Mudjatik River Atlassing Canoe Trip

The Mudjatik River trip was a 17-day, 294 km trip paddled by me and Sara Yeomans. We hitchhiked on a float plane chartered by Steve from the Canadian Wildlife Service (thanks Steve!) and paddled a Clipper generously loaned to us by the folks at Prince Albert National Park (thanks Parks CaFor the Google Earth file of our route: https://drive.google.com/open?id=10MyzbTilxJMZUpv4z-S7CJA8S8VH7M97

Day 1 – On June 18 we flew to Cree Lake. The pilot was able to drop us off at the very south end of Cree Lake. It was quite windy and we spent some time floundering around and trying to get our bearings. We met a group of fishermen staying on the lake who checked in with us to make sure we were doing OK. They were monopolizing the best sandy beach in the area, so we made camp on top of a rocky peninsula nearby.

Camp 1.

Day 2 - Point counts began at 3:30. Lots of tiny regenerating Jack Pine, with some Black Spruce and sphagnum bogs mixed in. We had several Rusty Blackbirds and Olive-sided Flycatchers, as well as the typical northern boreal songbirds, Chipping Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, White-throated Sparrows, Palm Warblers, etc.

A mouse we found at our first campsite. Favorite mammal sighting of the trip, by far.

 We got back to camp around 7:30, made breakfast, took down camp, and were on the water at 10:00. We quickly made it to the start of Brustad River, and paddled upriver on it for most of the day. We meandered through lots of very cool floating bog, and picked up more birds typical of grasslands (Savannah Sparrow, Le Conte’s Sparrow, Northern Harrier) who were loving the open habitat. We met several fishermen along the river, and one kind fellow gave us a Walleye!

We made it to Mitchell Lake that afternoon, feeling quite tired after all that upriver paddling. We camped on top of another rocky hill that had recently been burned. We had a delicious meal of pan-fried fish over the fire and hit the sack at 7:00 PM.

Pan-fried fish. Photo by Sara Yeomans.

Day 3 – Another early morning of point counts. Nearly the whole morning we were in knee-high regenerating Jack Pine, with only a few point counts in mature forest. We found several Vesper Sparrows and Clay-coloured Sparrows, species more regularly detected on the prairie. We flushed up a Palm Warbler off of her nest, and spent a long time tracking down the Vespers to get a recording of their song. Back at camp we heard a beautiful duet of Common Loons, and some juvenile Gray Jays came to check out camp.

Success in recording the Vesper Sparrow! It was the farthest north I have personally ever detected a Vesper Sparrow.

We finished the last bit of the Brustad, and paddled right by the connection we were supposed to make to the lake to the south of us. Good thing Sara was paying attention to her GPS! We quickly crossed that lake and made it to the start of Highland Portage.  It was a bit of a slog and took us a few hours to make the 900 m trek with our heavier-than-expected Clipper. A quick paddle across the next lake and we were at the start of the next portage. It was only 200 m long but we were tuckered out again, so we carried our food and gear across, left the canoe at the start, and camped halfway. A long day to only go 4.5 kilometers!

Day 4 – We had a bit of sleep in, waking up at 5:00 AM to finish the last three point counts we needed to do in that square. Just as we got back to the tent, a shaggy-looking black bear came for a visit. It ignored our yelling and made straight for our gear at the bottom of the hill. Eventually I went down, intending to spray it, but ended up chasing it several hundred meters from camp. We eventually backed away, and very quickly took down camp, carried the canoe across, and got on the water. A little motivation helped to make the portage happen faster!

We were happy to be paddling downriver, but Snag Creek got narrower and more twisting as it went on and became impossible to paddle. Several hours of wading waist-deep and hauling the canoe over the grass, and one last terrible push through thick willows in chest-deep water, and we were FINALLY on the Gwillim River. The Gwillim was fast-flowing and kept pushing us into the shrubby outer banks of the river. It took us a little while to learn how to paddle through the currents. There were quite a few deadheads and sweepers in this section of the river, but they weren’t terribly hard to avoid even with the fast-flowing water.

We had picked up just a few twigs as we scraped our way along the first part of the Gwillim. Photo by Sara Yeomans.

The day ended with a lighting storm RIGHT on top of us as we approached Solitude Lake, with nowhere to take shelter except in the shrubby, boggy river edges. If there was any part of us that was still dry after Snag Creek, it got wet in the pouring rain. It finally let off as we got onto the lake. There was a lovely sandy beach right as we entered the lake, but who was enjoying the sandy banks but ANOTHER BLACK BEAR. We didn’t feel like another bear encounter that day so we paddled across the lake to camp at another beach. There was a cabin and outhouse there, but nobody home, so we walked down the beach a little bit and set up our tent. We were VERY happy to change into dry clothes and crawl into our sleeping bags that evening.

Day 5 – Another morning of point counts. We walked through about a kilometer of terrible wet sphagnum bog before making it into some mature Jack Pine forest, and found the common boreal songbirds. We picked up a few Orange-crowned Warblers, and got a sneak peak of the rapids.

We got on the water just before 10:00. The river was a bit wider and more gentle than it was north of Solitude Lake. One short portage, more paddling, and we made it to Sandy Lake in good time. We camped on the second little lake south of Sandy, trying to get as close as possible to our survey locations for the next morning.

Day 6 – Got up early for a short walk to our survey points. The habitat was varying successional stages of Jack Pine, from ankle-height to mature forest. I was getting bored of hearing nothing but Chipping Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, and Hermit Thrushes! We got rained on mid-morning, so we didn’t quite finish our surveys. We headed back to the tent, napped in the tent through the worst of the rain, then swam in the lake and washed our socks.

Day 7 – We had a cool, misty morning of surveys but we managed to finish them off. More boring Jack Pine surveys but we found an American Three-Toed Woodpecker nest on the way back to camp.

It was a calm, cool afternoon and we had a lovely paddle down the river to Loon Mud Lake. We found a Common Tern and Ring-billed Gull colony on the lake, with adorable fuzzball chicks. We camped on the sandy eastern shore of the lake and had a delicious dinner of dehydrated chile and bannock, cooked over the fire.

Chile and bannock. Photo by Sara Yeomans.

Day 8 – The morning weather held out for us again and we had another morning of point counts in open Jack Pine forest. I was starting to feel like there were no plants in the world but Reindeer Lichen and Jack Pine, and no birds in the world but Chipping Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, and Hermit Thrushes.

We paddled the rest of the Gwillim that day and had the first of the run-able rapids just before the Gwillim joined the Mudjatik. They were easy to run and we were happy to finally get to the Mudjatik! We ran the first set of Little Grand rapids and made a short carry/drag over the bushes at the second set. We camped that night on the island just past the second set.

Day 9 – We paddled across the river in the morning to get to the mainland to do our surveys. We immediately got drenched in awful, swampy slime as we got out of the canoe, but had the rest of the day in open Jack Pine forest. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

That afternoon we made good progress on the fast-flowing river. We portaged around both of Grand Rapids. We had lunch on the island just after Grand, where we were surprised to find a pile of charcoal, a cast-iron pan, and a boatload of garbage on the island, including a large piece of steak and some baked potatoes. No wonder the bears in the area were happy to barge right into camp and start rummaging around, if folks are leaving steaks out for them to snack on! We were making good progress that day so after lunch we made a fire to burn all that garbage. That night we camped as close as possible to our survey locations on top of a steep sandy cutbank. There were lots of down trees at the top but we managed to squeeze our tent into an opening with not an inch to spare.

Day 10 – We FINALLY got some more variable habitat in our point counts the next morning. I have never been so happy to see a tamarack swamp! We picked up some boggy birds like Lincoln’s Sparrows, Tennessee Warblers, and Common Yellowthroats.

We needed to stay another night here to survey again the next morning, so we had the afternoon off to swim, wash our hair, and do some more laundry. The sun came out and it got quite hot. I went for a walk to try to find the nest of the Red-tailed Hawk that had been hanging around, but I had no luck. I should have just had another nap.

Day 11 – We finished off the surveys in an interesting spot with a bit of an esker that sloped down to an ephemeral stream. It was more open Jack Pine, unfortunately, but the landscape at least was interesting.

I was beginning to feel like a zombie after 11 days in a row of points counts, but it was easy paddling. We found that 10 km as the crow flies was about 20 km of paddling with all the meanders the river was making, but the current pushed us along at a good speed so the extra distance didn’t matter too much. We passed a transition of habitat and started seeing big pockets of aspen, poplar, and birch, some of the first hardwood of the trip. We picked up the first Western Wood-pewees, Red-eyed Vireos, Black-and-white Warblers, Magnolia Warblers, and Least Flycatchers of the trip! It was interesting to see such a hard and fast transition of habitat and bird species. Nearing the end of the day, after 35 km of meanders, I was feeling like I could not make one single more paddle stroke so we camped on a nice flat open area.

Day 12 – We had good weather in the morning but decided to sleep in regardless because I needed to remedy the zombie situation. That afternoon we had a pleasant but drizzly paddle to our next campsite.

Day 13 – We had a terrible morning of surveys, wading through the wet, regenerating forest and climbing over slimy logs. It started raining on us midway through the morning but we completed most of what we had wanted to do.

We came upon Old Woman Rapids fairy quickly, and had a fairly easy time lining them on river right. The sun came out and we made good time to our next camp. It was a nice campsite, so of course there was more garbage lying around from previous visitors.

Day 14 – Wind and rain in the morning so we got to sleep in again. It drizzled on and off that afternoon and we ran all of the five sisters rapids. We had a spicy moment trying to avoid a large rock with the first of the sisters, but all of the others were very and fun. After the third sister we stopped to cook up some bannock in a burnover, then did some birding. We found Red Crossbills, a baby Chipping Sparrow, a Wood-pewee nest with eggs, a Brown Creeper, and a Hermit Thrush nest with one egg! It was nice to be able to wander around in the forest without a timeline to follow.

Western Wood-Pewee nest with eggs. Photo by Sara Yeomans.

We continued to make good progress that afternoon and quickly came up on Bear Rapids. We had been warned in a previous trip report that they had “run Bear Rapids on river left, quite a ledge with a chute. We´ve shiped a good deal of water!” We got out of the canoe to take a look at the rapids, and they looked nice and flat and easy on river left. I thought to myself that these must be just a preliminary set of rapids before Bear Rapids started, so we went ahead and ran them. Well, there was actually quite a ledge with a chute, and we shiped a great deal of water. I thought for sure we were going to be swimming as we scraped over that ledge, but we managed to keep the canoe upright. We pulled off to the shore, bailed out the canoe, and had a good laugh at ourselves.

Just after Bear Rapids, we heard a funny screeching sound on river left. I had a sneaking suspicion about it, so we pulled off and started scanning the trees. It was one adult and one baby Northern Hawk Owl, calling back and forth to each other! A little farther down the river we saw a Short-eared Owl foraging over the sedge-y wetlands and heard a House Wren singing, more firsts for the trip.

That evening we camped in a surprisingly nice little grove of trees surrounded by wetland. What a great day it had been!

Day 15 – Too windy and rainy for surveys again, so we had a nice long lie-in. We couldn’t travel very far because we didn’t want to leave the square, so we had a short but wet paddle to our next camp.

Day 16 – We had great weather but lots of blackflies for our morning surveys. It was challenging terrain, with lots of wet bogs and exposed rocky burnovers, but we picked up the first Connecticut Warblers of the trip as well as Mourning Warblers, Winter Wrens, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker nest with young, and an American Three-toed Woodpecker nest with young. It was neat to see all the curved bands of sedge near the river where the river channel used to be! We figured at one point the grove of trees where we were camped must have been an island.

We were worried about how hard our last day was going to be, so we tried to get as far as possible that afternoon. We ran the last of the rapids of the Mudjatik, another nice easy set with almost no steering required. We joined the Churchill that afternoon and paddled to Leaf Rapids. We did a bit of lining but mostly walked alongside the canoe, floating upriver through the rapids. We portaged the first section of Drum rapids – holy guacamole that was some big water – and walked up most of the rest of it. It was very slow going with lots of tripping over the rocks and getting soaking wet. At about 8:30 PM we had been up and working hard for over 17 hours, and we finally called it quits. We made a terrible camp in a boggy burn, stamping down the stinging nettle and squeezing the tent into a space between the logs at 56.003234, -107.654008.

“Rapidview” at the Drum Rapids of the Churchill River, and my face depicting my general feeling about rapids at that point. KFC is unexplainable. Photo by Sara Yeomans.

Day 17 – We thought we were all done with the rapids, but just around the corner from our campsite was one last set, which waded through again, cursing the whole way. The rest of the paddle was windy, and my wrists were starting to get angry with me after too many days of J strokes. We had one last windy crossing of Shagwenaw Lake, and pulled up to the beach near the Patuanak Co-op around 3:00PM. Atlas Technician Kelly soon arrived to pick us up and we headed for an overnight stay at the cabins at Lac La Plonge. Sara and I were very happy to be back in civilization, with real beds and flush toilets!

Wheeler River Atlassing Canoe Trip

This was the first of two canoe trips I had the privilege to do with the Saskatchewan Breeding Bird Atlas. We did this trip in 9 days of paddling (and one day of no travel) which included a few detours to get to our study sites, and traveled about 170 km. There were lots of lovely places to set up camp, and we never had trouble finding a good place to spend the night. We went in early June and had only one or two days near the end with any biting insects to speak of. We saw lots of fish, lots of birds, quite a few porcupines, and one well-behaved bear. We were expecting to have 11 sets of rapids and ended up with 22 – rapids almost every day! Most were short drops but there were several longer sets.

To download the Google Earth file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dg1FNbRTXIkgxX5NDr0aqheR4jF5DeXJ/view?usp=sharing

On June 6, 2019, we made the 9-hour drive from Saskatoon up to Russell Lake. The paddlers were me (Atlas technician and trip songbird authority), my dad Alan (canoe Captain and camping chef extraordinaire) and Dana (kayak Captain, rapids guide, and trip botanist). We stopped briefly at the gates of the Key Lake Mine, where we had pre-arranged permission to drive up through the mine site to access the lake.  The topography around the Wheeler River was amazing, with hills, eskers, sandy cliffs, and rocky outcrops. We had a short paddle to our first camp, then had a dinner of fresh hamburgers and quickly hit the sack to rest before our first full day.

Day 2 - We had an earlybird wakeup of 3:30 AM to do our songbird surveys. I have never had so much topography on a survey morning in Saskatchewan! We got a lovely sunrise walk over the hills, with some great habitat, lots of fun northern birds like Rusty Blackbird, White-crowned Sparrow, and Olive-sided Flycatcher, and got to go through a few small wetlands.

That day we made the 17 km paddle up to the north end of Russell Lake to get close to our next survey locations. There was an amazing number of fish-eating birds – Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Loons, Belted Kingfishers, and more. We got rained on that afternoon, but found a lovely campsite complete with picnic tables, firepit, pots and pans, fish-cleaning table, and latrine. We cooked up fresh tacos for dinner, the last of our fresh meat.

Bald Eagle carrying nesting material. Photo by Dana Kellett.

Day 3 – It was raining in the morning, so we weren’t able to do our surveys. We went back to bed and had a nice lie-in, then built a fire in the afternoon to try to dry out our soaking wet boots and socks. It rained on and off all morning, but started to let up in the evening. Dana caught two northern pike, and we had a delicious dinner of fish fried over the campfire. We stayed in the same spot another night and hoped for better weather the next morning.

Day 4 – Another 3AM wakeup, and the weather was clear and calm. We divided and conquered our surveys, with lots of hiking through the squishy sphagnum bog.

After a quick breakfast we started on the 26 km paddle to our next study sites. On the way back out from the north arm of Russell Lake we found a Common Tern colony with birds sitting on eggs! We had some short sections of surprise rapids as we left Russell Lake. All were boulder gardens with small standing waves. None were a problem for Dana in her kayak. In the canoe we were quite rusty and ran into a few boulders, and in some spots ran aground and had to get out to float the canoe over the shallow sections. A curious river otter provided some distraction at the start of the second rapids.

Photo by Dana Kellett.

After the last set of rapids we took another detour to the south. We made two little upstream connections into Moore Lakes, where we found a drill site with hundreds of kilometers of core samples. We got out to take a look and say hello, but no one was there. Despite the lack of people, there was garbage everywhere, uncontained fuel, and equipment lying around all over the place. Some of those core samples were very beautiful, and we were wishing we had brought along a trip Geologist. We tried to make another upstream connection to the next lake to the south, but we gave up pretty quickly as it looked like it would be a boggy portage into a boggy lake. We instead camped on a sandy beach at near the south end of the lake with a nice view of the esker to the east of us.

Miles of core samples at Moore Lakes. Photo by Alan Stewart.

Core samples up close. Photo by Alan Stewart.

Day 5 – Again, too much wind to do our morning surveys. We were worried about finishing the trip on time, so we decided to move on rather than stay another day to get them done. We backtracked out of Moore Lakes and onto the Wheeler again. We were aiming to get to the Wheeler River Lodge, 21 km away. There was another set of short rapids, which Dana did very well and my dad and I did somewhat poorly. At the bottom of that set there was a swarm of over 20 Common Nighthawks, displaying right on top of us and not helping us concentrate on avoiding rocks! It had been so cold up to that point and we had had almost no flying insects, so I was wondering how they were surviving with such little food. We had a lovely calm paddle the rest of the way to Wheeler River Lodge with Nighthawks flying around us all the rest of the way there.

We stopped in at Wheeler River Lodge, and met the owners, Kevin and Cheryl. They invited us over for dinner and said we could set up camp wherever we liked, so we paddled back around the peninsula to camp on a lovely sand beach. We washed our faces and tried to make ourselves presentable, then walked over for a delicious meal of fresh-caught fish, pasta, and red wine. We were only the second paddlers Kevin and Cheryl had ever seen come through. It was a lovely lodge with very kind folks running it!

Day 6 – Good weather in the morning and we got our surveys done. It was easy walking with lots of open sandy Jack Pine forest. Very beautiful but not as high bird diversity as we had seen in previous days, with lots of Dark-eyed Juncos, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Chipping Sparrows.

Jack Pine forest. Photo by Dana Kellett.

We set off bright and early for our next campsite, 23 km away. We had more small sets of rapids but getting longer at as we continued. Either the rapids were getting easier or we were getting better, or both, because we managed all of these pretty well. There was lots of boulder-dodging and only one or two scrapes.

Day 7 – Super early bird wakeup of 2:30 AM for a bit of a hike to the point count locations. Luckily, it was nice easy walking so I got there early and had to wait for the sun to start coming up! There was a fun variety of habitat, from jack pine to black spruce bog to some little lakes. I picked up the first Orange-crowned Warbler of the trip, and had a Bonaparte’s Gull circle me and start telling me off for daring to walk through his territory.

Bonaparte's Gull. Photo by Dana Kellett.

That day we paddled 20 km to our next campsite. We crossed Keefe Lake with a bit of a crosswind. Another short set of rapids before we camped on the easternmost of Kindrachuk Lakes, on a sandy beach with a little patch of live trees at the edge of a large burn. Over supper we had yet more Common Nighthawks circling over us, and we got to see two interacting high in the sky. One would fly up and up and up, then go into a steep dive headed right for the other one. At the last moment it would pull up, making a “whoomp!” noise with its wings, and the other would have to do some evasive maneuvers to avoid getting hit by the first.

Day 8 – We did our morning surveys in the burn and had several more Nighthawks zooming around us. We found a Black-backed Woodpecker nest and lots of other burn-loving birds (American Robins, Rusty Blackbirds, White-throated Sparrows, etc.).

That afternoon we paddled 16 km to our next sites. As we left Kindrakchuk Lakes, the river made some gentle meanders. We saw a Trumpeter Swan in the marshy edge of the river, a very exciting find! Shortly after we came across a 1 km stretch of rapids. Partway down we hit a sharp drop with some very big waves, which completely swamped the canoe. Luckily we were able to muddle our way to shore and bail the canoe, but I had lost my nerve so we portaged through the bush and lined the rest of the way. That night we camped on top of a sandy hill just before the last long set of rapids on the Wheeler.

Day 9 – Very fun point counts. 2:45 AM wakeup, and I got to my first point too early again. In the dim light as I was sitting at my first point waiting for sunup, I heard and later saw two Spruce Grouse nearby doing their wing-flap display and dance for a female who was perched in a tree, watching them from above. There was a bit of excitement later that morning as Dana’s recording device ran out of memory, but together we managed to get all the surveys done within the dawn period. We had a delicious breakfast of oatmeal with fresh-picked cranberries before breaking camp.

We started the day with a 2 km section of rapids. It was long and technical, with lots of hazards, but we ran it in decent form. A few spots we were really threading the needle, with rocks on either side with inches to spare. We paddled south through some lovely lakes, ran one more short rapids, and joined the Geikie River that afternoon. We pushed on to Big Baby Rapids and got there around 7PM.

We ran the short first section of Big Baby. We then pulled off to the bank and watched Dana disappear around the bend as the real rapids started. Once at the bottom of the rapids, Dana sent us an InReach message telling us there was some very big water with steep river banks and no opportunity to pull off. We portaged through the rain on river left and got all our gear to the end of the rapids that night. There was no trail at all, just a long section of jack pine burn followed by a swampy forest. We made a crappy camp in the bog at the end of the rapids, and left the canoe at the beginning to portage the next night. Good thing there were no more point counts to do, since we got to bed at 10 PM.

Day 10 – We finished off carrying the canoe over in the morning, then ran the last little section of Big Baby. A very long 19 km to the highway, where Atlas Coordinator LeeAnn gave us a warm welcome and a ride down to Missinippe. We met up with the rest of the Bird Studies Canada crew that night, before headed our separate ways. Dana back to Saskatoon, Alan back to Vancouver, and me to Buffalo Narrows to prepare for my next river trip!