JOURNEY #19 - August 17, 2002

Bonnechere River (Douglas -> West)

After the great success of our first trip on this intersting river, we decided to check out another stretch. Information was once again scarce, so we took what we could scrape up from the internet and simply headed for Renfrew. There were two bridges (Butler Street and Bonnechere Road) on the map south of town, so we checked them out. Neither offered boating access, but we could see that the stretch between Renfrew and Douglas probably offered mostly marshy areas with a lot of farmland along the banks, which was nothing like the trip east of Renfrew.



We pushed on down to the town of Douglas, which is about 25km west of Renfrew, and checked out the bridge on Stone Street. The dam is just a short distance to the east of the bridge. There were some very friendly local folks swimming under the bridge, who advised that we should head back north over the bridge and take the first left down to a beach area. We did so, and launched a few feet down from the beach so as not to disturb the family that was swimming there.

As we set off, we immediately took note of the marine life. The waters were teeming with minnows and frogs, and Keenan noticed some smallmouth bass soon after we headed west of the beach. At first we were certain that this stretch of the river would feature deeper waters than we had experienced on our other trip, but after going less than a km upstream, we hit a fairly long stretch of shallow rapids. A man along the bank who was gardening near his beautiful cabin (well, more of a large home, but constructed of wood) informed us that if we walked up through the rapids, we would find deeper waters and could continue all the way to impassible rapids at the Bonnechere Caves.

With this encouragement, we walked up through the shallows, which were mostly flat rock. It was not difficult. When we got to the top, the water did indeed deepen and we got underway. Curving a bit to the north the water got shallow again, but we were able to continue with only a few light bumps. The river narrowed as we past by the remains of a bridge, and shortly we were upon another set of shallow rapids. We both tried to make it through them, but got stuck. Keenan got wedged between some rocks in a particularly fast-moving area, and in the course of exiting the cockpit, lost his paddle. However, with three quick strides downstream he managed to snatch up the paddle while at the same time preventing the kayak from making a riderless trip.

After we got going again we soon came across a couple fishing in a small weedy bay from a canoe. They had caught two northern pike using small spinner lures. Throughout this area we saw many large blue herons, as well as a small flock of geese, that we more or less chased upstream for several kilometres.

We soon hit another long set of shallow rapids. We walked up through the first half quite easily, but the strength of the current at the next made for a bit of a challenge. As it was a beautiful spot, we contemplated stopping here on the large rocks for lunch before turning back, but decided to push ahead to see what was around the bend.

We hit a stretch of deeper water that had the appearance of an excellent fishing area. Julie saw a decent-sized bass, and we came across a man and two children in a rowboat who were fishing for pike. The man raised an eyebrow and asked "Did you come all the way from Douglas!?" As we did not feel it was a particuarly great distance we had travelled, we assumed that this reaction was testimony to our determination to navigate the many sets of rapids.

Keenan stopped to chat about the river and our location, and spotted a huge smallmouth bass that swam right under his kayak. From this group of anglers we found out that we were about 4km from a huge set of rapids near the caves. They thought that we would encounter perhaps two more sets of shallow rapids before that. Although we would have liked to complete the trip, we were running short on time and decided to turn back.

We stopped at the top of the first (fourth) set of rapids for a quick lunch and a couple of photographs. We carried the yaks down the pebbled shore and paddled back towards the launch site. At the next set of rapids, Keenan was trying to get out just before a large shelf when he tipped most of the way over, filling the cockpit with a few litres of water. Much to his amusement, he took in a haul of several small critters, including a baby crayfish.

Julie had a good laugh at the shenanigans, but Keenan got his turn to chuckle at the bottom of the next set of rapids, when Julie tried to board her kayak in some pretty fast water, and ended up in a precarious position, with her shoulder almost touching the bottom. Keenan splashed his way over and pulled her to an upright position, and we carried on towards the last set of rapids.

It was an interesting trip, although an awful lot of work. We are not too sure about the distance, but it was probably 20km return or less. We would like to return in the spring and go all the way to the caves and back, but the current might be too strong for a return trip. Coming down the river from the caves to Douglas might be a very interesting one-way trip, however. It would only take about a one foot rise in the water level to make all of the rapids navigable. Well, maybe!