Spring Lake

In early August, I drove out to Spring Lake on a whim. Access can be a bit tricky and there are detailed instructions here. The water level was down about 8 or 10 inches (probably a combination of little snow and evaporation during a hot July).

I looked at the usual shore launch and it seemed pretty mucky so I decided to try my luck on the dock that is about 100 feet to the north.

I'm not sure this was better since it meant almost a three foot drop to the water. Docks are my least favourite way to launch but, by using my paddle to pin the boat against the pilings, I managed to get in without getting wet.

It was overcast and smokey so no real scenery shots. I did see a tonne of birds. This tern was very annoyed I chased it off this grebe nest.

There were also lots of loons with young. And grebes with young. There were also half a dozen osprey fishing overhead.

The lake was pretty calm so there were some Monet moments.

 

I surprise this heron fishing off the island.

For whatever reason, this cormorant was just sitting on this stick and would not move no matter how close I got. Maybe wet feathers? I also accidentally pushed a loon towards the shore so it dove and cut across in front of my boat to get out towards deeper water. Loons move crazy fast underwater.

Having braved the dock once, I decided to try the shore launch to get out. It was not a bad as I thought and I got out dry footed after some poling and bumscooting.

This was a pretty good paddle on Spring Lake. I hope the water level comes up a touch next year. There were lots of places I was scraping bottom near the shore. The water quality was pretty good, though.

Dried Meat Lake, Tillicum Beach

In early August, we went to try our luck at Dried Meat Lake. While it looks like you could DIY an entry at the north and south ends, we opted for the boat launch at Tillicum Beach, halfway down the eastern edge.

The launch is pretty good, with a cement ramp that get deep pretty quickly as well as a dock and a gravel beach beside it. There is lots of parking and up the hill behind, you can find pit toilets and a playground (and garter snakes!). The end of the launch has a sharp drop off.

We went south down the eastern shore. The "beach" part of Tillicum Beach is pretty overstated. There is a sandyish part just south of the boat launch but the water was way too weedy to swim in (thick weed beds up to 100 feet from shore).

The weed beds were a real drag and we ended up paddling fairly far off shore to avoid them. The lake is 20km roughly north-south and even a modest breeze meant we had some good waves. The width varies from 500m to 1 km. We went south off the launch towards what looked like an estuary.

The eastern shore basically looks like this: rocky edge with a mix of forest and fields.

We went about 2.5km south to the opening of the creek. There were some birds. The creek itself was pretty weedy and we didn't get very far before we gave up.

After a quick snack, we ferried across to the western shore to try and get out of the wind for the grind back north. Again, the weeds made it very hard going and we ended up pretty far off shore fighting the wind (which was better than fighting the weeds).

Overall, a pretty so-so paddle and I probably wouldn't go back. To the west is Coal Lake and to the south and southwest you can find the Chain Lakes, Lacombe Lake, and Buffalo Lake, all of which offer a better paddle.

North Saskatchewan River, Dawson Launch

I paddle a fair bit on the North Saskatchewan but I don't blog about it much (pretty much the same all the time). In late July, I had an early morning run upstream out of out of Dawson Park to Louise McKinney and back that had great pictures.

The launch at Dawson is pretty shallow and I had to wade out beyond the end of the dock to get enough water to float. Then an easy paddle upstream to accidental beach. 

Here (near outflow 147), the current gets momentarily swift (this was a good hard paddle!) and then it was easy going again under the Tawatina bridge. The reflections were really great in the morning sun.

Then a lazy float back downstream to pull out and head home to start the day.

I don't do this section of the river nearly enough and it is very pretty.

Franchere Bay, Moose Lake (Bonnyville)

In late July, we spent some time in Bonnyville and paddled Moose Lake. The weather was uncooperative (wind, rain, smoke) so we decided to put in at Franchere Bay Provincial Recreation Area on the west end of the lake.

There is a boat launch here but we decide the beach looked just as easy. We parked about 30 meters from the water's edge and carried down a gentle grass and then sand slope. There is was a one-foot drop (retaining wall) down to the beach.

There were pit toilets, picnic tables and the usual stuff in this campground. The lake has a sandy bottom and looked quite swimmable.

We went left off the beach (north) and under the bridge into the channel (Thinlake River) that connects to Thin Lake. There were a fair number of birds here, even during the slow time of the summer and we went about 3km upstream before we started to bottom out a bit and turned back.

The shore was basically bullrushes giving way to bog or boggy forest.

We came back out into Moose Lake and then Jenn got her kayak sail deployed and spent some time enjoying the wind.

We drove around a bit to look at other launch sites, thinking we'll be back at some point. On the southwestern shore is the Pelican Point municipal campground. This has a boat launch and beach (meh) and gives easy access to the southern basin (which as lots of islands). We may well try here next time.

On the northern shore, we came south off of Highway 600 down Lakeview Drive (Range Road 72A) to this sandy launch. This launch gives good access to the northwestern basin as well as river (that doesn't seem named on google maps).

A little further east on 660 is access to Moose Lake Provincial Park (down Range Road 70). The park is sprawling and the launch is pretty decent. It gives good access to the eastern end of the lake.

There seem to be lots of access points to this pretty big lake. I wish the weather had been a bit better!

Floatingstone Lake

In late July, we took a trip to Bonnyville to try some new lakes. High on my list was Floatingstone Lake, about half way between Smokey Lake and Bonnyville. The lake has a pretty long shoreline (we cut off some of the bays and still paddled almost 3 hours (~12km).

The easiest access is on the south shore through the municipal campground. There is a day-use area with a cement boat launch, dock, and sandy beach. There was no charge to use this access and we could drop right beside the water. There were also pit toilets, a picnic shelter, playground, and swimming area. The campground store also sold drinks and ice cream.

We went off the beach and turned right (east) towards the islands.

The undeveloped shoreline is basically reeds then aspen forest. There are some areas where the shore is rocky and you could get out more easily.

We had great weather and it was calm and quiet. As the day went on, a bit of wind picked up and we also had boats pulling tubes.

The islands were super cool and would be a fun stop to explore with kids. We just kept paddling since the weather was so nice.

Over in the eastern end of the lake we paddled over this weird rock. 

I will be a bear of a job to get that out of the lake. We also saw some deer and lots of cormorants and a crazy number of loons.

The western shore is more developed with cabins and also a ranch.

Overall, a lovely paddle that I'd happily do again. I'm glad we went back. Our first attempt (two days earlier) was scuppered by stormy weather!

Since it was too lousy to paddle (wind gave way to rain), we spent some time checking out Upper Mann Lake. The easiest launch looked to be on the west end, off Dickson Road. The lake has receded since this cement launch was constructed. The shot below shows the end of the launch (I'm standing about half way to the present shore).

You could still get a boat in here but the mud flats looked challenging and I was not up to bumscooting 50 feet to get water under my keel.

There might be better access somewhere else but I didn't find it!