Mattawa River - Part One

On Wednesday July 1 we set out on the Mattawa River with the intent to reach the Ottawa River by Sunday. Our plan may have been a little ambitious so we settled for doing this historic route in two parts. We plan to finish in September when I make my way back home.

Portage de la Mauvaise Musique proved to be one of the more mysterious and challenging portages we had to find. Fortunately for us, we had a blog post of group of canoeist who detailed their entire trip on the Mattawa from Trout Lake to the Ottawa River. The blog details about this particular portage proved to be very useful. This was a first for us…we actually had to climb over a beaver damn and then continue paddling through a swampy area before we finally reached the path.

The remainder of our trip provided us with family time with loons, some beautiful sunsets, a fun beach day and one spectacular full moon !!!

After spending a lovely evening on the beach we set out the next morning for Talon Shute. Upon hearing that a substantial storm was coming that evening we made the decision to abort our original plan to complete our Mattawa river trek and finish the remainder in the fall. I was slightly disappointed but more relieved after traversing the Talon Shute portage to scout it out. This is one serious bad boy!!! Doable but let’s face it at my age I’m in this more for the beauty not the brawn.

Since we were a few day earlier than expected our scheduled pick up was unavailable that evening so Brenda called in a modern day “Prince Charming” to rescue two damsels in distress. Dwight rode in on his shiny Dodge pickup truck with beer and hamburgers – it doesn’t get more Northern Ontario than that!