August 1990
We planned a 7-day canoe trip on the east branch of the Spanish River from Duke Lake to Agnew Lake. We hired a shuttle driver from Stewart’s Store in Webwood to drive up with us to Duke Lake. Our driver was none other than Rod Stewart (not the rocker, though!). He drove our car back, then shuttled it over to Agnew Lake Lodge where we would retrieve it at the end of our trip.
We were quite fortunate. The Spanish normally gets bony in August, but a week of rain before out trip brought the levels back up, nicely.
We drove up to Sudbury the day before, took a motel, and were able to meet Rod in Webwood early in the morning. This enabled us to get to Duke Lake in time for some paddling that day.
The first part of the trip is through small lakes, numbered from 10 down to 1. These were joined by short easy rapids that were all runnable. The only difficult series of rapids was the Graveyard, which we passed by running parts, lining and portaging. We did see a ruined yellow canoe there. But we had no difficulties at all. It was a great introductory river trip requiring only moderate skill.
