On the September long weekend 3 friends and I flew from Missinipe into Larocque Lake and paddled the Weaver River to Hayman Lake, then back to Missinipe after portaging around Sluice Falls. We did the trip over a casual 5 days, including driving from Saskatoon to Missinipe on the first day and flying at 2:30 in the afternoon. That day our paddling was limited to travelling a few km from the landing spot to find a mediocre and exposed campsite toward the NE end of the lake. The portage at the south end of the lake would've been a much nicer spot with room for several tents (and trees suitable for hammock tents).
On the second day, we paddled to the north end of Larocque Lake, viewing the remarkable pictographs along the way. These are the second-most impressive pictographs that I've ever seen (the most impressive ones were between Hickson and Maribelli Lakes, en route to the Paull River). We portaged into Auld Lake to check out the pictographs there as well, then checked out where the Weaver flows via a stony rapid and waterfall into Larocque Lake. Before seeing it, we optimistically thought maybe we could line the canoes back down to Larocque but upon getting there we realized that would be either impossible or treacherous, and very much not worth it. There was a little rapid up above the falls a hundred meters or so and I was able to run one canoe through that, then we ferried the other 2 paddlers down the rest of the way to the waterfall. After checking out the falls from above, we headed back to the portage and proceeded back to Larocque Lake and our campsite from the previous night for snacks and to pick up our gear. From there we continued on to Forbes Lake via the short portage.
That second night we camped on Forbes Lake toward it's southern end. The GoTrekkers map merely mentions that "camping opportunities" exist on the islands in the southern portion of Forbes. We didn't see much in the way of "opportunities" at all on Forbes, but did find a fantastic campsite on the SW corner of MacMillan Island. There may be other spots, but that's a good one to keep in mind for sure.
Our third day saw us do a few portages to get onto Bellows Lake and a fantastic spot on the eastern tip of Champagne Island. We avoided one portage by running and lining a rapid where a mining road used to cross the Weaver River. It was pretty tight to get down at the current low flows. In a higher water year it would've been easier, I'm sure. We spent some time at Standunder Falls where the Weaver flows into Bellows Lake. Only one of us (not me) was brave enough stand under Standunder Falls - it was a pretty tight fit and it was damn cold.
On our fourth day we portaged around Clark Falls and the end of the Weaver River at Hayman Lake on the Churchill River. We completed the 1 km portage around Sluice and camped near bottom of the portage beside Sluice Falls. It's a large site and quite nice though it suffered a big blow down several years ago (after which my buddies and I spent some time and effort clearing the portage and campsite with chainsaws). Once camp was set up in late afternoon it was time to fish since fish was on the menu. It took a while but I caught a nice size walleye and a small one, which together with another two small ones made a nice feast for supper.
Our fifth and last day had us paddle out to Missinipe. Rob & I did the short carry at Ric's Falls to bypass Corner Rapids and Rod & Jay ran corner. They took some water on and had a pretty good ride and so Rob and I decided not to chance it and did the carry instead. From there we went down the channel to Dieter Rapids and out onto Barker Lake. We checked out the new composting toilet which will hopefully help mitigate the poop impact that this busy area sees. Since it was Tuesday after the long weekend in September, we had the entire area to ourselves. Actually, it wasn't until we left Barker via the 3 Sisters Rapids route and got past Staircase Falls that we saw the first other paddlers of the trip. Those paddlers were on Devil Lake near the launch. On the Weaver itself we'd seen a couple of motorboats with fishermen at Forbes Lake, but otherwise no-one. At Otter Rapids we ran the rapids using the sneak route tight to river left and got down onto Otter Lake mostly without trouble (don't go TOO far left or you might grind to a halt on rocks a few meters from shore). After that it was paddling on Otter Lake toward Osprey Wings in Missinipe. While loading up, Gary Thomson shared many jokes with us then invited us into his office so that we could each select a couple prints of his paintings. With canoes loaded and prints in hand, we drove back home to Saskatoon and were tucked in bed well before midnight.
As usual, it was a great trip. This was our 20th annual trip for the four of us who call ourselves Northstar Expeditions (this is horribly out of date, but I used to maintain a blog for us at
https://northstarexped.blogspot.com/) - actually 20th annual is the average - Jay completed 21 trips and has never missed a year, Rod & I each have missed one year (hey, I had a daughter born and a thesis to defend), and Rob missed 2. Because of the special(?) occasion, we had decided that we needed to extend the trip by a day compared to typical, and to splurge on the flight. The Weaver River is accessible from the road via numerous portages and paddling on some small lakes. It would take about a day to get to Larocque Lake where we got dropped off, but it's a tough day and reputed to be more portaging than paddling. Our weather was decent - cool, not cold, occasionally warm and sunny, a bit breezy at times but never too windy, occasionally calm. We had a brief but spectacular show of northern lights one night, and a couple great nights of amazing starry skies. I was happy and comfortable each night in my hammock tent. The other 3 complained of rough ground at times but I never had any issues with that (though the first night my trees were subpar, they were adequate).
Here are some photos that I posted on Facebook with captions.
https://www.facebook.com/bryan.sarauer. ... 1049525259And here are some much better photos that Rob (an actual photographer) posted:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?van ... 2231570121 Well, would you lookat that, I wasn't going to write a report, I was just going to post a link to some pictures on facebook, but there we are, a report seems to have happened.
Cheers,
Bryan