Has anyone here paddled the firebag river north of Fort McMurray. Are there any access points in the summer. It looks slow and winding on the maps and I would like to canoe it before the area is destroyed.

Pm Darren zandee he is with the borealis canoe club out of ft mcmurry,I just tried the website and somethings wrong

I live in Mcmurray and have contemplated the same thing. If you don't mind a farly strenuous push-drag-trip it can be done, its rather shallow and narrow for the most part. The upper reaches are really only accessable by air (floats)? not sure where they would be willing to drop you off, which may mean even more hard work

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These waves didn't look that big when I scouted it!

Hi all,

I think I've repaired the issue with the Borealis Canoe club website. However, the destinations section of the website has no info on the Firebag.

We've also chatted about paddling it, but like Doug says, access is difficult, especially to the upper section. You can get to the lower Firebag on the winter road (with a good 4x4 or a quad) and there's a quad trail to the Marguerite River which flows into the Firebag. You could then paddle to the winter road or continue on to to another quad trail access point or all the way to the Athabasca. Of course once you're on the Athabasca, you'd need to continue on to Fort Chip or paddle upstream. Paddling distance on the Marguerite would be about 18 km and on the Firebag (from the mouth of the Marguerite to the winter road) would be another 14 km. From the winter road to the quad access point, it's about 18 km on the river and from there to the mouth on the Athabasca, it's another 12 km. I have a gpx file with all of the info. It can be opened with Google Earth. PM me if you're interested in the file.

There are some small lakes near the Firebag close to the Saskatchewan border in/near the Marguerite River Wildland that you might be able to fly into. The river is likely to be pretty bony in that area and to get from any lake to the river would be a challenge.

The area that the lower Firebag is in, is outside of what's considered the Mineable Oil Sands Area (see http://www.oilsandsconsultations.gov.ab.ca/docs/MOSS_Policy2005.pdf).

If you plan on trying to run it, let me know and a few local paddlers might join you.

Cheers
Al

Here's a picture of the Firebag looking upstream from the bridge at the winter road. This was taken in early July 2006 with water relatively high.