Round Lake

September 2, 2024

The hillbillies kept at it until about four in the morning. How can people shout for fourteen hours straight without losing their voices? The best was some idiot declaring at the top of his lungs at two in the morning how drunk he was repeatedly for ten minutes straight (no shit asshole). Needless to say, we did not sleep very well. Finally awoke to silence and the sun well over the yard arm.

At least it was a fourth straight day of beautiful weather! We packed up quickly, wanting to get going before the yahoots woke up again. We paddled out with a stiff wind at our tail that help propel us down the lake chain with little effort on our side. At Curriers Lake we stopped at the Lafleur Homestead museum and explored the old buildings on the property. Unfortunately they were locked up so we could only check out the outside of them. Even found the remains a pair of old shoes by the stables. Pretty neat.

Exploring the Lafleur homestead

Entering the river we met our first people in human powered watercraft, a pair of kayakers fishing at the mouth of Enos Bay. The next six kilometers followed the gentle meanders and we searched in vain for quite a while for somewhere to stop for lunch, but the shoreline is either private property or a complete mess of swampy weeds and bushes. Finally we found a massive downed tree which made a good parking spot for a canoe lunch and a balancy bridge onto the shore for nature call access.

Continuing on to the end of Stevenson Lake the challenges began again. The first rapid we decided to run and managed to do successfully without bottoming out the boat. The next couple required portaging around, but we now knew where the overgrown trails lay, so went fairly quickly. We came to one where we started to wade with the canoe. It got too deep at one point, so I hopped in to paddle a few meters, expecting to stop at the next shallow section and push again, but the current was unexpectedly fast and water deep enough that I ended up running it solo only banging a few rocks on the way down. Kat had to scramble through someones lawn to catch up. One more rapid with a faint portage and we were down to the lower section of river and a (mostly) clear run out to Round Lake.

Shore bridge lunch stop

On the carry

The paddle out took a long time as we were pretty tired, both from lack of sleep and more paddling than either of us have ever done in four days. We stopped at an empty campsite as we passed through Bonechere Provincial Park for a final break, and then finally out onto the open water of Round Lake. Here the wind was whipping, but fortunately the north-westerly wind was coming off the shore on our side. Nevertheless paddling across Dannes Bay took a bit of effort as we were pushed sideways by the cross wind, but once we rounded the corner things calmed down nicely as we pulled into the dock, finishing our journey.

Arriving at Round Lake

End of the trip

Travel time: 7.5 hours

The End

[Home] [Prev]