Last revision: July 29, 2022

Table of Contents

• What Hooked Us On A Wabakimi Canoe Trip Down The Allanwater
• Where Is Wabakimi Provincial Park? 
• The Route In Brief
• Armstrong Station – The Access Point
• Getting To Armstrong Station
• Backcountry Permits
• From Armstrong Station to Allanwater Bridge:
• A Bush Plane Insertion
• The Train Option – 
• What’s At The Allenwater Bridge Stop 

Maps And Route Info:

• Federal Gov’t. 1:50000 Topos (archived)
• The Atlas of Canada – Toporama
• Ken Kokanie’s Annotated Map Set
• Friends of Wabakimi Maps
• Wabakimi Maps by Laurence Mills
• Paddle Planner
• Google Earth View

Day-By-Day Trip Report: Allanwater to Caribou

• Day  1 – From Allanwater Bridge To Termite Lake
• Day  2 – Across Brennan Lake To Brennan Falls
• Day  3 – Down The Allanwater To Wabakimi Lake
• Day  4 – Down The Ogoki To Oliver Lake
• Day  5 – To Whitewater Lake (west end)
• Day  6 – To Beaver island on Whitewater Lake
• Day  7 – Wind and Rain – no go!
• Day  8 – Via McKinley Bay To Lonebreast Bay 
• Day  9 – Up The Caribou River To the NW corner of Caribou Lake
• Day 10 – To S end of Little Caribou Lake

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What Hooked Us On A Wabakimi Canoe Trip

One thousand miles of road faced our canoe-topped car as we set off to visit Wabakimi Provincial Park in northwestern Ontario. This is where we would find the island paradise of an eccentric American inventor who had acted as the island’s custodian until he died in 1980.

The island itself is called Best and was, according to the personal mythology of its custodian Wendell Beckwith, the veritable “center of the universe.” A chapter in Kevin Callan’s book Quetico and Beyond first pointed us toward the wilderness of Wabakimi Provincial Park in northwestern Ontario. In the book, Callan spends a chapter recounting his visit to Beckwith’s retreat on Whitewater Lake and describing the region in terms of canoeing possibilities.

We had never even considered paddling there – distance may have had something to do with it –  but Callan’s narrative hooked us. We had two weeks for our adventure –  ten of actual paddling and four to get there and back.

In the end, “the center of the universe” proved to be an elusive point, and here we are, back on the circumference, a little like Jason without the Golden Fleece but still richer for the journey. Read on to find out what happened!

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Where Is Wabakimi Provincial Park? 

Created in 1983 and enlarged in 1997, Wabakimi P. P. is larger in area than several U.S. states and the Canadian province of P.E.I. In Ontario, only Polar Bear Provincial Park is larger. It sees a small fraction of the canoe tripper traffic found in easier-to-access and tamer parks like Quetico, Killarney, or Algonquin. 

This Google map puts Wabakimi Provincial Park into perspective.

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The Route:

Allanwater Bridge is 90 kilometers from Armstrong Station. We chose it as the start of our first Wabakimi canoe trip because it seemed that the river, which flows from the bridge down to Lake Wabakimi, was the most popular route to the heart of Wabakimi Provincial Park. We figured the portage trails would be in better shape because of more frequent use, and the occasional sets of Class 1/class 2 rapids would mean the chance of doing some whitewater.

• train from Armstrong Station to Allanwater Bridge
• From Allanwater Bridge down the Allanwater River to Wabakimi Lake
• down the Ogoki River through Outlet Bay and Kenoji Lake to Whitewater Lake
• south to McKinley Bay and Lonebreast Bay
• up the Caribou River to Caribou Lake
• over to Little Caribou Lake all the way to its south end by the road
• our vehicle was waiting for us there, thanks to Clem Quenville’s shuttle service

Before we left Armstrong Station, we had arranged with a local – Clement Quenville – to leave our vehicle at his place and then for him to leave our car at the take-out point on the morning of Day 10. Our car was waiting for us when we got there. Clem does shuttles and rents out canoes and related gear. [wabakimiclemq@outlook.com] 

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Armstrong Station – The Access Point

Armstrong Station is at the north end of Highway 521 from Hwy. 17 near Thunder Bay and serves as the main gateway to Wabakimi Provincial Park. It gets the name “Station” from the Cold War era Pinetree Line radar station once located there and run by NORAD in the late 1940s and into the 50s. It was shut down permanently in 1974. See here for a brief historical account.

These days it is a passenger stop on VIA’s The Canadian train service from Toronto to Vancouver on tracks belonging to Canadian National Railway. Armstrong also services nearby First nation communities, especially the Whitesand First Nation located just north of the settlement.

Check out A Day in Armstrong Station,  the result of spending a day in the settlement after a canoe trip down the Kopka from Allanwater Bridge two summers later!

Armstrong Station has a grocery store, a couple of restaurants, a hotel, and a gas station. Just south of Armstrong Station are three outfitters ready to supply you with what you need- maps, canoes, park permits, gear, fly-ins, etc. See here for a satellite view.

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Getting To Armstrong Station:

No matter where you’re starting from, to access Wabakimi, your road will first take you to the outskirts of Thunder Bay. In our case, the total road distance from southern Ontario (London and Toronto) via Highways 69 and 17 was about 1850 kilometers. We left Toronto at 7 a.m. and were at Marathon on top of Lake Superior twelve hours later. The Airport Motel right off Hwy 17 is a decent place to stop for the night.

When it comes to Wabakimi, you are not reserving a campsite; instead, you are registering for a specific number of days you will be overnighting in the park. It took a phone call to the Park Super for me to figure out how to make an online booking for Wabakimi since it does not appear in the list of parks under Backcountry.

To register online, go to the Ontario Parks website here. On the top of the page, clicking on Reservations will open the window to various options.

• Choose Reserve Online; the Ontario Parks Reservations page will open with some options.
• Choose the one at the far right of the page – Backcountry Registration – clicking on it will open a list of parks, including Wabakimi. Enter the required info, and you are done!

We have usually stopped at Mattice Lake Outfitters and purchased our permits there. On one occasion, I spoke directly with the Park Superintendent, and we did the transaction over the phone. He emailed me the receipt a few minutes later.

The current Park super is: Shannon Lawr – Phone (807)475-1634

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From Armstrong Station to Allanwater Bridge:

To get from Armstrong Station to the put-in at Allanwater Bridge, there are a couple of options:

• fly in from the Mattice Lake bush plane base south of Armstrong Station or
• take the train from Armstrong Station.

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The De Havilland Beaver/Otter Option:

Mattice Lake Outfitters and Wabakimi Outfitters have air bases on Mattice Lake, a few kilometers south of Armstrong Station. Also nearby on Mackenzie Lake is Wilderness North.

While the first two have smaller (and cheaper to hire) Beavers for fly-ins, WN has an Otter for larger groups. Expect to pay about $800 for a Beaver insertion at Allanwater Bridge. It is the no-fuss, most efficient way to get to the start of your Wabakimi adventure. It would also give you an excellent bird’s eye view of your home for the next two weeks! 

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The Train Option:

We went with the train ride, a cheaper option than the $800  plane ride. It was $21 a person in 2010, with an extra charge for the canoe. (The 2021 price for 1 adult is $23. with $50. for the canoe.)

The VIA train is called The Canadian and runs through Armstrong Station from Toronto to Vancouver three times a week. Tickets must be purchased 48 hours in advance since Allanwater is not a scheduled VIA stop. You can buy the tickets online at the VIA website; local outfitters will probably arrange them too.

Click here to look at the VIA Canadian timetable from Toronto to various Wabakimi insertion or exit points (Armstrong Station, Collins, Allanwater, Flindt Landing).

 

Note: As of 2020, canoe trippers will leave Armstrong Stn at 9:17 a.m. (ET) and arrive at Allanwater Bridge about an hour and ten minutes later – i.e. at 9:26 a.m. CT. When we made the canoe trip in 2010, the VIA schedule had the train arrive at Armstrong Stn. at 8:30 p.m. There we stand in the dark, waiting for a train almost three hours late!

With the new schedule, you can set off down the Allanwater on arrival instead of wondering where to camp until daylight!

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Maps And Route Info:

This was the last canoe trip where we brought along the paper 1:50000 topo maps issued by the Government of Canada’s Natural Resources Department. Since then, we learned that the maps are available for free download, and we just print off the material we need.

Federal Gov’t. 1:50000 Topos (archived)

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See the day-by-day trip reports with maps, portage, campsite information, and more detail.

Day-By-Day Allanwater to Whitewater Trip Report

• Day  1 – From Allanwater Bridge To Termite Lake
• Day  2 – Across Brennan Lake To Brennan Falls
• Day  3 – Down The Allanwater To Wabakimi Lake
• Day  4 – Down The Ogoki To Oliver Lake
• Day  5 – To Whitewater Lake (west end)
• Day  6 – To Beaver island on Whitewater Lake
• Day  7 – Wind and Rain – no go!
• Day  8 – Via McKinley Bay To Lonebreast Bay 
• Day  9 – Up The Caribou River To the NW corner of Caribou Lake
• Day 10 – To S end of Little Caribou Lake

For yet more Wabakimi, see our admittedly subjective.

A Paddler’s List Of Wabakimi’s Top Six