Lake Superior - ON | Kayak Trip / Canoe Trip

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Lake Superior - Kayak Trip / Canoe Trip

Report Type: Extended Trip Report
Trip Dates: July 2000
Nearest City: Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada
Difficulty: Difficult
Submitted by: Johanna

Description:

The great thing about wilderness travel is all the stuff I don't take with me: I don't worry about what else is going on in the world or in my life, and my most important thoughts are what's behind the next point, where will I set up my tent, and what's for dinner. I can't be a slave to email, the telephone, or the hourly news if I'm way out there - and this is what vacation is all about. On this trip, this kind of relaxation was taken to a further level: not only were we travelling along what is arguably the most remote place on Lake Superior, but I had met none of the people in the party before the adventure was planned, and thus there was no need to discuss the real world. It doesn't get much better than that.

Michipicoten Island was one of the places high up on my "I want to go there" list. I'd only ever seen it, seemingly floating in the mist, from the shores of Lake Superior Provincial Park. There was something so mysterious about it - even on the clearest days, it was nothing more than a faint blue outline, and even then it appeared and disappeared at random. A glance at some topographic maps showed that the place was uninhabited save a handful of summer cottages and that most of it is crown land (currently, it is classified as a non-operating provincial park, meaning there are no fees but also no developed campsites or other services). Given its location - more than 15 km of open water crossing to the nearest point of land on the already remote Pukaskwa shoreline - I did not consider it the kind of trip that I could put together myself given my relative level of inexperience and lack of serious paddling skills. So Sam Wyss' listing of a trip to Michipicoten Island on the GLSKA trips site got me excited, and I emailed Sam and joined GLSKA.

Sam did all the work for this trip, and it was greatly appreciated. Arrangements had been made for a boat shuttle (Anderson Fisheries, out of Michipicoten Harbour) out to the Island and camping and dinner for the night before (at Naturally Superior Adventures in Michipicoten River). He'd even gone so far as to list the topographic maps required and arrange carpooling for those who wanted it. All I had to do was pack my gear and meet the group at NSA. I liked this. A lot.

Our group was a good mix of characters. Four of the guys are retired or semi-retired: Bill and Frank came up from Rochester, NY. Both of them live the outdoor adventure way of life, though in different ways: Bill is an avid fisherman and game hunter, Frank is meticulous in keeping his gear organized, eating healthfully, and paddling in clothing which would keep him warm should he be accidentally immersed in cold water.

Peter is a group-minded kayaker and canoeist who is always happy to share his coffee and snacks (und thus holds a particularly special place in my mind!). Jim is a former schoolteacher who spends his life following interesting pursuits such as spelunking, whitewater paddling and rock climbing. There is never a dull moment when he's around, because he's always got a great story to tell.

There were three of us in the younger age bracket. Melissa impresses (and intimidates) me: she soloed the north shore of Lake Superior in her early 20s. She travels with an Outback Oven and bakes while on a trip. She knows virtually all the special places along the mainland coast. And she's about to embark on a much bigger adventure than I've ever attempted: she is relocating to Moose Factory to teach in a northern Native community. Wow.

Next to Sam, Lee was the fastest paddler in this group. He can roll and self-rescue. He's been to some of the most intriguing places on the planet, including Greenland. And then there was me: I have never soloed in the wilderness, the roll is not yet in my repertoire, and I can't bake even using my oven at home. But I can tell the difference between a porcupine and a bear, and, thanks to geocaching, I'm proficient at navigating using my GPS.

Our adventure began even before we paddled a single stroke: we had to find Anderson Fisheries. Melissa was the only one who actually knew where it was, and she'd gone there independently. Sam had a vague impression that the place was in the village of Michipicoten River, I thought it was on the north side of Michipicoten Bay. Bill and Frank had it as a waypoint in their GPSs, and they agreed with me - so I confidently took the lead to get there. And then I happily relinquished the lead, but not before navigating us into a dead end. I followed Sam's truck on the vehicular equivalent of bushwhacking (my Golf will henceforth be affectionately known as the Bushbunny). Bill and Frank of course managed to find their way there without the detour by sensibly combining map reading with GPS navigation. I never was the type to follow instructions....

With the help of directions from an Indian at the side of the road and a u-turn, we did eventually end up finding Anderson Fisheries. Our shuttle boat, the L&S, sat at a dilapidated dock in the middle of an assortment of outbuildings and rusting boat parts that would make a junkyard scavenger's heart beat faster. We loaded our seven kayaks (Melissa's was already in there) into the belly of the boat, dumped our gear on top, and returned to NSA for dinner in their lodge.

Somehow, I had it in my mind that we were in for a whitefish barbecue, but it turned out to be barbecued whitefish (there is a difference). We sat in a dining room with a fantastic view over the lake, decorated with very colourful paintings of further scenes along the lake. The fish (reportedly caught by the Andersons) was tasty, but I passed on the wine and the jello dessert which matched the wall decor (not because I wasn't thirsty or didn't want dessert - we had a cooler full of beer, and Sam had a rhubarb pie he was happy to share! Have I mentioned how high both beer and pie stand in my affections?).

We hit the hay (sand) early that night. We had a trip to begin at 6 a.m. the next morning, after all.

It's been said that getting there is half the fun. While travel on the L&S was by no means onerous, however, it wasn't exciting for more than the first half hour. Once we were no longer close to land, there wasn't much to do beyond pack our boats, stare at more and more water, and snooze on piles of fishing nets. I played with my GPS (thus avoiding having to ask the pesky "how much further" question - I could find out myself. I also found out that our travelling speed was 16-18 km/hr).

Of course, the GPS was only good for so many minutes of entertainment, and I ended up resorting to pestering Kurt Anderson (the fisherman in Anderson & Sons - his father Horst is the captain). He patiently explained what happens when they go out for a fishing run, and I learned a whack of stuff about the boat, inland fisheries and quota systems (and that Kurt can fillet a fish in 10-12 seconds). There was one other Anderson son, but he seemed underwhelmed to the point of falling asleep by our conversational skills...

Well over four hours later, we pulled into Cozens Cove. We landed at a private dock, and were warmly welcomed by the couple who owns the dock. Unloading was a major undertaking - the fully loaded kayaks were lifted out of the boat and lowered into the water, and from there lined to the dock. I heard a few gelcoat cracks there, and I still feel guilty that the guys had to lift my overstuffed yellow plastic boat. But we were really here now, and once we paddled out of Cozens Cove, we really were on our own, on a remote island in Lake Superior.

We paddled for less than an hour in calm conditions before we reached the Point Maurepas lighthouse and stopped for lunch. Though there is an assortment of buildings which are definitely habitable, the light is currently unmanned. My most exciting discovery, though, was ripe wild strawberries.

All that we'd heard and read indicated that there were few places to camp on the north side of Michipicoten Island - and what there was is west of Bonner Head and marginal at that. Fortunately, Kurt disagreed with this and told us that Bonner Head Beach was large and suitable. It wasn't the only large and suitable cobble beach we passed, but we fought a 15 knot headwind all the way to this spot before setting up for the night. It was still early, so there was sitting and napping in the sun and consuming some of Peter's beer (have I mentioned how generous Peter is?) before dinner.

We finished the evening off with a campfire and got to know each other a bit better. At one point, I decided to explore a game trail, but gave it up rather quickly once I discovered that caribou can't be more than three feet high (because above that, the brush was dense) and that Michipicoten Island breeds wicked biting insects. I did see some beavers torpedoing through the water in the creek that ended on the beach, but that was the extent of my wildlife viewing. Fortunately, Michipicoten Island is not home to bears - which may have contributed to my sound sleep that night. I love sleeping on cobble beaches.

If you ask Sam what the plans are for the morning, he'll usually say "I thought we'd leave by eight" - and this was exactly what we did. Foolishly, though, I'd thought that leave by eight meant leave at eight, so imagine my surprise when I stuck my head outside my tent at 5:45 and saw that two of the tents had already been taken down! These people don't mess around... so I joined the race and hurriedly shoved my stuff (I had way too much stuff) into my boat and gulped my coffee. The race around the island had begun.

To be fair, it wasn't a race - we got time to explore (it just often felt like a race to me because I'm -by far - the slowest paddler in this group, so I was always hustling to try and keep up. My theme song for my kayak had, until this trip, been taken from Aqua's Barbie Girl: "life in plastic, it's just fantastic". On this day, mulling over names for my boat, I settled on Marge the Barge, and the song sounds much like Mac the Knife).

We stopped at the Quebec Rocks (yet another prime camping spot, nothing marginal about it), where the guys went on a 90 minute bushwhack to find the remains of the Quebec Mine. We also stopped at a very cool sea cave, wher Jim illustrated his intimate knowledge of all things cave and climbing related. I think it was at this point that I started to act like I was a baby duck who had imprinted on Jim - he was a wealth of entertaining information.

After the cave (which would have been another good place to camp, but it's private property), we made our way around the west side of the island towards our night's destination, West Sand Bay. Everybody paddled at their own pace, which meant I was far behind - but Jim stayed with me despite my somewhat grumpy efforts to get him to go away (I figured out by my grumpiness that I was dehydrated and overheated, that GLSKA first aid workshop came in handy). Jim, sensible guy that he is, ignored my suggestions that he leave me alone, and decided to use the tailwind to try umbrella sailing all the way to West Sand Bay.

West Sand Bay has a nice sandy beach, but I'm not a big fan of sand for camping. I got over it, though, when I found a perfect piece of plywood for my kitchen further down the beach, and Peter and I set up our stoves on this (Peter providing appetizers, or "horse dovers" as they quickly became known on this trip). My pride in my kitchen was short-lived, however - Lee showed up with a much bigger flat piece of debris for his kitchen (on the other hand, his was plastic and mine was wood, so at least mine was more esthetically appealing).

Once again, we had a campfire on the beach (which was covered in fox tracks, Sam figured there was a den nearby), but turned in early because of the bugs. They were nothing short of murderous the next morning, when I was woken by gear dropping into Melissa's hatches - that girl gets up early! Since I could not win the race to pack up on this trip, I decided to protest by leaving my tent up until just before eight and to drink my coffee before then. The plan almost bit me in the butt, though, when it started to sprinkle rain at 7:30 and all but two of our tents were already packed up. I got lucky, though - the rain held off for our last day on Michipicoten Island.

Just as we launched at West Sand Bay (shortly before eight for most of us, though Melissa got on the water far earlier in an attempt to escape the bugs), Lee's rudder cable snapped. This of course guaranteed that we'd have following seas - rudder cables don't snap on days when you don't need them. We stopped to explore Quebec Harbour, which contains a few private cottages, an old townsite ("No Trespassing" signs on that one) and the half-submerged wreck of the Billy Blake. The rest of the group checked out another wreck while I briefly explored a trail to heed nature's call. If it hadn't been so buggy and everybody wasn't waiting for me, I would have gone further to see where it went - this was not a game trail.

After Quebec Harbour, the winds really picked up, and Jim almost kept up with my (5.5-6 km/hr) paddling pace with his umbrella. Sam waited for us in a sheltered bay behind Four Mile Point, which is where the handle of Jim's umbrella came off and he lost it, and he decided to don his wetsuit to go diving for it. Melissa, Lee and I paddled on ahead to East Sand Bay during this operation, and we all reconvened for lunch there. Jim and Lee then fixed the broken rudder cable using nothing more than a stick of gum and some sellotape (ok, a multitool and a rusty piece of wire, it was still impressive in a MacGyver kind of way), and we rode the ever-increasing rollers toward Point Maurepas and completed our circumnavigation of the island.

Funny thing - the winds were from the southwest, but once we rounded Maurepas and were on the northeast side of the island, we were nonetheless faced with a stiff headwind. Our original plan had been to return to the Bonner Head area, since that is the closest point to cross to the mainland, but we ended up stopping for a wind break on the first cobble beach past Maurepas, and Sam was prevailed upon to call it a day. I was happy with this decision, since the morning would bring our big open crossing and I didn't want to wake up exhausted from fighting the wind the day before.

My GPS showed 21.8 km to Ganley Harbour, our destination on the mainland. So, for a change, Sam changed the 8 a.m. start time to 6 a.m. (of course, I wondered if that meant we'd be on the water by five, given the early rising nature of this group!). We were fortunate with ideal conditions - flat, glassy water with no fog for the entire 3 hours and 45 minutes it took us to make the crossing, but to be on the safe side we were decked out in full klingon attire (all the paddling gear, including wetsuits and gloves). We stopped for a break 9 km from Ganley Harbour, but overall I was pleased with my just slightly less than 7 km/hr speed (since I am the slowest, my speed dictated the pace this time).

We paddled into Ganley Harbour, and then into False Ganley Harbour for breakfast (which the books list as a campsite - but it's nothing more than a narrow sand beach, and not a place I'd seek out for an overnight. But then, these are the same books that say campsites are scarce on Michipicoten). I was struck by the beauty of the scenery - the Island had remoteness and mystery going for it, but the mainland boasts towering cliffs, dazzling beaches and rocky outcrops. Looking back across the water, Michipicoten Island seemed very far away indeed.

Over breakfast, Peter and Sam discussed further travel plans while I finished off the contents of Peter's coffee pot. Both Peter and Jim have travelled this coast before, and Peter has a good memory for nice sites. It was tentatively decided that we'd shoot for the mouth of the Pukaskwa River in Pukaskwa National Park - a distance of a further 16 or so km. From there, Cascade Falls would be within striking distance. Sam really wanted to make it to Cascade since that would complete his exploration of the coast from Silver Islet to Michipicoten Harbour. We had a lunch break at the Wheat Bin, an immense white sand beach, and made it to the Puk by early afternoon.

The Pukaskwa River site is nothing less than gorgeous - it sits in the middle of an immense playground of stuff to do. The bay and river mouth are configured in such a way that there is interesting surf no matter how calm the lake, and this made for fun swimming (Jim played in the surf in his kayak). Schist Falls, less than a kilometre upstream from our site, appears to be a popular destination - that afternoon, a huge luxury cruise boat anchored off our site and dropped off several launches of tourists who engaged in mothership hiking. I checked the falls out after dinner and managed to find the trail, but resolved to return the next day for further exploration.

Peter and Sam left at 7 a.m. the next morning for a tough day's paddle to Cascade Falls and back. Me, I got up at 7 a.m., but I did nothing more than read my book and drink several cups of coffee (not paddling meant I didn't have to limit my diuretic intake either). Frank and Lee (exhausted from a night of battling the local wildlife) slept in, Jim and Bill helped me take apart my stove to do some much-needed maintenance (I had to unclog the jet, and I cleaned the fuel line while I was at it). We all lounged around until noon and chatted with a pair of canoeists who stopped by.

While Peter and Sam saw Cascade Falls and discovered a motherlode of vision pits, the rest of us followed our various leisure-day pursuits: Melissa went for an exploratory paddle, Bill decided to go fishing, and the rest of us departed for the trail at Schist Falls. We made it to the very end, above the next set of falls beyond Schist Falls. I lost my sunglasses into a hole in the space-time continuum (extensive searching by all failed to bring them back), but had no time to be upset by this since there was exploring to be done. While Jim donned his diving mask to look at the pools from below (scouting for whitewater paddling opportunities, I think), Lee and I worked our way up the canyon using a combination of swimming, scrambling and a log thrown across a rapid. Wow. Sitting on a huge boulder - in the middle of the picture at left, which was taken from above - in the midst of rushing whitewater at what I figure is the point on Superior furthest removed from any roads was as good as it can get, I thought.

But then it got better. Melissa told me that the next cove to the north was beautiful, and let me borrow her map (my topos didn't go this far), and some of us went exploring (Jim playing in the surf to get a closer look at caves along the coast). We turned back just short of Point la Canadienne, and got back to the site to the smell of brownies in Melissa's Outback Oven! Just as good, Bill had caught an enormous lake trout, and was frying up fish to share! I dug through my foodbags and came up with a red cabbage to turn into a salad, and horse dovers (smoked oysters on crackers) magically appeared, and we enjoyed a fantastic dinner and campfire.

Despite bearanoia, I slept well - which was good, since we were back to Sam's usual "I thought we'd leave by 8 o'clock". Sam, Bill, Melissa and Lee had further wildlife visits which I slept through (to his great disappointment, Jim did as well - he had worked out the rules for a game of porcuquidditch, an elaborate wilderness activity which involves 30 second periods during which opposing teams try to herd porcupines to the other team's tents). In the morning, Jim decided it was time to protest the difference between "by eight o'clock" and 7:30, and I helped along by stockpiling flat rocks to be skipped at anyone who dared launch before Jim was done drinking his coffee and reading his book. The arsenal was deployed, and from then on "by" became synonymous with "at". He he.

After the Pukaskwa River, we headed east - toward our takeout point at Anderson Fisheries. We once again stopped for a break at False Ganley Harbour, and Sam decided that we'd make Floating Heart Bay our next home (giving us a moderate 28 km day). Once we got to Floating Heart, however, the canoeists who had stopped by our Pukaskwa River site were already there - but Sam had spotted a nice spot for his tent in the shade on the opposite end of the (large) beach from them, so we stayed despite moderate feelings of guilt at horning in on another party's site.

We hit hot weather that afternoon - the sun was relentless. Sam disappeared into his tent for a long nap, Jim and Melissa embarked on an exploration of another creek (Jim would like it known that he cliff-dived and butt-dammed a stream, though not in the buff in deference to the other member in his party). My efforts involved little more than clambering up on the rock next to where Peter was setting up his stove, and thus being offered coffee and snacks! The coffee re-energized me sufficiently that I didn't even think Lee was a nutter when he proposed to wash his boat (lots of sand in all of our boats by this point) but instead decided to join him. While he demonstrated his proficiency at the roll, I cleaned out my hatches and cockpit in the water, and then borrowed his paddle float to see if I could self-rescue in deep water (proud to report that I can). After that, I decided to clean out my drybags while I was at it, and then hung out in the best kitchen yet: a rock table, two log benches, a log to hang the bucket for water filtering... Up until this point in the trip, Sam had always had the best kitchen, but the rest of us are no dummies: we finally learned, and started scouting for good locations early as well.

This trip gave me a new phrase for my vocabulary: ham-and-egger, which roughly means "incompetent", or, in my interpretation "anyone who might be slightly more incompetent than I am". We'd met two Americans* in slower kayaks than mine the day before, and they subsequently became known as the ham-and-eggers (or "hamneggers"). The hamneggers pulled into Floating Heart Bay as we were finishing our dinner chores, and I took an irrational dislike to anyone uncouth enough to crash an already crowded site (never mind that we'd set up on the site the canoeists had first... I said it was irrational, didn't I?). So then I decided to practice my beady unwelcoming stare, and ended up trying to escape from the hordes of biting insects on a windier point at the edge of the site. Lee and I scrambled up one of the cliffs at sunset (finding the first ripe blueberries on the way) and explored a cobble beach, all the time accompanied by my petty grumbling about hamneggers...

I was worried that we'd be stuck with the hamneggers for the rest of the trip - they'd declared the same destination, the Dog River, for the next night - and thus was quite happy when the winds kicked up overnight and they decided not to travel in the morning. We did, and even though it was high-output paddling, I had a great time working my way through the bigger water (and felt very secure since two of the guys paddled with me and I knew that even if I did go over, there were competent rescuers around). By 10:57 (you get precise answers when you ask a Swiss man the time!) we decided to take a long break at The Flats, a gorgous site that resembles paradise even if it is full of sand.

By 1:00, the winds had died down enough that we decided to press on past Point Isacor (none but the foolish would attempt this stretch in less than ideal conditions, the guidebook warns). It had become hot and I thought I would expire since I'd put on neoprene in deference to the big water earlier, but I made up some time by cutting across all the bays while the rest of them explored the shoreline. The last five km were tough going - I was hot and tired - and I enviously looked over at Jim sailing with his umbrella beside me (of course, I would have been way too chicken to try and sail myself even if I did have an umbrella). Jim's comment as I was making notes in my journal that night: "You may note that I successfully sailed the last 5 km and I successfully negotiated the harbour including the rapids at the mouth, and I didn't lose the umbrella either".

I don't know about the rest of them, but I was wiped when I got to the site at the mouth of the Dog/University River - and then I partook in happy hour. For the rest of the evening, I was capable of little more than staring out at Superior like it was t.v. I didn't feel the need to explore, either, since over happy hour we'd decided on a plan that would allow us to spend our last night here as well, leaving a full day to explore the river and Dennison Falls.

For the first time on one of his trips, Sam had a day where nobody paddled a single stroke. All eight of us trooped into the bush to find the trail to Dennison Falls. We stopped for a group shot at the sign declaring the river to be the Dog River since 1763 (maps sometimes show it as the University River, but you'll have to ask Jim to get the full story here). The trail looked like it would be the toughest portage in the history of portaging (Class V, Jim rates it), including a rope hanging over a small cliff which was designed to lower canoes. I had no canoe on my head, and I found this place challenging.

Tough, but oh so worth it! Wow wow wow. We got there, and I thought at first that it was raining because the spray from the falls was so big. After a few minutes of mute staring at the 100m waterfalls, we decided to scramble to the top (there is an easy scrambling route on river left along the falls). Every view was more impressive than the last. The place was doubly special since the ruggedness of the trail preculded the mothership type hikers we had encountered at Schist Falls - this one involved getting sweaty, bug-bitten and scratched.

Jim as usual exhibited boundless energy and decided to scout up the canyon to the beginning of the portage trail, and I continued my baby duck impression and followed him, as did Peter and Lee. At the very top, you wouldn't know the spectacle that is around the next bend. I started waxing enthusiastically about how much I like the boreal forest and its indicator species like Old Man's Beard, and we decided to replace the word "cool" with "boreal" for the rest of the trip.

We had lunch high up on the rocks at the top of the falls. Sam's comment here perfectly summed up Dennison Falls: "Niagara is boring". After lunch, our group split up - all but Jim and his eager tag-alongs (in this case, Lee and me) returned to the site. We made our way up a side stream and were rewarded with many small cascades along the way, and Jim even stopped and had a shower in one of them. We waited for him at the bottom of the stream to give him some privacy, and the hamneggers showed. I'd been practicing my beady unwelcoming stare for a while, so it was up to Lee and Jim (once he showed up after his shower) to make conversation (Melissa got me good, though - knowing that I'd been preparing the stare, she encouraged the hamneggers to ask me lots of questions when she met them further down on the trail. I believe it was revenge for the skipping stones at the Puk!)

Not content to simply use my beady stare, I proposed setting up the hamneggers tent when we came across their kayaks at a site considerably upstream from ours. Fortunately for the hamneggers, the guys are much nicer people, and a swim in some rapids was offered up as a substitute. Fun! We worked our way into the top part of the rapid, then let go of whatever rock we were clinging to, and the swift carried us a good 30 meters downstream. My comment after the first time was simply "again!", and I took the ride no less than six times. And the beady stare had achieved something - the hamneggers stopped in on their way downriver but decided not to share our site but pressed on for Minnekona Point. While I'm sure they're nice people and all, I had gotten so used to our little group and didn't want to share our last night with anyone else.

Meanwhile, back at the site, Bill was fishing - and he caught some northern pike for our dinner. Several of us threw together our supplies, and we ended up with horse dovers of mackerel on crackers, a main course of fried fish, rice, cabbage salad and bacon, and dessert consisting of hot chocolate with brandy. Yum. Our last night's dinner was better than the whitefish barbecue (aka barecued whitefish) at NSA on our first night by a long, long shot.

After dinner, we attempted to salvage my karma. I'd thrown a rock at a pesky raven the day before, and it looked like I had managed to break its leg. The bird was a faker, though, because it was back - both legs intact - and managed to guilt us into feeding it crackers. I would have protested at feeding wildlife, but I sure as hell don't want to come back as a slug for hitting a raven with a rock, so I happily threw crackers.

The weather forecast for the next morning did not sound promising - 25 knot sidewinds were called for, and we had over 20 km to take out. We decided to leave at 7 a.m. and take breaks as we needed them, but it turned out to be a perfect paddling day with virtually no waves. We stopped for a snack at the perfect little beach at Minnekona Point (where the hamneggers endeared themselves to me by calling out that it seemed like a boreal day). We then made a run for the last point - or rather, Lee and Sam raced for the last point, with Sam edging Lee out narrowly (Jim's comment: "old age and treachery beat out youth and strength"). I once again brought up the rear with Jim keeping me company (we managed to figure out what cross-track error meant on my GPS along the way) and by noon we hit the beach at the Anderson's and our adventure was officially over.

The full photo archive of Sam's and my pictures can be found here
(Use the album name "michipicoten")