the last of the dishes.
Then the rain really came. Big, meaty drops and plenty of them. The tarp started doing that thing where it collects a day’s supply of water. Mist almost obscured Canal Island just opposite. And just as quickly as it came, the squall vanished, leaving a well-defined, solid rainbow in the eastern sky, bathing the fluffy clouds in its colours. Both of us were chuffed that we finally got some use out all the rain gear we brought and yet nothing got wet that needed to stay dry.
Note to self on dahl: I usually start with 1 cup of dry red lentils and 1 cup of dry basmati rice. That was one bowl too much. Three quarters of a cup of both would be ideal.
Another crossword puzzle. Another piece of flatware. I love my daughter. For many reasons but right this moment I’m thinking she’s hilarious. We went to bed around 9:30. I get stressed before these trips and when something stresses me out on trip (like, say a GPS not charging or connectivity failure) I tell myself it’s okay and that it’ll all be over soon. And when I get to the last night I always feel sad that it’s almost over and tomorrow we’re back to urban life.
Day 4: Thursday, August 13, Ottawa
We slept in a bit and had a leisurely pancake breakfast. I forgot the chocolate chips but (ever thinking ahead) Mallory had asked me if I’d included them and when she learned that I hadn’t, she mined the granola for the remaining chunks of chocolate and set them aside. We also had raisins, leftover dried apricots and brown sugar. So a good time was had by all. Particularly since the batter mix was fresh from an unopened box. Which tells me I have about a year to use the rest of it.
We packed up, plucked the garbage out of the firepit, added it to the rain-soaked, full roll of toilet paper the last guests left, and were on the water for about 10:30. There was no hurry as our luck with wind and weather continued and whatever way we sliced it we were going to hit rush hour traffic somewhere. We had only 8km or so to paddle to get back to Hartley Bay and the tailwind helped.
We passed a number of other canoe campers heading back, including one duo that were blaring music out of a bluetooth speaker as they paddled along. This quite blew my mind. It’s not the first time I’d encountered this but still it annoyed the piss out of me. There’s all these birds singing. There’s the wind rushing through the trees, the waves, the boat moving through the water. Why would you want to add to that? And how can you presume that others want to hear it too? Those two we should have capsized.
Instead we overtook them, landing at Hartley Bay around 11:30. We speed-packed and set off, stopping at the same Horton’s in Sturgeon Falls which this time screwed up the order.
Despite the foregoing, none of that really bothered me as I was tripping with the most amazing person on the planet. Her calm competence wayfinding through the Pickerel River. Her wit. Her strength. Her good sense. Her skills. Her quiet confidence. Her stories. I really hate to brag to the world like this but my daughter really should be the ruler of the universe. And I would buy a hundred bacon sandwiches and listen to Lynyrd Skynrd blaring all night from across the bay if it meant I could spend another four days paddling with Mallory.
Here’s to next year.
Photos
