Day 12. Sun. July 24 (starting at 57°09’17” N, 75°40’05” W)

On which our protagonist reaches the big lake.

10PM    57°06’50” N, 75°22’46” W

I have finished portaging.

I saw Minto at 4PM today. I should have been ecstatic. But I confess I was too tired to feel much.

The last long portage, the penultimate one of a kilometer with a small pond in the middle heading ESE, was yet another kick in the cojones. It began as a mostly shallow stream flowing in the direction of travel. (It didn’t even occur to me until later that I’d passed the height of land. I was, at long last, traveling downhill.) I was able to line some of it and even paddled a couple of short stretches, but I also had to negotiate a lot of boulder gardens. I’m not sure in retrospect whether the paddling was worth the time and effort; it might have been better to carry the whole way.

The toughest part I remember came after the small pond at the halfway point. The brush looked very high on both banks, and I didn’t realize until after my first carry down the left that the right side is the better way to go. Taking the left side puts you out in a spot where it would be very difficult to load and launch, and it was quite dicey getting myself back across the stream’s mouth to the right bank. Taking the hillier right bank is also difficult, but there are stretches with far less brush that pass among trees — a rarity at this latitude. All told, the whole effort took several hours.

The very last portage, the short one from the last pond to Minto, is brushy at first but relatively straightforward. Finding the path of least resistance through the trees takes effort, but once you get through them you find a fairly open lichen field that slopes gently down to Minto’s shore. Although I didn’t see any tent rings, it would make a decent camping spot, as lichen fields often do out here.

Minto immediately felt like bigger water. The arm of the lake I saw first isn’t much larger than most of the ponds were, but it opens up to wider channels to the southeast.

The islands in this section of the lake don’t present many opportunities for camping; their shores are solid brush, with shrubs right down to the waterline. After three hours of paddling through relentless wind, I saw what looked like a clearing on a small island. It turned out to be flat stone sloping down to the water. Not a bad spot considering how few alternatives I’d seen.

Today I was up and kayaking at 8AM, and even though I paddled till past 7PM I am still conscious of how far behind schedule I am. If the water tomorrow permits, I’ve decided I’m going to power paddle. The forecast points to whitecapping headwinds but I’ll cross my fingers. If nothing else, there is supposed to be a group of cabins about 20 km away. So said Jack in Umiujaq 12 days back, though it feels like a month ago. They will be a good target to make for. Hope they are still there and in decent shape.