Long Lake Provincial Park (and Jackfish Lake)

In mid-August, we took a weekend trip towards Athabasca. First stop was Long Lake Provincial Park just south of Boyle. I was here a few years ago late in the season and the weather was crap. By contrast, we had an amazing day this time.

When you enter the park, you drop down a long hill and then go right to the day-use areas. The first day-use area has a boat launch (with dock) and pit toilets. The second day-use area has a dock, a beach, flush toilets, boat rentals, and a concession. We opted for the second day-use area.

The dock was fine but I'd rather launch from a beach. It is about a 100m carry from the parking lot to the beach down a gentle grassy slope. We were there at 10 am on a Saturday morning and it was dead (we were the only car in the lot).

The beach was nice, with clean water, a gentle slope, and a marked swimming area. By the time we got back (2ish), the beach was full and hopping.

There was a bit of a southeast wind and and I wanted to go south so we cut across to the eastern shore to get out of the worst of the waves. 

Just south of the launch on both sides are small bays which are interesting to explore. This is the eastern bay.

The eastern shore starts out a reeds with a rocky shore line and aspen in behind. 

The further south you go, the boggier the shoreline gets.

It took us about 2 hours to paddle the 8 or 9 km to the south end into a gentle wind. There were a few boats down here fishing and most were pretty good about keeping their distance and cutting their speed as they passed us.

In the southeast corner, there was a tiny, sandy beach where a creek comes in. We were happy to have a spot to get out and stretch. This was the only spot on the eastern shore where getting out was easy.

The south end of the lake was a swamp, although pretty. It looked like there was a creek but, if so, it was too weedy to both with.

The western shore was slightly less swampy and there were a couple of places you could get out if you needed to. We also saw a bear (disappeared into brush before I could get a shot).

We had a good tail wind back and probably did 20 km that day (a bit longer than our usual). The wind and the boats both increased as the afternoon went on. Overall, a very nice paddle and a nice lake. The provincial campground looked very busy (they have a separate beach and boat launch). 

That evening, we took a quick look at Jackfish Lake, just northeast of Athabasca. This was a pretty secluded county campground, with a boat launch (there was a box for money and a price list for day use but no forms or sign it was enforced). The water was pretty murky.

The lake runs north-south and is basically this all the way around. Probably an interesting paddle, especially during nesting season. 

We decided to skip it and try out luck at Chump Lake, the next day.

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!