Paddler's Guide to Happy Camping

Kopka to Nipigon - the final chapter

• Posted on October 9, 2008 at 3:59 PM
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CBC fans leave message for me on the Kopka River bridge.

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This is the last chapter on my Kopka River canoe trip from last season. I've added part one of the video and will have part 2 up shortly.

Kopka River to Lake Nipigon

Andy and I had no idea how famous we’d become during our time on the river and were quite shocked to find fan mail nailed to a tree on the next portage.
Sure, we new CBC Radio’s Fresh Air show got a lot of listeners, and we knew we’d been interviewed by the host, Jeff Good, a number of times. But we also knew the satellite phone rarely worked and half the interviews were cut off seconds after they started. It was the inability to communicate, however, that created our large following. Apparently listeners couldn’t wait to hear if we could get through to the radio station or not each time it aired. In less then a week we had reached celebrity status. The fan mail was found after Andy and I paddled the north shoreline of Kopka Lake to where the river flushes under the Highway 527 bridge. We took out on the left, walked over the road and there, at the beginning of the portage (a well overgrown 220 meters) was a note for us, sealed in zip-lock sandwich bag. It was from a group of paddlers from the United States who were on their way to Wabakimi to take part in a volunteer canoe route clean-up titled the Wabakimi Project http://www.wabakimi.org/project/ . The group, who were obviously big admirers of the radio show, figured out our designated route and time of arrival, and then left the note. Cool stuff if you think about it. Andy and I took pictures of us standing on the road with our fan mail and then humbled ourselves enough to continued on, lining a large swift directly after the first rapid and then portaged 600 meters on the left bank just around the next bend in the river. The last rapid flushed the Kopka into Pishidgi Lake, where we saw our vehicle parked at the public launch to the northwest. Our shuttle driver had driven it there for us to use on our return from Lake Nipigon (take note that the road in from the highway is definitely a rough one and I wouldn’t use it unless you have a truck or four-wheel vehicle). Our final week would be paddling to the north shore of Lake Nipigon by way of Pishdgi Lake, Wabinosh Lake and Wabinosh Bay. And the only thing standing in the way was one more set of rapids where the Kopka drains into Wabinosh Bay. The river section between Pishdgi and Wabinosh Lakes had a few swift sections but nothing to concern us, even for our paddle back upstream to our vehicle in a week’s time.
Prior to taking on the portage from Wabinosh Lake to Nipigon’s Wabinosh Bay we set up camp. The site resembled more of an urban backyard where the grass hadn’t been cut and the high water which was still affecting our route had the campfire ring completely under water. But we had a sticking view of the incredible sheer cliffs surrounding the lake and a single cast from shore provided us a decent-size walleye for dinner. The portage leading to Lake Nipigon hadn’t got much use. Andy and I found the take-out a good distance up stream of where the Kopka drains out into the lake, and quite a few trees were down across the 900 meter trail. Of course, after we completed it Andy and I discovered a second take-out further downstream and closer to the actual rapid/falls where the river ends. It only measured just over 300 meters but we would also have been paddling down the last stretch blind. Carrying 900 meters was fine by us. Over a dozen pelicans met us at the put-in and as we slid the canoe into the water, beside an old logging gator, another twenty or so birds flew up river to fish at the base of the rapids. It was a memorable moment for the both if us. And spending a week paddling the north shore of Nipigon will remain in my dreams forever. This is one magical place that I’m determined to return to and paddle again.