View topic - Wabakimi - Cliff Lake

I'm looking for info on the route from Whiteclay Lake to Pikitigushi Lake via Raymond River and Pikitigushi River systems.

This was my trip in 2000. We flew into Whiteclay and take-out was at the logging road. We were out for 6 days. Do you have specific questions on the route?

_________________
"Nature used to surround us, now we surround nature and the change hasn't necessarily been for the better."
Margaret Atwood

What shape were the portages in?

Going up the Raymond River system, my maps show the following portages: P300L, P1000R, P325L, then P100R followed by another P100R or an alternative longer portage on the east of maybe 700m. Any comments on these two options?

Next come two 700m portages or an alternative longer portage to the west. Any comments?

From Butland Lake to Cliff Lake an 1800 m portage is shown with an option to go throught the ponds. What was your experience here?

A 100m portage is shown out of Cliff Lake to a small pond, then 750m (with an exclamation mark!) Any comments?

There is a P400L just before Ratte Lake, a P100R between Gort and Wash Lakes, a P150R out of Wash Lake.

The next portage is confusing. The topo shows a trail or portage from above Gooseneck Rapids to a point halfway between the narrowing of the river and Pikitigushi Lake. My map has been marked with a 1600m portage all the way to Pikitigushi Lake and a series of hash marks all along the narrowing of the river. What can you tell me about this?

Does one need six days to cover this route or could it be done more quickly? How long were your days? How long did it take to get to Cliff Lake? How long to get from there to the road?

Do you have any information on campsites, ie abundance and size?

Anything you can offer would be appreciated.

How long did it

In 1989, we paddled from AllanWater Bridge down to Whiteclay, up the Raymond and down the Pikitigushi to a logging road where we were picked up by our outfitter from Armstrong.
I have lots of information on campsites, portages and all that but it is out on loan until Sunday when I get it back at weir #3 on the Don.
Once I get it, I'd be pleased to share it with you. There is one "easy" route that you must not take.
Just to whet your appetite, the Bad Medicine portage is well named.
And I hope you enjoy portaging through black spruce bogs. Hint: don't pitch the canoe too far away when you drop in.
Yours in paddling, Allan

Portages are unmarked and not always where indicated on maps. At the time we did this route we were the second party(well, me and hubby)to use it. From what we experienced the route had seen little to none in the way of maintenance but thats ok, we enjoyed the challenge. I will comment on the portages that are unusual otherwise.

PL 300M Pickett Lake, up Raymond River
PR1000M, "Hell Portage" bugs and blowdowns like a giant gave up his game of pick-up-sticks . Fire had gone thru years earlier.
PL325M, into un-named lake 1st night camp on west shore, fire pit unused for years.
PL1000M, water levels were high and we had only lift-overs and P75M
P500M, over a floating, quaking bog(so very unique), paddle pond then
PR600M, at this point crossing into a different watershed going south into Butland Lake. 2nd night campsite on west shore near unoccupied outcamp.
PL1300M, because water levels high we shortened this by half.
Cliff Lake, nights 3 and 4.
PL100M, pond
PR750M, high above small canyon on a "goat trail"(that be !)
PL 400M, into Ratte Lake, only campsite east side across from outcamp nights 5 + 6.
Pikitigushi River into Gort Lake(watch for the downed plane on shore)PR100M , hard to find, no trail near river, into Wash Lake, runnable swifts, into Derraugh Lake(campsite on west point at entrance to lake and the last campsite before the bridge. No sites found on Pikitigushi Lake. Gooseneck Rapids were very rocky we P1600M? which took us directly into Pikitigushi Lake.

This is info from my maps and memory. This is a beautiful trip and one I hope to repeat.

_________________
"Nature used to surround us, now we surround nature and the change hasn't necessarily been for the better."
Margaret Atwood

Allan,

I saw you had posted while I was digging up maps and posting.

I know EXACTLY which portage would be named "Bad Medicine" . Please tell us what the "easy route" is that we must not take.

_________________
"Nature used to surround us, now we surround nature and the change hasn't necessarily been for the better."
Margaret Atwood

splashdancer - Thanks. That's really helpful.

Allan Jacobs - redcanoe has your maps. See you at Weir 3 on Sunday.

Hello Spashdancer:
Of course the Bad Medicine portage is the one into Bad Medicine Lake (heading toward the Pikitigushi), the one you so rightly call a goat trail.
You have awakened memories of that portage. The guy ahead of me stumbled and lost the canoe he was carrying; it tumbled down toward me but I got out of the way. And I slipped on the goat trail, danged near falling off it. At the end there's a 6-foot drop to the put-in point. And for the trail-weary, no real place to camp on the lake itself.
How not to go: We had a choice between a long carry (something like 1600 m) and the "easy route", a few short hops through beaver ponds and creeks. We chose the latter, easy route and spent many hours busting our rears, regretting all the time that we had not bitten the bullet at the start and done the long carry.
Maybe I should write up my notes for Richard; it won't be much of a report though since my memory has decayed. I can transcribe some MNR information on this route. I expect this stuff vanished when common-sense Harris gutted MNR; likely only hoarders like me have access to it.
The thought just occurred to me that someone might look into the legalities of scanning the old MNR stuff and posting it at CCR.
Yours in paddling, Allan

Allan...the legality of making old MNR brochures available has been covered by someone on this forum before, and MNR shut him down. He was trying to clooect them all and make them available..however, informal photocopying between friends should be fine...is that the Cliff lake mentioned by Dewdney for the pictographs?

Nothing new under the sun. Sorry for raking over dead coals. I've done that several times at CCR.
That's the Cliff Lake; it's reputed to have the best pictographs in NW Ontario. But we were hit by a 3-day storm (danged near froze) and had to dash through with only a fleeting glance at them, in order to make our pickup.
It's a great trip; ignore all my whining about portages, bogs, cold and the like.
Yours in paddling, Allan

RHaslam

Cliff Lake has the highest concentration of pictographs known. We spent two nights on this beautiful lake. When I return there it will be for three. We spent the whole day searching out the pictos but apparently we saw only a fraction of what has been recorded. And yes, regardless of the tough portages it is very much worth the effort.

_________________
"Nature used to surround us, now we surround nature and the change hasn't necessarily been for the better."
Margaret Atwood

Splashdancer...if you plan on returning and want a mean chainsaw man along to speed up those ports, contact me. I've been wanting to go back there for several years...was looking at a route of attempting to get in from the Ogoki resevoir, but much of that area is unknown to me...on the other hand, I read that the road that is supposed to connect Nakina to Armstrong is going to be punched through soon...there might be a new access...I'll look into it next week.

Back in may of 1986 a friend and I paddled through Cliff Lake and up through Butland and White Clay Lakes while enroute from Armstrong to James Bay via the Albany River. At the time there were no logging roads anywhere near that area, so it was a three day paddle to Cliff Lake from Little Caribou Lake near Armstrong via the Big River. We spent two days viewing the pictographs which are located at at least six different sites. Looking at my journal from the trip, my portage notes correlate well with those of splashdancer. At the time our maps showed no portages through the area, so we drew them in as we found them. I remember the so-called "Bad Medicine" portage well. An injury there would require a lot of good medicine. My journal entry from 25 May 1986 descrbes it as follows:

"The portage that leads into the pond just below Cliff Lake ranks as one of the most grueling for its size, as well as one of the most interesting, that I have carried on. It starts on the south side of the river (r.r.) a short distance below
an outlet canyon with falls and rapids, and climbs exceptionally steeply up a rock face, then climbs steeply uphill for 200m. It continues up and down before climbing to the canyon rim, where it is a good 120 feet above the river. The trail is rocky, a bit brushy, and wet in places, and is about 450 meters long."

The Cliff Lake area and the route up through Butland Lake to White Clay Lake is truly a gem, especially if you like pictographs and some fairly challenging portages. Looking at satellite photos of the area it appears that logging roads have approached the area like a cancer, although none directly to Cliff Lake or the route to the north. I believe that the Nakina to Armstrong Road, if built, would radically increase access to the area and forever change its character as well as that of the entire north shore of Lake Nipigon. Too bad.

Gordon

Got my stuff together, pretty well.
1. Bad Medicine Lake is named on the MNR maps but not the topos. It is the skinny, 1.5 km long lake between Cliff and Ratte. We made a desperation camp on the S side not far above the portage to Ratte.
2. The name Bad Medicine portage doesn't appear on either the MNR maps or the topos; I got the name, and learned its reputation, from somewhere else (maybe Tom Terry; certainly he told me about the pictographs on Cliff). From Cliff, one does a 100 yd P to a pond, then the BMP of 750 yd, then a 400 yd P to Ratte.
3. The route to be avoided is the one through the ponds between Butland and Cliff; do instead the 1800 yd carry! We took the pond route and spent so much time on it that we missed nearly all the pictographs on Cliff.
4. Nancy Scott advised me against trying to get back to Armstrong by continuing to head up the Raymond River; instead, continue on to Butland Lake.
5. The black-spruce bogs are between the Raymond and Pikitigushi watersheds, at the N end of Butland.
6. We started downstream from AllanWater Bridge in the early afternoon of 25 July 1989 and arrived at the logging road (about 4 km below Pikitigushi Lake) in the late afternoon of 5 August.
7. Boats were rented from Don and Annette Elliot of Mattice Lake Outfittters in Armstrong; they also picked us up at the logging road.
8. We stayed at the Chateau North (Armstrong) for the night of 5-6 August.
9. We also other people every day but one. Many of the lakes (Brennan, Pickett, ...) have fly-in fishing cabins.
10. Brennan Lake is plain ugly, not inherently but rather because people have ripped up the moss on the rocks.
11. The Big River route through Caribou Lake to the Pikitigushi downstream from Ratte is (or rather was) an established MNR route (S-22).

You will have a great trip!
Yours in paddling, Allan

Thanks for the info Allan. I filled out some more data on my maps, like the un-named lake on my map was "Bad Medicine". We have always looked at new routes each time we trip(you know, so many interesting routes and too short a lifetime)but we have started repeating some trips and find we can have more time for exploring when we know what basically lies ahead.

_________________
"Nature used to surround us, now we surround nature and the change hasn't necessarily been for the better."
Margaret Atwood