Last revised on June 24, 2024.

Table of Contents:

• Mention of a German POW Camp Piques Our Curiosity
• Some Background Info on WWII POW Camps in Canada
• Where were the Canadian POW Camps?
• NFB Documentary.The Enemy Within. 2003
• Ontario POW Camp Locations
• POW Camps In Northwestern Ontario
• Looking For A POW Camp on Wabinosh Lake
• Kevin Callan’s Confusing Account of a POW Camp
• An Ontario Parks Document Provides A Location
• The Reality of  Most POW Camps In N Ontario

Additional Information:

• Michael O’Hagan’s POWs in Canada Blog
• TV Ontario Article
• Pinetree Line Reminiscences
• Wartime Memories Project
• Outdoor Rob Visits Pishidgi and Wabinosh Lakes

Related Posts On Cliff Lake and Lake Nipigon’s NW Corner

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Mention of a German POW Camp Piques Our Curiosity

At the start of this year’s only canoe trip, before going to the Mattice Lake Outfitters Lodge off Highway 527,  we drove to Armstrong Station to gas up so we’d have a full tank waiting for us at the end of our trip. [See the highlighted post below for a summary of the trip, a map and some pix.]

Canoeing From The Pikitigushi’s Cliff Lake to Echo Rock on Lake Nipigon

Wabinosh Lake on Lape Nipigon’s NW side

While at the gas station, we chatted with a local about our route.  When he heard that we’d be passing through Wabinosh Lake, he mentioned that there was a POW (prisoner of war) camp from WWII we should check out. He said it was on one of the small islands on the lake – “not the big one,” he clarified.   I had visions of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay!  Since I had never heard mention of any POW camps for German soldiers in the Armstrong area, I knew we would have to check it out when we got to Wabinosh Lake.

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Some Background Info on WW2 POW Camps in Canada:

During WWII (1939-1945) an estimated 35,000 German soldiers were kept at various Prisoner of War camps scattered across Canada.  Since the Allies never did establish a foothold in western Europe until June 1944, the majority – 25,000 or so – of those POWs sent to Canada had been captured in North Africa at battles like those at El Alamein.

With Montgomery’s final victory over Rommel’s Afrika Korps in 1943, the Allies had close to a million German and Italian prisoners on their hands.  Some 400,000 were shipped to the U.S.A.; Canada’s share of the POWs was in keeping with the relative size of our population compared to the U.S. at that time.  [There were about twelve million Canadians in 1945; we had about 250,000 soldiers in the field, mostly on the Western Front and in Italy during the last two years of the war.]

Some of the 97 German prisoners captured by the British forces in Egypt in a raid on Tel El Eisa, Egypt, on September 1, 1942.

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Where were the Canadian POW Camps?

There were twenty-five POW camps in Canada during WWII. [An additional fifteen camps held Japanese Canadians and others whose loyalty was considered suspect – those of German, Italian,  or Jewish background, as well as conscientious objectors.]  Of the camps holding actual prisoners of war,  the two largest in North America were in Alberta –  in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat – and housed a total of 25,000 over the few years they were operational.

A list of those Canadian WWII POW camps can be accessed here.

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NFB Documentary.The Enemy Within. 2003

The National Fim Board of Canada documentary The Enemy Within (2003) gives an excellent introduction to an aspect of Canada’s history that most know little about. Here is the NFB website intro to the film –

This feature-length documentary looks at German POWs from the WWII who were housed in 25 camps across Canada. Filmmaker Eva Colmers follows her father’s story – Theo Melzer – who spent three and a half years in a POW camp in Lethbridge, Alberta. Growing up in Germany, she had always been puzzled by her father’s fond memories of his POW life, so when she moved to Canada, she set out to rediscover this story. What she found surprised her. Watch as Theo Melzer, along with other POWs, recount how their lives were changed by the unexpected respect and dignity they received at the hands of their Canadian captors

Click on the image to access the 52-minute documentary.

As I watched the documentary, I wondered about my father Stanislaw and his experience in German POW camps from 1939 to 1945. He was in what was left of the Polish Army in late September of 1939 when he was captured in the streets of Warsaw and hauled back to a camp in northwestern Germany.  Only once did he open up and speak about those years.

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Ontario POW Camp Locations: 

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POW Camps In Northwestern Ontario:

POW camps in northwest Ontario – along with their years of operation – were the following:

Camp R – Red Rock, Ontario

1. Red Rock  (1940-1941)
2. Angler  (1941-1946)
3. Neys (1943-1946)

Nothing in the Armstrong area on the list!  More research would reveal the reason why!

Red Rock POW Camp WWII

Michael O’Hagan has an excellent summary of the history of the Red Rock POW camp – Camp R – on his POWs In Canada website. Definitely worth checking it out, as well as all his other material.

When I heard that there was a POW camp on Wabinosh Lake, I’ll admit that I pictured something like the one at Red Rock in the image above. Of Camp R, a page in the “Community History” section of the Red Rock Township website states this –

In 1940, the campsite abandoned by Lake Sulphite, was bought by the Canadian government and turned into a prisoner of war (POW) camp.  The camp, which encompassed area from Trout Creek in the north, to the railway tracks in the west and the Lake to the east, was surrounded by barbed wire fencing.  The 48 abandoned bunkhouses that had previously housed construction workers at Lake Sulphite Pulp and Paper Company became home to 1145 German prisoners for eighteen months.  Camp “R”, as it was called, came into being in July 1940 when prisoners were escorted from Quebec by the soldiers of the Fort Garry Horse Regiment.  [See here for source of quote]

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Looking For A POW Camp on Wabinosh Lake

Ten days after our fill-up in Armstrong, as we paddled into Wabinsoh Bay, I sent Don Elliot of Mattice Lake Outfitters an email asking where the German POW camp was located.  He replied that it was on the west shore of Wabinosh Lake by the Wabinosh River flowing in from Waweig Lake.  The west shore is where that small island is.  We had some confirmation of the camp’s location! We weren’t sure if he meant to the right or left of the river outlet.

Wabinosh Lake map with POW camp locations

Once we were in Wabinosh Lake, we headed for the west shore and set up camp on the point shown on the map above. Then we looked for evidence of human presence along the shoreline and in the bush behind it.  While the area looked like it could accommodate a few buildings, we only found a 4-meter length of steel cable running down towards the shore.  We figured it may have been left behind from some logging operation.

the Wabinosh shoreline in front of our tent spot

The next morning as we headed for the Wabinosh River and the five-portage ascent up into Waweig Lake, we headed to the shore on the north side of the river outlet.   At the north end of a long beach area where we landed is an area that could easily have been the site of a camp of some sort – but we did not find any evidence.

the Wabinosh Lake beach to the left of the river outlet

possible site of the Wabinosh Lake POW  camp

As we looked north to the top of Wabinosh Lake, we could see the small – very small! – island.  We considered the possibility of it hosting a POW camp and thought it was totally pointless, given the size of the island and the fact that you could walk from the island to the shore without getting your navel wet.  So much for the Alcatraz of the North!

We would later find out that it was also based on a mistaken idea of how those German POWs were housed.

the small island at the north end of Wabinosh Lake

We left Wabinosh Lake without finding anything except that length of steel cable at our campsite on the westside point.

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Kevin Callan’s Confused Account of a POW Camp

A couple of weeks after our canoe trip,  I reread a bit of Kevin Callan’s Dazed But Not Confused: Tales of A Wilderness Wanderer when this brief passage jumped out at me!

Looking at the map (see below), I could see a creek that somewhat fit with Callan’s description.  I thought that maybe we hadn’t found anything because we had been looking in the wrong place!  However,  given how remote any place on the west shore of Lake Nipigon was between 1939 and 1945, I did wonder why a location two kilometers up this particular creek was felt to be necessary for a POW camp! The term meandering also did not fit the course of the actual creek, which can hardly be said to “flush into the northeast corner of Wabinosh Bay”.

Since there was no Highway 527 (or its logging road original) until the 1950s, the only way to bring in the POWs to Wabinosh Bay or Wabinosh Lake would be from the CN tracks, which pass through Armstrong Station or by boat from the south end of Lake Nipigon.

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A 2001 Ontario Parks Document Provides A Location

This information from a 2001 Ontario Parks document helped make sense of Callan’s location.

Included in the 2001 MNR document (access here) was this map of the proposed addition to Kopka River Provincial Park –

• The “one known archeological site” mentioned in the above quote from the 2001 MNR document is probably the K.C.A. Dawson site (EaJf-l) near the mouth of the Wabinosh River.  See here for more info.
• The other sites “located just outside the border” are probably the Terminal Woodland sites in Wabinosh Bay where fur trading posts were later constructed. See here for more.
• The Pishidgi Lake site indicated on the MNR map is the one referred to by Brad Mathisen in the Comments section of this post. He wrote –

 I know of the remains of a camp with the fireplace still standing right off of Wabinosh. From Wabinosh, if you take the Kopka river on the SW side of Wabinosh up to where it meets Pishidgi there are the remains of a camp on the right just as you enter Pishidgi. The camp is located at 50.04002533244342, -89.06747517139529. There are also the remains of two old wooden boats with steel skins at this camp.

The “two wooden boats with steel skins” are the Alligator boats mentioned in the MNR document. Given Michael O’Hagan’s comment on 2019-02-06 at 10:34 am they would have belonged to the Nipigon Lake Timber Company back in the 1940s. After ice-out time the boats were used to move the cut lumber down Pishidgi Lake to float down the last section of the Kopka River to Wabinosh Lake. See the end of this post for an Outdoor Rob YouTube video where he and his partner pay the Pishidgi Lake site a visit.

In addition to the remains of the two boats, they come across what is left of the stone fireplace referred to in the comment above. It may be the fireplace that Vince Brown mentions in his 2019-07-04 at 10:29 am comment unless he is referring to a cabin/main lodge building on Wabinosh Lake or Castle Creek.

Tom Vine in his 2023-06-28 at 11:56 pm comment explains that Ontario’s Department of Lands and Forests (its name changed to Ministry of Natural Resources in 1972) burned down a cabin with a fireplace in the early 1970s because it was causing problems. It was perhaps the Pishidgi Lake cabin.

• The document also mentions two sites on Wabinosh Lake itself.  Given their map locations, it looks like we camped near one site and did not quite paddle far enough north to get to the second site (see the red circled area on the map) so we did not see the cabin foundations or the cribbing located underwater at this more northerly site.
• We did note the steel cable near our campsite on the west side of Wabinosh Lake below the inflow of the Wabinosh River.

• Callan’s location agrees with the Ministry document if you change his “northeast corner of Wabinosh Bay” to “northeast corner of Wabinosh Lake“.  It is more likely that Callan and his paddle partner went up Castle Creek to the site mentioned in the Ontario Government Ministry document.  Castle Creek certainly meanders in a way that the creek above Wabinosh Bay does not.

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The Reality of Most POW Camps In Northern Ontario

When you think of a POW camp, the image of a heavily guarded compound with elevated guard towers at each corner comes to mind.  The compound would sit in the middle of a cleared area, and there is barbed wire everywhere.

Callan’s POW camp description paints such a picture. We read –

The area once housed a small city of canvas and wood huts stacked tightly a few meters back from the creek and surrounded by triple-layered barbed wire.

A small city implies not twenty or thirty but hundreds of POWs.  Given that Callan only found bits of metal and the remains of three log cabins at the site,  his imagination has created something quite different than what was actually there.

A collection of reminiscences by American and Canadian servicemen stationed at Armstrong after WWII when it was a part of the Pinetree Line of defence helped answer the question of what was at the Wabinosh Lake location.  (See below for the link.)

German POWs at an NW Ontario lumber camp

So – the German prisoners of war sent to the Armstrong area were essentially used by the logging industry at a time when workers were scarce, thanks to Canada’s war effort. 

Canadian authorities separated their German prisoners into three different categories – black, grey, and white.  The blacks were the hardcore Nazis; the whites were non-Nazis who had joined the Wehrmacht (the German military) for other reasons; the greys were somewhere in between.  The POWs in the Armstrong area would likely not have been in the black category.  And Callan’s “small city of canvas and wood huts stacked tightly a few meters back from the creek and surrounded by triple-layered barbed wire” never existed in the Armstrong Station/Wabinosh area.

Instead, there would be lumber gangs of twenty or thirty German POWs putting in a day’s work in the bush and living a life their brothers in Russian POW camps could only dream about. [About 40% of the one million German POWs in Russia died in captivity. In Canada, it was 137 of almost 35,000, most of natural causes.] The image below captures the reality of the POW experience in the bush of NW Ontario.

German POWs at an NW Ontario lumber camp during World War Two – internet-sourced image

What Callan saw at the site – the remains of three cabins –   made up the lumber camp when supplemented by one or two of the buildings on skids hauled in place mentioned in the Pierre Parent comment above.   In the end, what was there was a temporary logging camp where the German POWs had relative freedom to move about.

In a sense, we spent our time looking for something that was never there!  It made for an interesting tangent to what was a multi-faceted canoe trip involving pictographs, logjams, and paddling the big water of Lake Nipigon.  We’ll be back for more!

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Additional Information:

Michael O’Hagan’s Blog

On reading my post, fellow WordPress blogger Michael O’Hagan provided concrete details to clarify matters. He wrote:

To add a bit of context, the POW bush camps you are referring to belonged to the Nipigon Lake Timber Co. Long story short, in May 1943, the Canadian government approved the employment of POWs by civilian employers in agriculture and bush work. By the end of the war, there were almost 300 labour projects, most of which were remote and lacked the traditional security measures of internment camps. Of these, over 100 were bush camps in Northern Ontario employing POWs.

According to my records, Nipigon Lake Timber Co. had three camps in the Wabinosh Lake/Armstrong area employing a total of 200 POWs from 1945 to 1946. The POWs worked 8-hour days, six days a week for $0.50 a day, doing the same work as civilian woodcutters. The camps would have be no different than those employing civilians and often included separate bunkhouses for POWs, guards, and civilian staff, an office/canteen, a kitchen and mess hall, barn, and blacksmith shop.

Click on the header above or the following link to see more of his research on POWs in Canada or get in touch with him.

Michael O’Hagan’s blog:  POWs In Canada

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TV Ontario Article

An article at the TV Ontario website – Daring escapes and Canadian hospitality: Inside Ontario’s WWII prisoner-of-war camps –  provides a readable introduction to the topic.  It is also where I found the map of the 10 Ontario POW camp locations and the photo of the Red Rock Camp.

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Pinetree Line Reminiscences

The reminiscences of those in the Canadian and U.S. militaries who served in Armstrong as a part of the Pinetree Line of defence against Russian bombers after WWII can be found here:

Click on the header to access the webpage.

There are references to a number of camps in the Armstrong area.  A careful reading of the material would probably turn up more leads to other site locations.  The first comment by Ren L’Ecuyer has a link to a write-up on a Sioux Narrows lumber camp. It provides excellent detail of what daily life would have been like for the German soldiers who spent time there.  Clcik here for a pdf file of that article or visit the Pinetree Line website to read L’Ecuyer’s entire comment.

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Wartime Memories Project

The Wartime Memories Project website (click on the header to access) lists Axis and Allied POW camps across the globe.

Included in the list is Armstrong POW Camp Ontario, Canada. Unfortunately, there is little there except for this summary –

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Any information or photos that would clarify or correct any points made in this post would certainly be appreciated. Just make use of the comment section below – or send an email to true_north@mac.com

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Outdoor Rob Visits Pishidgi and Wabinosh Lakes

The video begins with a mention of Gull Bay and an examination of a couple of boats. We then see a trailer campsite before they set off on what they say is a shallow lake – so they are not in Gull Bay.  The trailer site is probably at the end of the road into Pishidgi Lake.

parking area on the west side of Pishidgi Lake

They set off to check out the Pishidgi lumber camp site mentioned above.

Pishidgi Lake – access from Hwy 527

Along with the remains of two alligator boats, they find the foundation of a fireplace. Back in their motorboat, they then head to the outlet of Pishidgi Lake and down the Kopka River into Wabinosh Lake.  There they check out a site at the north end of the lake. We see the remains of what may have been a bridge or a dock and a fueling station.

Outdoor Rob shot of the remains of a dock on Wabinosh Lake

The Pinetree Line website includes this image taken in July 1956,  Is it of the same Wabinosh Lake dock?  The roofs of the buildings on the nearby hilltop would suggest that it is not. Then again, if the photo is 68 years old, the cabins may have been removed or burned down sometime between then and now.

remains of a bridge or dock at the north end of Wabinoh Lake?

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See the following posts for other bits of our canoe trip:

Canoeing FromThe Pikitigushi’s Cliff Lake to Echo Rock on Lake Nipigon

Canoeing From The Pikitigushi’s Cliff Lake to Echo Rock on Lake Nipigon

Down The Pikitigushi From Cliff Lake To Lake Nipigon:  Logistics. Maps, and Day 1 – Cliff Lake

Down The Pikitigushi From Cliff Lake To Lake Nipigon: Logistics. Maps and Day 1 – Cliff Lake

Down The Pikitigushi  From Cliff Lake To Lake Nipigon:  Days 2 & 3 – From Cliff Lake to The Bear Camp

Down The Pikitigushi River From Cliff Lake To Lake Nipigon – Days 2 & 3

Down The Pikitigushi  From  Cliff L  To Lake Nipigon:  Days 3, 4, &5 – From The Bear Camp To Windigo Bay

Down The Pikitigushi River From Cliff Lake To Lake Nipigon: From The Bear Camp To Windigo Bay

Island Hopping Lake Nipigon  By Canoe From Windigo Bay To Echo Rock

Canoeing Lake Nipigon From Windigo Bay To Echo Rock

Canoeing From Lake Nipigon’s Echo Rock To Waweig Lake

From Lake Nipigon’s Echo Rock To Waweig Lake

Last revised on October 19, 2021.

Day 4 – From The Bear Camp to Below Log Jam #3

• Essential Data and Map Info
• Historical References To the Lower Pikitigushi
• The Portage Around  the Bear Camp Falls
• How Time Has Changed Our Canoe Trip Routine
• Logjam #1
• Logjam #2
• Logjam #3
• The Riverbend Campsite

Day 5 – Below Log Jam 3 to Mud River VIA Stop

• Essential Data and Map Info
• “The Big Bend” On The Pikitigushi
• Logjam #4
• The Rapids Below Logjam #4
• Our Campsite By The Mud River VIA Rail Stop

Day 6 – Mud River to The Britannia Islands

• Essential Data and Map Info
• A Geological Profile of the Pikitigushi Area
• The Log Cabin On River Right Below The CN Tracks
• Windigo – A Being From Anishinaabe Myth
• Meeting Point
• The Britannia Islands

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Previous Post: Days 2 & 3 – From Cliff Lake To Ratte Lake To The Bear Camp

Down The Pikitigushi River From Cliff Lake To Lake Nipigon – Days 2 & 3

For an overview map and some pix that highlight the entire 150 km. route, check out  Canoeing From The Pikitigushi’s Cliff Lake to Echo Rock on Lake Nipigon  

Canoeing From The Pikitigushi’s Cliff Lake to Echo Rock on Lake Nipigon

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Day 4 – From The Bear Camp to Below Log Jam #3

Day 4 – the Pikitigushi River south of the road

N.B. images and maps enlarge with a click or two!

• distance: 14.4 km
• time: 9:40 a.m. to 5:05 p.m.
• portages/rapids/liftover-line: 3/0/1; P 280m – (Bear camp to river right); LO LJ1 – 20m (higher water may be navigable); P LJ2 – 70m (25 min); LJ3 – 70m ( +2 hours – cut portage along embankment)
• weather: sunny in the morning, then partly cloudy with sunny periods, warm
• campsite: grassy river embankment area (to avoid sand), 1 x 4 person (possibly more 2-person areas; plus more on sand)

• Federal Govt. Natural Resources Canada 1:50,000 topo map 052 I 07 Pikitigushi Lake
• GPS tracks –  2018 Pikitigushi/Nipigon/Wabinosh (3.2Mb Dropbox file)

We spent the first three days of this summer’s canoe trip revisiting Cliff Lake and redoing the stretch of the Pikitigushi from Cliff down to the Bear Camp, a few kilometres south of Pikitigushi Lake.  No surprises there!

location of the four logjams on the Pikitigushi, as well as the historical Big Bend portage. Also indicated is my brilliant idea to deal with three of the four logjams with a 5.2-km. portage. Max made clear we would be doing no such crazy thing. Of course, he was right!

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Historical References To the Lower Pikitigushi

Now we were heading down the last fifty kilometres of the river to its mouth on Windigo Bay on Lake Nipigon.  We had little information except for some satellite scans courtesy of Google Earth,  Bing, and the Ontario Government’s map site.

The earliest reference I found to the bottom stretch of the Pikitigushi was by Robert Bell of the Geological Survey of Canada. He had come up the west side of  Lake Nipigon in 1869 and written a report on his findings.  Now, in a report he contributed to the Geological Survey of Canada Report of Progress For 1871-1872,  he summarized the work of his colleague, Mr. Lount, who had gone up the river as far as Pikitigushi Lake (named Round Lake in the report):

We set off from the Bear Camp knowing this –

• It is 16 km, as the crow flies, from the Bear Camp to the mouth of the Pikitigushi on Windigo Bay.  The measured on-the-river distance was 50 km.  There was some meandering coming up!
• Once below the Bear Camp rapids, recent satellite images showed that there were four logjams and one more set of rapids to deal with.
• Topographical maps still show the portage to which Bell refers. Using it would eliminate fifteen kilometres of paddling around the Big Bend. We doubted that it still existed.
• From the Bear Camp guys, we learned that water levels were at an almost historic low.

The Pikitigushi Bear Camp – a view from the road

Barry’s Bear Camp dog Sophie

the Pikitigushi Bear Camp and the road over the  culvert

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The Portage Around  the Bear Camp Falls

Before we packed up our gear and did the 300-meter portage to the put-in below the rapids, we walked down to the culvert for another look. The first image is a view of the river above the culvert. As I snapped the shot,  I recalled a Canadian Canoe Routes forum trip report (“Wabakimi 2017- 7 sisters- to whitewater – to Pikitigushi“)  by paddle from 2017 in which he mentioned some confusion about exactly where the take-out was. (See the entry for July 19!) In short, if you can see the culvert, you have gone too far!

Looking north up the Pikitigushi from the logging road over the culvert

The early morning view downriver included a bit of mist rising off the water and the sun coming up on river left. The portage trail eliminates all the potential drama of bumping and grinding your way down. There is a 16′ (5 m) drop from above the bridge to the pool at the bottom.

Looking south down the Pikitigushi from the culvert crossing by the Bear Camp

We had spent a half-hour the evening before walking to the put-in and doing some trail work at the same time. It is a fairly well-used trail with Bear Camp guests walking it to access the fishing spots below the rapids.  We’d meet the couple from Texas staying at the camp a few minutes after we had loaded up the canoe and were ready to start.

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How Time Has Changed Our Canoe Trip Routine

Seeing the photo below of me staring at the iPhone in my hands is yet another reminder of how canoe tripping has changed since our first trips in the late 1970s!  Back then, it was a half-dozen paper topos at $2.50 a sheet and maybe a paperback for rainy days. Our manual-focus Nikon SLRs rarely came out during the day.  We’d bring five or six rolls of 36 100 ASA. slide film along.   Now we take cell phones, a Garmin GPS device or two, an inReach Explorer for off-the-grid emergency communication, and two or three digital cameras – point & shoots and DSLRs –  and jars of batteries and power packs.  Sometimes we get nostalgic for the good ol’ days!

But there are benefits too!   At the put-in, I fired up the iPhone and took another look at the saved image of the first of the four logjams we’d be facing. It comes up within the first half-hour.  See below for what I was staring at!

the put-in at the Pikitigushi logging road portage

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Logjam #1:

Logjam #1

And so we set off, hoping for the best. Given that the satellite images were not totally current, things might have moved or cleared, or become even more blocked up in the year or two since the images were taken.

The good news?  Logjam #1, as the GPS data above shows, took us about ten minutes to deal with, and we slipped into a bit of fast water afterwards. We paddled through on river right with things looking pretty much the way they do in the image above.

One down and three to go!

Below Logjam #1, looking  downriver

There is the occasional collection of deadwood, as in the image below, that we dealt with, but nothing more complicated than paddling around or hauling over.  We liked the feel of the river, its narrowness and the high sand banks that gave it a closed-in feeling. [And its English name Mud River, which is apparently a translation of the Ojibwe Pikitigushi.]  For the next two days, we would be reminded of the Steel River in its thirty kilometres of meandering in the section below Rainbow Falls.

a logjam in the making on the Pikitigushi –

high sand banks on the Pikitigushi

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Logjam #2.

This logjam would require a bit more work.  We spent a few minutes doing some cutting so we could move the gear and canoe through the thirty meters of bush on river right. Our GPS track indicates that we spent about 30 minutes on Logjam #2 before we were back to our 6 km/hr. cruising speed.  We did take out the prospectors’ tape and mark the trail – we are just not sure for whom!  So far, the water level had not been an issue, and the logjams were easy to deal with.

Pikitigushi – Logjam #2

We paddled around the collection of deadfall in the image below on the left – no big deal. Next up – Logjam #3.  We would finally be faced with some serious work!

some deadfall below logjam #2

lunch spot on the Pikitigushi before Logjam #3

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Logjam #3:

The mess of a logjam you see below is the one which took us the longest to deal with. We pulled up to it around 2:15 and only paddled away at about 4:30. The trail clearing at the top end gobbled up some time, as did the scampering over the logjam itself near the end.  Both Max and I took tumbles as we hopped from log to log. The light pack that he was carrying actually provided a bit of a cushion for his fall.

We were on our way back to do a two-person carry of the canoe over the logs when I slipped and fell awkwardly, landing on my upper right arm and shoulder. For the rest of the trip, my right arm was operating at 70% as I adjusted my stroke and canoe hoisting technique, and even the way I slept,  so as not to aggravate the shoulder.  Three extra-strength ibuprofen tablets daily were also a part of the answer.

As I write two months later,  the pain is still there.  I kept thinking – “Give it time! You’re not 25 anymore – it takes longer!” However, after a visit to the doctor and an ultrasound and x-ray later,  it looks like a partially torn tendon in my rotator cuff and a 5 mm bone fragment that may need something more than time.  I’ve got an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon in late November for an MRI that should give a clearer picture before we consider the next step.  And now I finally understand what the phrase “rotator cuff” means!

Pikitigushi Logjam #3 – click on the image to see the route we took

the top side of logjam #3

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The River Bend Campsite

Not long after leaving LJ#3, we started scanning the shoreline for a possible campsite. A spot on river left on one of the many bends of the river is what we settled on.  While we don’t like tenting on sand because of the mess involved, we found a grassy and fairly flat spot just above the beach.

We had only covered 14 kilometres of the river, but it felt good to know that we only had to deal with one logjam and a set of rapids the next day.  We also had to decide whether to make use of the Big Bend portage indicated on all the topographic maps.

Our MEC Wanderer 4 on a bed of grass above the sandbanks of the Pikitigushi

our tent site on the lower Pikitigushi below logjam #3

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Day 5 – Below Log Jam 3 to Mud River VIA Stop

• distance: 27.7 km
• time: 9:15 a.m. to 6:15 p.m.
• portages/rapids/lift-over/line: 1/0/0; P 210m; including portage cutting and log dance (1h 45min)
• weather: partly cloudy, sunny periods, warm
• campsite: Mud River outfitter camp ‘lawn’, river left,  north of tracks – uphill ~40m portage!!), multiple 1 x 4 person (with permission?)
• 1:50,000 Natural Resources Canada Maps: 052 I 07_Pikitigushi Lake

Pikitigushi River above Mud River VIA Rail Stop

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“The Big Bend” On The Pikitigushi:

Not far from our campsite was the top end of the historical shortcut portage, which had been used 100 years ago to eliminate the paddle around the Big Bend.  I had found reports from 1909 and 1939 which mentioned this portage, and the more recent NRC topos still drew it as if it still existed.

An Ontario Department of Mines report from 1909 makes these observations about the Big Bend Portage –

The object of this long portage seems to be the escaping of a trip of ten miles, around a great bend in the river. Careful estimation showed a change of only 15 feet in the level of the river, between the upper and lower ends of the portage.

Around 9:30, we slowly paddled by the shoreline where a creek supposedly comes in from the little pond indicated on the map. We did not see the creek.  We also did not notice anything along the shore that would indicate a boat landing or human traffic. We were not surprised since we had seen no signs of anyone having been on the river  – no campsites, no fire pits, no abandoned fishing boats, no marking tape for portages around the logjams … nothing!

We decided to stick with the river and paddle around the Big Bend instead of taking on a 1.5-kilometre portage across the Big Bend through an area ripped apart by clear-cutting. It was the right choice!

We were at the other end of the once-portage trail just before noon – it had taken us about two and a half hours to travel the thirteen kilometres around the Big Bend.  There were no noteworthy obstructions, and occasionally, some fast water sped up the proceedings for a minute or two.  The satellite image above had us wondering why a section of the river has a sandy white colour you associate with a dry river bed. [See here for the Google Earth view of the “Big Bend”.  It does not have that sand-coloured stretch!]

We didn’t know it at the time, but at the easternmost point of the Big Bend, we were no more than 2.5 km from the gravel road that connects Armstrong and the Bear Camp to Ferland, which is one VIA rail stop east of Mud River on the CN rail line.

logging roads in the lower Pikitigushi area

All in all, there are far worse ways to spend a morning than to paddle down a river with both banks a few meters away. However, coming up was the last of the logjams.  Less than 2 km below the bottom end of the used-to-be Big Bend Portage, we came to Logjam #4.

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Logjam #4:

Click on the image to see our easy way around the logjam! The bottom was clear, and we paddled out with no problem.

We had lunch at the top of the logjam. I opened my iPhone and pulled up the satellite images I had of the various logjams. Looking at the image above, we saw that once we got around the initial blockage at the top, we might be able to paddle out without any further fuss. Lunch finished, we spent half an hour clearing a path, making use of the collapsed edge of the riverbank on river right.

the view from the canoe to the deadfall I just passed under  – looking pretty bad!

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The Rapids Below Logjam #4

And then it was on to a set of rapids/falls about 6 kilometres downriver.  The 1909 Department of Mines Report I referred to above made no mention of any of the four logjams we had dealt with.  If they existed back then, someone coming upriver from the railway stop at Mud River would have to deal with three of them.

The Report does mention a log jam just above the set of rapids/falls that we were approaching. Since it was written from the perspective of someone going upriver from the rail tracks at Mud River, it refers to the way around the rapids as “the first portage”.

At the first portage, there is a combined fall and rapid, making a total change of elevation in the river of nearly 18 feet….The portage is well beaten and only 215 yards long.  At 300 yards above this portage, there is a second one only 75 feet in length. This portage is necessary to pass an old log jam, which has blocked the channel.

When we got closer,  the first thing we noted was that the logjam the report mentions is no longer there.  It was all clear right to the takeout spot for the 210-meter carry around the rapids/falls.

That “well-beaten”  trail was still faintly there but overgrown and had not been used for a long time.  It may be that guests in the fishing lodges at Mud River come up to the rapids to do some fishing, but they were not hauling boats from bottom to top.  We would spend a couple of hours carving out and marking the trail to get around this last Pikitigushi obstacle.

Pikitigushi rapids above Mud River VIA train stop

our put-in spot below the last of the Pikitigushi rapids

Pikitigushi rapids panorama

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Our Campsite By The Mud River VIA Rail Stop

From the bottom of the rapids, it is an easy 4 km paddle south to the CN tracks at the Mud River VIA rail stop.

We were not sure what we’d find at the Mud River VIA stop.  We did have the satellite image below as an indication.  As we approached the tracks, we saw a path on river right running up the steep banks, but we kept going. Nearer to the tracks, we noticed another path on river left going up to the clearing you see …as seen in the satellite image at the top right. Beaching our canoe at the boat landing, we climbed up to a freshly cut lawn fronting three fairly dilapidated cabins, a woodshed, and an outhouse. Sitting out in the open—as if they were going to be used again very soon—were two lawnmowers.

We shouted out “Hello,” expecting to hear a reply.  We were going to ask if whoever answered would mind if we camped on the edge of the lawn for the night.  However, nobody was home!

We hauled our gear up the banks and set up camp in a sheltered corner of the property.  You can see our tent spot on the extreme left of the panorama. Later that afternoon, we walked to the railway tracks from the property on a maintained path and wondered who stayed there and when.

Max standing at our Mud River tent spot – north of the tracks on the east side of the river

If you have any information about the property, is it still a lodge? –  and who owns it, do write in a comment below.  We’re curious!

Mud River buildings on the NE corner

There is apparently also a Wilderness North lodge nearby, though we did not walk across the bridge on the tracks to the west side to see what was there.  This satellite image reveals a bit more of the neighbourhood than the one above –

Mud River VIA stop

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Day 6 – Mud River to The Britannia Islands

• distance: 17.6 km (11 km to Windigo Bay; 6.6 km to the Britannia Islands campsite)
• time: 9:15 a.m. to 12:40 p.m.
• portages/rapids/liftover-line: 0/0/0
• weather: partly cloudy, sunny periods, cool, windy (SW) on L. Nipigon
• campsite: a Britannia island cove about 30m into the tree stand, 1 x 4 person; alternate 1 x 2 person in the adjacent cove, other 1 x 2 person or multiple hammock sites possible.

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A Geological Profile Of the Pikitigushi Area

On our first day and a half on this stretch of the Pikitigushi from the Bear Camp, the silt and sandbanks were prominent; now we were seeing more clay, as this small section of a surface geology map of the north of Superior indicates:

See here for the entire map, a 1968 production of the Ontario Government’s Department of Lands and Forests – it also has the essential explanatory legend

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The Log Cabin On River Right Below The CN Tracks

You can see some of that clay in the image below. As for the large cabin above the dock foundation, it is just south of the CN tracks on river right.  We went up for a look and found it locked and the ground around it uneven and overgrown.  We had made the right choice in campsites the evening before!

cabin and dock foundation south of the CN tracks at Mud River

A couple of kilometres further down the river, we would see the dock that had probably floated down from its place in front of the cabin at Mud River in the image above. [In the satellite image above you can see the dock in its right place!]

And then the final stretch of the Pikitigushi as we approached its mouth –

The mouth of the Pikitigushi River – Windigo Bay coming up

Among other things, our trip down the river all the way from Cliff Lake to its mouth gave us a deeper appreciation of the effort that many generations of  Anishinaabe shamans and vision quest-ers may have made to get to the special place known to us as Cliff Lake. We are assuming, of course, that they had left their people and their summertime settlements on Lake Nipigon and travelled upriver to get there.  When we saw Haystack Mountain from out on the lake, we thought – What a visible landmark to guide them on their journey! See below for a photo.

The last cabin before you come to Windigo Bay

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Windigo:

The Canadian Encyclopedia describes Windigo this way –

…a supernatural being belonging to the spiritual traditions of Algonquian-speaking First Nations in North America. Windigos are described as powerful monsters that have a desire to kill and eat their victims.

While we had not seen much wildlife on our way down the Pikitigushi, on three or four occasions, we had looked up and spotted an eagle riding the wind currents above us. On our canoe trips, we take this as a sign of good luck.  To have the Thunderbird looking over and after us is not a bad thing!

But as we left the narrow confines of the Pikitigushi – aka Muddy – River and entered Windigo Bay, we knew that we were entering a new phase of our canoe trip.  Now we were looking at a vast and open expanse of water on a Lake known for its temperamental nature and sudden mood changes.  We hoped that Windigo would not take offense at our passage and that Thunderbird would keep looking down!

a view of Haystack Mountain from our Britannia Islands campsite

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Meeting Point:

We got to the Britannia Islands in the early afternoon after paddling the shallow waters along the shore of Windigo Bay right past Meeting Point.  I had wondered about the origin of the name “Meeting Point”.  One evening in reading through Robert Bell’s 1870 Report On The Geology of the Northwest Side of Lake Superior, and of the Nipigon District I think I stumbled upon the answer! [Bell is famous for his work with the Geological Survey of Canada and is credited with naming over 3000 Canadian geographical features.]  His report (a copy is available here) includes the following –

Having arrived at Lake Nipigon, I divided our party, and gave Mr. McKellar charge of one of the sections. Beginning on the south side of the lake…Mr. McKellar proceeded to the right, or east side, while I took the west. At the end of about eight weeks, the two parties met at the northern extremity of the lake, having completed a survey of its shores, excepting the deepest parts of some of its bays.

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The Britannia Islands: 

South of the point where Bell and McKellar had their meeting back in the late 1860s,  we headed towards a campsite mentioned in the only post we found online on paddling Lake Nipigon!   Hannah Fanney & Rodney Claiborne’s Lake Nipigon Kayaking Trip Report (click on the title to access)  describes a three-week circumnavigation they did in September 2017 and has loads of useful information for anyone considering a similar trip or something less ambitious – i.e. like our bit of island hopping from Meeting Point to Echo Rock in the northwest part of the lake. Their list of campsites included this one –

• Britannia Islands N50° 12.159′ W88° 33.730′ Large Cobble Beach [facing south]

While that was our target, we ended up setting up our campsite one bay over on the same island. It faced north toward Windigo Bay and gave us a nice view of Haystack Mountain you see in the image above.

Haystack Mountain and the mouth of the Pikitigushi River from Mud River VIA Stop to Windigo Bay

The next morning, we’d start our planned three-day paddle down the lake.  Check out the next post to see how it went!

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Next Post: Canoeing Lake Nipigon From Windigo Bay To Echo Rock

Canoeing Lake Nipigon From Windigo Bay To Echo Rock