Table of Contents:

Previous Post – Paddling From Auger Lake To The Mouth of the Witchwood 

• Wabakimi Country’s  Witchwood River System
• How We Got To the Witchwood River
• Our GPX track – Auger Lake To Pikitigushi Lake
• Day One Up The Witchwood – maps, portage & campsite details
• Day Two Up The Witchwood and Into Whitelay Lake – maps, etc.

Map Sources and Other Useful Links:

• Natural Resources Canada – Fed. Govt 1:50000 Topos
• David Crawshay’s Topo Canada iOS App
• ATLOGIS Canada Topo Maps for Android OS
• NRC’s Toporama Canada Online Map
• Our GPX file of the route
• Friends of Wabakimi
• Paddle Planner’s Wabakimi Map
• Little North Canoe Trip Report

Next Post – Up Wabakimi’s Raymond River To Cliff Lake

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Wabakimi Country’s  Witchwood River System 

Northwest Ontario’s Wabakimi area is a paddler’s dream, with countless lake and river tripping combinations limited only by time and ambition.  This post looks at the forty-five-kilometer Witchwood River system, which is one of a number of north/south routes that paddlers can use to get from the Ogoki River to the Attwood or Albany River systems. It is located to the northeast of the actual boundaries of Wabakimi Provincial Park, and its entire length is included in the Attwood River Conservation Reserve.

From just north of the NE arm of the Ogoki’s Whiteclay Lake, it flows down to Hurst Lake and the Attwood River system.  The two-or-three day paddle could easily be included in a memorable Wabakimi canoe trip, especially when combined with a bush plane entry or exit.

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How We Got To the Witchwood River

The first half of our August 2013  canoe trip around the top of NW Ontario’s Wabakimi Provincial Park had the benefit of going with the flow of the current. We looked forward to swifts – and rapids often meant a three-minute adrenaline-pumping ride instead of the grunt work of carrying canoe and gear across yet another derelict portage.  Given that we started off with eighty pounds of food in our two Hooligan canoe packs this was a real plus.

All images enlarge with a click; all blue text leads to a related page with a click.

By the time we got to the bottom of Petawa Creek on Petawanga Lake on Day 9, half of the food had been turned into paddle strokes, and we reorganized the packs to take the shrinking food supply into account.  Then we set out on a series of up-the-creek and up-the-river adventures that provided quite the contrast to coming down the Misehkow and Albany Rivers.

First, we spent a difficult day dealing with the 10.5-kilometer stretch of Petawa Creek; then, after sitting tight on Auger Lake for a day while some bad weather passed through, we moved on to the next challenge – paddling up the Witchwood River system. It took us a day to get from Auger Lake to Felsia Lake and the mouth of the Witchwood River. This post picks up the trip at Felsia Lake and takes us into the Ogoki River system on Whiteclay Lake.

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Our GPS Track – Auger Lake To Pikitigushi Lake

Access my Caltopo page here.

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Day One Up The Witchwood (Felsia To Grinch)

• distance: 20 kilometers from Felsia Lake almost to Grinch Lake
• weather: sunny morning/surprise wind/rain storm mid-afternoon/ heavy rain after 8 p.m.
• portages: 6 and a few sets of swifts and minor rapids walked up  (see maps below)

Unlike the overcast sky that greeted us on Auger Lake the morning before, our Felsia Lake campsite was bathed in early morning golden light; by 8:30 a.m., clouds and blue sky had changed the scene to the one you see above.

We would spend about seven hours this day paddling twenty kilometres up the Witchwood River system to just before Grinch Lake.  The weather would be a mixed bag with a sunny morning, a turbulent mid-afternoon wind and rain storm that seemed to come from nowhere, a couple of no-rain hours where we put up our tent and did our cooking and then – starting at 8 – rain that would pour down for most of the night.

We were expecting some swifts as we left the lake and paddled up the narrower stretch of the river – but all was calm.  Our first portage was a 290-meter carry on river right (our left as we were ascending the river). The take-out point is clear enough and is right at the bottom of the last bit of ripples from the rapids. The trail was in pretty good shape, with just a bit of deadfall requiring our attention.  Just above the put-in point, we came upon a set of swifts; the bowman did have to get out of the canoe just before the top and pull the canoe for a short distance. Around a couple of corners, another set of swifts required a bit of tracking to get back into calmer water.

A wider stretch of the river led to our second portage of the day – this time on river left (our right as we were going up the river).  The 200-meter trail begins in the little bay away from the main channel and was in good shape.

The third portage – illustrated on the map above – was a 365-meter cross-peninsula trail that we started at 11:15. A blaze marks the take-out point with other blazes along the trail, which goes up a steep incline before levelling out for a bit.

After the 365-meter portage, we got to paddle a wider stretch of the river for a couple of kilometers before we came to a set of swifts/Class 0 rapids. We did see a portage trail on river right (our left), but we ended walking the canoe up the river for about 80 meters. This led us to the big bend a kilometer upriver.  There are a couple of things to deal with here – the first is a  set of swifts that we mostly walked up. This leads you to a set of rapids with a portage takeout on river left and a 125-meter messy trail to the end.

After a classic Wabakimi out-of-nowhere mid-afternoon wind/rainstorm, we were pretty much soaked and keen on finding a camp spot.  The plan had been to get to Grinch Lake but we would call it a day a few kilometers before and quickly got the tent up and then into our dry set of clothes. Expecting more rain, we rigged the 10′ x 14′ tarp over the tent for that added protection.  Around 8, it started to pour heavily and continued for a good part of the night, only stopping around 6 a.m.  The tent was mostly dry when we packed it away a couple of hours later.

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Day Two Up The Witchwood and Into Whitelay Lake

• distance: 30 km over 9 hours ( from just below Grinch Lake to NE arm of Whiteclay Lake)
• weather: wet and overcast in the morning/ sunny and dry in the aft
• portages: 1300 m River Right  + 750 m into Whiteclay L. (see maps below)

This day was one of our bigger days in terms of distance covered, and portages made.  It included a couple of our longer portages since we had started on Rockcliffe L. two weeks before. But it all felt great – with some fantastic stretches of narrow winding river to paddle in what turned out to be a pretty nice day. By five, we had paddled some eight kilometres south on the NE arm of Whiteclay Lake and found a decent campsite.  We were now on the Ogoki River system!

As you can see on the map above, there is nothing to deal with in the seven kilometers from where we camped (top right) all the way through the reedy Grinch Lake section to the start of a 1300 meter portage which crosses a logging road just before the carry ends.  As much as I like the clean look of Garmin’s Topo Canada map set, I am left wondering where the logging road is!  This satellite image makes clear the logging activity that has gone on in the area:

This Google Earth view of the portage area provides a close-up view of the situation –

The Grave Site We Didn’t See!

With all our gear at the logging road just to the east of the bridge, we noticed that the trail continued about 30 meters down the road from the river. Within a few minutes, we were back down on the river and ready to keep on heading south.  What we cannot really recall seeing is what these images show –

Thanks to John Holmes for the pix. He was up there in May of 2012 as a part of a Wabakimi Project team with John Sinclair, Bill Pyle, and Phil Cotton.  As for the story behind the memorial, here is how Ed MacPherson tells it – 

We (Ed and his wife) travelled Witchwood Lake and River downstream and arrived at the Ogoki Road crossing on the Witchwood River. Only the beaver dam to portage over or around, near the south end of Witchwood Lake. We subsequently camped on the road and spent 2 days clearing the long 1200m portage. 

Several meters from our tent, at the side of the road, was a tripod with some eagle feathers attached to the top. We did not know at the time that it marked a grave. In the fall of 2009, MNR and the Fort Hope community, (Ebamatoong First Nation) erected a bronze plaque, marking the grave area. I recall seeing the orange snow fencing on the road while flying over it in July 2010 on my way to Guerin Lake on the Attwood River.

The story I have heard, and I do not know if it is true or accurate, is that a group of Fort Hope Anishnabi people were travelling the road by snowmobile one winter. They had their spiritual leader and healer, an elderly person, with them. He passed away during the night. They could not bring him back to Fort Hope, so they built their campfire on the road, which thawed the ground underneath and then buried him there, marking the approximate location with the tripod and feathers. (See here for the source of the quote.)

There you have it.  Definitely a gravesite marker there in 2012!  Not wanting to create a memory of one, I’ll just say that neither my brother nor I took notice of it as we finished off our portage by going down the bank of the road, not that far from where the marker is in the pic! If you go past this spot in the next while and don’t mind sharing the pic you take, send it to me, and I will insert it here as an update.

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For some reason, we had expected the portage to be longer and more painful than it was, and an hour later, as we stood on the logging road with the canoe and gear, we realized that the put-in was about 100 meters away.

(The above quote and photos make clear why the portage had gone so smoothly.  It had recently been groomed by Ed and his wife and the Wabakimi Project crew. Thanks to both of you! )

As a bonus, shortly after we pushed off from the put-in spot, we saw the biggest bull moose we have ever paddled by – a 1000-pound-plus giant crowned with a beautiful set of antlers.  Cameras, of course, were nicely tucked away and safe from harm!

As we moved up Witchwood Lake, we got to watch the canoe’s reflection in the water as the shoreline slipped by.  The vegetation along the ten-kilometer lake had us thinking, “This has got to be the ultimate moose country,” so we dug out one of our cameras to be ready.   Needless to say, the moose didn’t play along!

Near the top of the lake is a beaver dam, creating a two-foot difference in water level from lower to upper.  We hauled the canoe over the unexpected blockage and paddled the final 1.5 km to the portage, which would take us into the Ogoki River system.  The trail is very well used; it begins with a very steep section and then levels out before coming down to the shore of Whiteclay Lake. The end of the portage trail has definitely seen some campers over the years; there is room for at least two or three tents, and the site is nicely sheltered.

Here is a close-up map of the actual portage.

We had lunch there, and then, at about 3:30, we decided to knock off a few more kilometers. We would find a nice campsite about seven km later and, by 5:30, had the tent and tarp up and the stove boiling some water. While the day had involved a bit of work, we had expected much worse, so we were feeling pretty good about how things unfolded.

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Map Sources and Other Useful Links:

Natural Resources Canada/Fed. Govt Topos

The Federal Government’s Natural Resources Canada 1:50000 topos are available for free download here and make a useful addition to the planning phase or to include in your map case.  You would need the following maps for the Witchwood River section:

from Whiteclay Lake to the north end of Witchwood Lake    052 P 02 (Kilbarry Lake)

from just north of  Witchwood Lake down to Felsia Lake      052 P 01 (Sim Lake)

from Felsia Lake to Hurst Lake and down to the Albany R.   052 P 08 (Kawitos Lake)

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David Crawshay’s Topo Canada iOS App

David Crawshay’s free Topo Canada iOS App for iPhone enables you to download all of the above to your iPhone.  While leaving the iPhone on all day to use as your primary GPS device would eat up battery power like crazy, it is very useful to make a quick confirmation that you are indeed where you think you are! Download Crawshay’s app here.

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ATLOGIS Canada Topo Maps for Android OS

There is an Android OS app from a German app developer similar to Crawshay’s Topo Canada iOS app. However, it costs $14. U.S.  Given its usefulness, the one-time cost is a worthwhile investment that will save you time and aggravation. Click here to access the Google App Store page –

Note: The free version of the app may be enough for your purpose.

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Toporama Canada Online Map:

Toporama is NRC’s modern version of the archived topo sheets.  It is essentially a seamless map of the entire country and allows you to extract from and apply all sorts of additional information and features to the map.

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Friends of Wabakimi

We have to thank Phil Cotton and the  Friends of Wabakimi/Wabakimi Project crews for the work they did on the Witchwood portages and campsites in the year or two before we did this trip.  They also have a recently published map set, Volume 4 of the ultimate Wabakimi canoe tripping maps collection. Maps 17 and 18 of this volume cover the route from Whiteclay Lake to Hurst Lake. Map 19 takes you through Auger Lake to the Albany River via Petawa Creek.  What the Wabakimi Project maps provide that the ones above do not is detailed info on rapids, portages, and campsites.

[See here for an overview map that shows the coverage area of the entire map set.]

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Paddle Planner’s Wabakimi Map

You can find all the Wabakimi Project information – campsites, portage locations and length) at the Paddle Planner website.  See here.  In Map Options, go to Background and choose Canada Topo.

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Little North Canoe Trip Report

Chuck Ryan (aka CIIcanoe) has a series of posts on the canoe trip route which we ended up copying.  The three entries which deal with their up-the-Witchwood experience begin here. He has included lots of pix of the river and portages to give you an idea of what to expect.  It seems that we did a bit more tracking, and they did more portaging thanks to the different water levels we were dealt.

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The Canadian Canoe Routes website is always a great place to go for information and advice.  A thread on the Witchwood River can be found here and makes for interesting reading.

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