2014 Canoe trip - Day 3

rusty · Post by **rusty** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 4:35 pm

Day: 3. Fun type: 2
We woke to a clear but quite windy day and we could tell that it was going to be hard work going into the wind in order to get to our destination at Shingwak Lake. I don’t think anyone tried fishing before we left, it was breakfast, pack and leave. There was a bit of shelter at the early stages and we did try a bit of fishing though there was little success I think. We passed a couple of pretty fancy looking “cabins” on the way, and the headwind picked up around every corner so we were hugging the shore. We were sort of keeping an eye out for any portages that might go over to Isinglass but didn’t really see any. There was one trail that went up into the woods in a bay just after a particularly lavish cabin on a nice promontory with mowed lawns, but we didn’t check it out, I think it just went up to a small lake. By this point the headwind was getting to be really hard work and we were out into the main part of Rowan lake. Even paddling hard we were barely making headway and it was hard work. At least it was still sunny. I was paddling with Mike and we stopped to take a breather while the others caught up. Then we all moved together pretty much up to some little islands that were upwind where we had a quick snack while in the canoes an discussed how to manage the last leg without getting swamped. We decided to go across the lake and behind an island to get some more shelter before going along the shore to the portage. This worked pretty well and the middle of the lake was not that bad in the crosswind, despite being a good 20 knots I thought.
The portage into Shingwak was pretty easy as a bicycle wheel trolley had been left there. Little Shingwak was a nice lake, quite clear, but by this time the wind had gone more westerly and was quite cold. Little Shingwak was narrow but the wind was lined up right along it. There were some good looking places to fish along it and we got a couple of bass but there wasn’t a lot of action although Mike was doing ok. We came up to a shallow little bay and caught up with the other canoes. Chris and Jon were in a canoe and Ada and Carrie were fishing from a small island. We tried fishing also, and were encouraged when Chris hooked what seemed to be a pretty substantial fish. The rod was really bowed over and it looked like a snag except for the occasional headshake that made the rod move like the lure had accidentally snagged on the oar of a passing rowboat. The fight was a bit shorter than Chris would have liked and the fish broke the line without us seeing what it was. Probably would have been the fish of the trip. Shortly after we started out again, it really clouded up and starting to rain pretty steadily. Our plan was to try to find an island to camp on somewhere in Big Shingwak Lake, and we saw on the map that there were several around the area where Little and Big Shingwak met. All the first ones we say were really unsuitable, with steep shores and no open flat spaces. I did find an old rack of antlers on one of them but that was about all. Mike and I were about to give up by the time we got to the last island, which was a little less steep but heavily wooded except for a kind of swampy looking area. We got out and walked around in the rain and it wasn’t looking too good. The last part of the island we searched was the swamp and it turned out to be slightly more meadow than swamp so we figured we would have to give it a go and went to fetch the others. The tents went up pretty quickly and Jon and Chris found a place in under the trees next to a large boulder that we could use for a kitchen area building a nifty table from some drift lumber and putting up a tarp. It worked out a lot better than we thought. It turned out there was a fallen down cabin made of hand-hewn logs in a part of the island that Mike and I hadn’t scouted and this provided a bit of interest, with an old cast iron stove door proving to be the most notable relic. We all had a quick fish after setting up camp, Mike and I got some decent bass which was good, Chris and Ada needed them for the fish tacos that night, which were superb. As were the Margaritas.