Bowron Lakes

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Bowron Lakes, Canada
Azimuth Flag Expedition
7/17/09 – 7/24/09

This trip started 11 years ago. In August 1998 I went to Bowron with family and friends, ten of us in five canoes. My daughter was 11 at the time. That was the first time I had ever been in a human powered water craft and I had all the wrong equipment and clothing. I also had no clue about how to keep a canoe on track and heading forward. Five years ago I started kayaking. I knew at that time I would have to go back and I figured this year was as good as any.

The planning started in September of 2008. The original group size was to have been 14, but due to the standard miscommunications, people backing out for personal reasons, etc, the group eventually wound up totaling six. In addition to myself, the paddlers were Mark Peele, Mark Gringo, Rich Hahn, Frank Satta, and Scott Chapman. The trip went from July 17, 2009 to July 24 - eight days and seven nights, with the total mileage just over 70 NM (according to my GPS).

On our arrival day we had an orientation appointment at 9:00 am in the visitor’s center that went over a few ground rules for travel in the Bowron Lakes area. It went quickly, and we were all packed, weighed, and on our way by 10:00 am. The first leg of the trip featured a portage of just over a mile but it seemed much longer. Hauling 100+ lbs over a hill was very hard work. I had to put the boat down often, especially on the steeper portions. After the portage we landed on the shore of Kibbee Lake; I have never seen anything so wonderful in my life. I do much better on the water than on land.

Kibbee Lake was warm and shallow but the crossing was way too short and we made it across in far less time than we had taken on the first portage. The next portage was shorter than the first but more difficult. Fortunately, Mark Peele came up with an ingenious way to make the portaging process easier. We wore our tow rope belts and put the rope around the cockpit combing. This put the weight on our bodies instead of our arms. At the end of this portage was Indian Point Lake and it felt great to be back on the water. The first camp site was about half way down Indian Point Lake. The weather was warm and overcast and the bugs were “very friendly.”

The next morning we got on the water at about 8:30. The temperature had dropped from the day before and the blue of the sky was streaked with a high, thin cloud cover and a few cumulus clouds. At the end of Indian Point Lake, just before the third portage, we saw a big bull moose. He didn’t seem to be bothered by us at all, ambling from the lake bank to the water. We spent about 15 minutes watching him eat the grass along the edge of the water, an impressive sight.

The portage to Isaac Lake was neither as steep nor as long as the other ones. It was, however, more rocky and creased with ruts. The kayak flipped at one point, the wheels knocked over as they encountered a rock. I remember thinking that this entire trip was a stupid idea. We had spent more time portaging than paddling and the whole thing was a bit discouraging. Fortunately, the moment passed and things did get better. Mark's way of looking at it was that we had to pay the price to get the reward.

Our next campsite was at the bend in Isaac Lake. There were very few bugs here because the wind picked up and we could see large whitecaps on the other side of the lake. Two unknown canoes braved the conditions and kept going. We watched them as they struggled across, but they stayed upright. When the wind stopped, the sun came out and then it started raining. The downpour let up long enough for us to cook dinner and then began again. It was an early evening in the tents, just to get out of the weather.

It rained most of the night and the drops were still coming down as we awoke. I cooked breakfast underneath the tent fly and ate in the tent before packing up the soggy gear and getting underway. The rain stopped about the time we started paddling, but it was still chilly. We saw incredible reflections and refractions in the glassy water which were quite deceiving; as we looked across the lake we saw paddlers that looked like they were floating in air. Waterfalls entered the lake at regular intervals and we could usually hear them before we saw them. The lake water was greenish and eerily clear, shallow near the shore with the carcasses of sunken trees, then dropping off into darkness.

The following day was another beauty. We woke up to a fog that came and went over toward the far side of the lake. When we first got on the water, we made our way across the lake to explore a river delta but we couldn’t get very far because of a lot of downed trees. We came to a place where there were two beaver dams, one a bit farther up the stream from the other. The water between the dams was calm while the water on either side was moving. As we continued to the bottom of Isaac Lake, the only sounds I heard were the regularly spaced waterfalls, birds, and the sound of my paddle in the water. Waterfalls graced both sides of the lake. There were big ones, small ones, and ones you could only hear but couldn’t see.

I spent a good deal of the day paddling by myself, just enjoying the beauty. The day was warm and the sky was a deep blue. I heard the cry of an osprey. I saw a bald eagle sitting on a rock near shore and as I passed, the bird decided to fly around my boat and light in the limbs of a nearby tree. A variety of song birds serenaded me as I paddled by.

We came ashore at the southern end of Isaac Lake, our next camp. The neighboring mountains showed evidence of past avalanches, with slides strewn here and there. As I explored the bases of a few of them, I found that the chutes were wider than I had first thought and I was struck by the obvious succession of the flora within the slide areas. The portions in the middle of the avalanche zones was mostly bushes and smaller plants. At either side of this central part of the slides were various sized deciduous trees and the outer edges blended into the evergreen of the forest.

The next day Mark Peele and I ran “the chute and roller coaster," a fast moving section of the Isaac River featuring a series of standing waves. That was fun. It took no time at all for us to get to the start of the mandatory portage at the bottom of the run. (Sorry no pictures. I had to keep both hands on the wheel.) The canoeists portaged this part of the trip as they didn’t want to take the chance of capsizing and losing their stuff.

The mandatory portage took us around Isaac Falls. The sound of the water and the surrounding scenery was pretty intense. The first portage didn’t take long, but it was muddy and rocky in places. Then we went back to the water for short jaunt down the river before another short, but steep, portage around another waterfall. The hardest part of this section was keeping the boats from running away as we went down the hill.

Another short river run brought us to tiny McLeary Lake, where I saw a mother wood duck and her ducklings sitting on a rock. Crossing the lake, we came to the Caribou River. The water level was fairly high so the river wasn’t nearly as difficult as I remembered it being back in 1998, when I floated down part of it backwards and had to be rescued. Life is better when you know what you are doing. The current was swift and although I’m not sure exactly how fast we went down the run, we averaged 3.3 knots for the day even with very slow portages. The river ran into Lanezi Lake, silty and glacier fed. We came ashore about 12:30 to set up camp and have some play time.

We were a little pokey the next morning and didn’t get on the water until 9:00 or so. The temperature was hot until a breeze came up that made me feel good. When the breeze quit, I had to put my hat in the water and then dump it over my head to stay cool. The mountains fell behind us as we got to the southern end of the park. We finished Lanezi Lake, went through Sandy Lake and back to the Caribou River.

Along the way, we stopped at a little pond called Rum Lake. We had to go through Unna Lake and a reed passage to get to Rum Lake. This is also affectionately called Leech Lake and we saw some 4-5 inch long leeches. The lake was really warm so we put on our PFDs and just floated for awhile. Tepid lake water on a hot day felt good. We set up camp, ate lunch, swam for awhile and then paddled back across Unna Lake to take a hike to Caribou Falls. The going was strenuous because of the unevenness of the trail but the falls were spectacular… well worth the hike.

When the morning arrived, we got out of camp early. The bugs were wicked and we left in a hurry. We departed Rum Lake, paddled back through Unna Lake and up the Caribou River to Babcock Lake. Before we turned into Babcock Lake, we saw a mamma moose and her calf. We watched them for awhile until she got nervous and took her brood back into the cover of the forest.

We had three portages to negotiate that day. On the first - long, steep and painful - I went as fast as I could because the bugs were brutal. If we stopped on the portage we were bitten mercilessly. It was less maddening to keep going. The temperature was very hot and it was obvious that we were getting tired. The water was so shallow at one part of Spectacle Lake that we only had a very small space to get through. We had our first injury today besides bug bites when Frank, who was sitting on a stump in camp, fell asleep. He fell off the stump and scraped his elbow and we all gave him a bad time about having a reportable injury.

The next day was our last on the water and Rich had the idea to get going early so we’d have a better chance of seeing wildlife. The plan was to be up at 5:00 and leave by 6:00 but some of the crew were up before 4:00 and made no secret about the fact that they were awake and ready. That made a very short night’s sleep for the rest of us. Still, we were on the water a little before 6:00, so the plan worked out.

This part of the journey took us down a stream that wound through a marsh, one of the better places to watch for animals. We paddled for quite awhile before seeing any, however, and I was ready to lay into Rich for making us get up so early when we came upon a small pond where a bull moose was grazing. He appeared unconcerned with our presence and we watched him for a long time as he ate. Further down the stream we spotted another moose, a cow this time. Just as we were entering Bowron Lake we saw a third moose, a young bull, swimming from one shore to the other. I also had an encounter with a river otter that swam in front of me and then along the side of the boat. I stopped paddling and just coasted along beside him until he slipped into the reeds.

We were off the water by 10:00 am. When I finished the circuit in 1998 I was never so glad to see dry land. Sore and worn out, I was glad the ordeal had ended. I felt quite different this time - knowing how to get a boat to do what I want it to do is a big plus. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.


Jackie Brown is a Tacoma sea kayaker, school teacher and Azimuth kayaking instructor. This was her first Flag Expedition.

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