I thought it would be interesting to explore this route, as a part of my last trip during the 2007 canoeing season.

A map of the area published recently by Brian Back on Ottertooth.com indicates that the route from Sugar Lake through Nichol Lake and into Isbister is included in the Sugar Lake Conservation Reserve and is therefore protected from logging. The route from Isbister through Deadtree to Barter and on into Turner Lake is on Crown lands and is not shown on the Temagami Canoe Routes Map.

Also, Doug Hamilton, in his June 12th, 2007 “view from the stern” article, has provided some explanation as to why the Nastawgan on Crown lands might not be on the Temagami Canoe Routes Map.

Most of my Temagami trips over the years have either been through areas that are now a part of the park system or through Crown lands close to the core park areas. Locating the portages shown on the canoe route planning map has never been much of a problem, even as they deteriorated over the years, when little or no maintenance was undertaken. But what about locating the Nastawgan?

By Thursday, September 20th, I had canoed into Sugar Lake via Diamond and Lady Evelyn Lakes, going through Goodfish and Angler in the process. As I traveled into the south west bay of Sugar Lake, I began to wonder if I could find these elusive Nastawgan. I moved closer to the shore as I approached the area at the end of the bay, where I thought I should start to look. Clearly it didn’t go up the creek where Brian has it on his map. I moved along the shoreline slowly, scrutinizing every wisp of a trail and looking at every tree by the waters edge and into the bush. There it was, behind the island in the bay, an opening in the bush with a faint blaze mark on a tree, close to the water’s edge. As I got out of my canoe, I could see some human detritus left there by some frustrated modern canoe trippers, a plastic grocery bag, along with the usual collection of old socks that kids seem to leave wherever they travel in the bush. The trail was easy to follow. It was well blazed in both directions. Some of the marks were on very old trees. Trees, that have been on the planet far longer than I have. The blaze marks had almost disappeared as the bark had grown over the cuts, but they were still recognizable. Others blaze marks were relatively new and in some cases with sap still dripping from them indicating that people were still traveling and maintaining this path. I had found my first Nastawgan and I went from Sugar Lake to Nichol Lake. The next part of the route out of Nichol Lake to Isbister Lake was easy to find. There is a large angular stone on the shore that is visible from some distance out in the lake and that is where the portage starts. It too was well blazed in both directions and on the odd occasion when I misplaced the trail it was easy to get back on it by looking for blaze marks. But it was a nasty one. Brian has it marked as 1300m. But, I think that must be as the crow flies, since it took me 50 minutes for each carry and 40 minutes to walk back. It started off going uphill, then leveled off and went through a swampy area, then another elevation increase, followed by a short flat section. Just when I thought I had reached the height of land, there was another climb that went mostly straight up on a switchback through an area of old growth white pine and rock outcropping before it started to go downhill towards Isbister. This portage is not for the faint of heart.

The next morning, I traveled south on Isbister to locate the portage that would take me through the next small lake towards Deadtree, Barter and eventually out to Turner Lake, a more civilized part of Temagami. It was also easy to locate this 200m portage, which started out by going straight up a steep slope. I kept losing the trail in the brush as I progressed, but once I got up to the top it was easier to follow and soon I had reached the next small lake that would take me to Deadtree, an area due to be logged.

I crossed this small no name lake and came to a large beaver dam blocking the creek that drained this lake. The 140m portage leading to Deadtree was there on the left hand side of the dam. This is right in the area where logging is to occur, but I heard no mechanical noise and I saw no flagging tapes, indicating that logging might be imminent.

A short paddle directly across Deadtree led me to the next leg of my trip. This 440m portage proved to be a bit more complicated and challenging than Brian’s brief description, would have indicated. Brian provided a picture taken by David Bourdelais that shows a Keewaydin group crossing an open area. The first part starts on dry land and comes out to the beaver meadow shown in the picture. It then crosses the beaver meadow to a high rock area on the other side where it then follows another trail along side a creek held back with a beaver dam, before it comes out on the south west shore of Barter Lake. It took a bit of time to figure this all out, but on arriving at the beaver meadow it looked as if one needed to cross over to where the high rock was located. Someone had put a couple of small rocks up there to provide direction. The meadow proved to have some soft spots in it. In fact it was downright mushy. Following the first carry across to the big rock, I concluded that I would combine the next 2 carries by putting my barrel in the canoe and pulling it across. This proved to be a messy business, but in 5 minutes I had all my gear across this swamp. The last section started behind the beaver dam that held up the creek and soon I was on Barter Lake.

The section from Barter to Turner goes up a creek, through a no name pond and then into Turner. The first section proved the most difficult. There was little water in the creek at the mouth and there was no obvious channel to paddle in. It was back out of the canoe, this time into the ”loonie stuff” to drag the canoe upstream. After about 50m of strenuous effort, I found a channel with some water and I was able to get back into the canoe and while standing, pole along for a ways, coming to the first beaver dam. Bless the little devils, the water on the upstream side was much deeper and I could paddle along going up 3 more small dams along the way before coming out to the next small lake and portage that would take me to Turner Lake. This lake is surrounded by low bushes which serve to obscure the entrance to the portage, but as luck would have it, I spotted a dead tree back in the bush that looked as if it had an ancient blaze mark on it. I soon had my canoe unloaded, moving all the gear to higher ground before starting this easy 550m portage into Turner.

I was back in civilization. I had been able to find the elusive Nastawgan and if I can do it, so can other motivated travelers who want to explore off the beaten paths.

When I returned home, I called the area Forester, telling him that I had just completed this trip and had heard that the area was going to be clear-cut in the near future, asking what could we do to protect these portages.

Apparently, Grant Forest Products Inc. has decided not to go in through there this year, as a result of poor market conditions.

The Forester advised that we could help to protect these routes by providing accurate descriptions of the portage locations. This could be best achieved by using GPS data that we could gather as we travel these old routes. Nastawgan Trails has logged some routes using GPS equipment, lent to them by MNR for that purpose. I asked if they would accept data collected from our personal GPS units and the response was affirmative.

We have an opportunity to log these route locations and provide MNR the with the appropriate data. In the past they have insisted that they need to go out and ground proof these trails before they would consider putting them into the local NRVIS, as a recreational asset and treat them as an Area of Concern for Forest Management Planning.

I notice from the maps, supplied with the approved version of the Temagami Integrated Plan, that these particular Nastawgan are presently in the NRVIS data base and will receive some protection when a harvest does finally get underway.

I would like to see Friends of Temagami choose one or two of these less travelled routes during the 2008 canoe season, log them with GPS, present the data to MNR, working through the process with them to get the routes into the NRVIS and determine how we can best save the Nastawgan without putting impossible restrictions on the harvest.