We continued our generally southward paddle, passing by a few more campsites (none as nice as Shangri-La had been). Along with frequent loons, we spotted a young moose along the way, the one and only moose sighting of our trip. Ultimately we were headed for the principle inflow to Catfish Lake; This was again our friend, the ever-present Petawawa River. It noisily emptied its contents into the waters of Catfish Lake through a stretch known as (what else?) Catfish Rapids.
Lunch near Catfish Rapids
We disembarked at the lower portage point around Catfish rapids, and took a long lunch break. Sophie adventurously scooted out onto a large tree trunk that had fallen out over the river. A few of its remaining branches formed a very solid tripod that kept it high above the water. Like moths to a flame, the other kids soon followed, until there was a train of kids inching out over the river, seeing how far they could go.
Arn had contemplated portaging the canoes up around Catfish Rapid to explore beyond, but the day was drawing on and there seemed to be no great appetite to put the canoes on our shoulders. Instead, we decided to stretch our legs by hiking the portage to its far end and back. We then hopped back into the canoes and started back towards our campsite.
With a return to home port in mind, we dispensed with the zig-zagging and made for the shortest route back to camp. With some concerted paddling, we managed to return back in less than half the outbound time.
courtesy JInnes
Playing Dice
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing about camp, resting in the sun, playing Arn's dice game, and generally hanging about. In the case of the kids, this was literally the case - they had fashioned a crude zip line in the nearby forest between a couple of trees, using my climbing cord and a notched branch as a handle. Mostly this resulted in the handle flipping and spinning wildly off in a random direction, but occasionally they did manage to slowly slide down the cord.
courtesy JInnes
courtesy JInnes
While the others cooked canoe-only gourmet dinners, we had a more typical (for us) dinner of dehydrated camp food.
courtesy JInnes
A scenic washing of the dishes
We were treated to another beautiful evening, with the partly-cloudy skies once again clearing away to reveal a beautiful sunset and a starry night sky. There was a fair bit of star-watching this night, and we identified many constellations - in addition to a ruddy Mars, glowing high in the southern sky, and to the west, a white Jupiter (I checked, folks, and it was indeed Jupiter and not Venus, as some suspected). Sophie exclaimed that she had never seen such a sky full of stars. I wondered a bit at that, because she said this while there was still a substantial amount of twilight in the sky - light that blocked out most of the faint stars. This probably meant she'd not yet seen a truly dark sky, no doubt a symptom of the light-polluted skies around our cities. One day a truly dark sky - one filled with thousands of pinpoints of light along with the band of the milky way - will take her breath away.
End of a great day on Catfish
Can't get enough practice
Interactive trackmap with photo points - Cedar-Catfish Lakes Canoe, Day 3 - click map to view
Start Time:
11:53a.m.
End Time:
3:49p.m.
Duration:
3h55m
Distance:
9.04 km
(5.61 mi)
Average Speed:
2.3 km/hr
(1.4 mph)
Start Elevation:
1293ft
(394m)
*
Max Elevation:
1340ft
(408m)
*
Min Elevation:
1275ft
(389m)
*
End Elevation:
1305ft
(398m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain:
69ft
(21m)
*
Total Elevation Loss:
65ft
(20m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph
