Porcupine Lake – our first trip with David and Victoria!
Still mosquito season, but we were able to find relief in a relatively open campsite.
This was a relatively simple “destination camping” trip: we paddled down Smoke, Ragged and Porcupine easily in one day and setup camp on one of the islands at the north end of the main body of Porcupine. From here, we did various day trips into neighbouring Bon Chere lake and around Porcupine and spent a lot of time reading books, talking and relaxing. Aside from not having spent enough money on gear yet to make the portages comfortable (we were still lugging our big green metal briefcase Coleman stove!), the only hiccup was that we found out first thing in the AM that we weren’t going to be able to load the rental canoe onto the canoe blocks we’d borrowed from Timon. Victoria and I paddled the boat down the creek from Tea Lake Campground (where we stayed the night before the trip) through Smoke Creek and met Sarah and David who had taken the car to the Smoke Lake access point. The GPS was with James and Victoria, so you can see this leg of the trip on the map. Note that the Smoke Lake access point is the track at the end of the trip (as that’s where the car was parked). We then portaged the rental canoe north to the Canoe Lake access point to return it. The portage from Rugged to Porcupine is pretty steep and “rooty” and in some books that we read, was (one of many portages in the park) called the Devil’s Staircase. I’m not sure it’s that bad, but it was steeper than most of the ones we’ve seen in the park.