Hi Bill Maloney. If you are reading this you will know that Gerad Guay posted the email you sent him a while back. You and I were indeed on the same canoe trip back in August of 1967. What's left of the hair I have is still blond, mixed with a fair bit of grey. The trip we took was called the Wetetnegami River/Penache River trip. We left base camp and headed north, over the tough Bourgmont portages, down Bourgmont Creek, and down the Kekek River to the north camp of a fishing outfitter called Kapitachouan Club, then owned by Homer and Frank Sigouin. We resupplied there and continued north, eventually arriving at the Wetetnegami River, which we proceeded to paddle down for a few days. There are a number of good-sized rapids on this stretch of the river, and I remember being particularly disappointed when, upon arriving at one of them, our trip-leader, Derry Allen, decided it was too difficult for the campers to run and, instead, had the counselors run all the canoes down it instead. At the intersection with the Penache River, we then headed east, paddling for 3 days upstream on the Penache. I have since learned from my brother and others that the better way to make this trip is to do it in reverse, paddling down the Penache and up the Wetetnegami. We then made our way back to Sigouin's camp and then on to Lac Pascagama, Lac Bernier, Susie Dam, Ganas Falls, Lac Lacoursier, Hudson's Creek, and, finally, back to Lac Choiseul. Your recollection of Tom Soper riding the cow moose in to shore is exactly as I remember it (although I suspect that Tom would say that he jumped off the moose before it reached shore instead of getting bucked off). I remember a number of campers taking pictures, but I never saw any of them (sadly, digital photography and the internet were not invented yet!). We had a fair bit of rain on the trip, which made for decent water levels but some pretty wet camp sites. Did you paddle in the stern or the bow? I remember your name, but can't put face to it.
As you will know from reading the earlier posts, both camp directors have passed away (Rod Beebe died in 1997 and Carl Williams passed just last year). A number of Williamses and Beebes still go up to the base camp on Lac Choiseul every summer for a couple of weeks for a working vacation, maintaining the existing cabins and enjoying the fishing. With the exception of the Capitachouane River, I don't think very many of the old routes the camp used to frequent are paddled and portaged anymore. Gerald Guay says that much of the area has been logged and that there are a number of roads that now criss-cross the territory. It's certainly not the wilderness that it was 40 years ago. My brother Chris, at the invitation of Peter and Doug Williams, visited the camp last summer. During his stay he paddled up to the northeast corner of Lac Choiseul to Sandy Beach, and he reports that there is no vestige whatsoever of the portage trail that so many CK'ers trudged over departing from and returning to the lake. He also said that the water levels last summer were the lowest he'd ever seen during his 15 years canoeing in the area back in the 70's and 80's. Had the camp been still operating, he doesn't think it would have been possible to run trips with such low water. Hopefully, the snow pack this past winter returned to normal and all those wonderful rivers are flowing freely again this spring.
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