Tide Creek, off Pigeon Lake

In early June, I spent a windy morning exploring Tide Creek, which is located on the western edge of Pigeon Lake. There are a couple of access points off Secondary Highway 771. The first is through the Gilwood boat launch (green arrow). This puts you on Pigeon Lake about 100 north of the creek entrance.

There is a dock, lots of parking, and a portapotty here and the launch is sand/gravel. The water is very shallow for a long way out and, in early June, it was cleanish but pretty smelly.

The entrance to the creek is an easy paddle. Below, looking up the creek, you can see the bridge where Highway 771 crosses it (orange arrow). This is the second access point. 

There is well established ditch parking on either side of the road on the south side of the bridge. The shot below looks south on the east side of the bridge and is probably the easiest launch point.

The shot below looks south on the west side of the bridge and is a trickier launch, although you can carry to a lower spot just out of the frame on the right. There were some folks fishing here when I went by.

Once past the bridge, the creek was about 10m wide. The water level was high due to a wet spring so YMMV here.

The paddle up the winding creek is maybe 4km to Range Road 22 (yellow arrow). Round trip was two hours. Along the way, there is a birch forest, a more boreal fir forest, and some open meadow. The surrounding terrain sat just above my head most of the way. You could get out but it looks mucky.

There were both wild strawberry and raspberry plants along the way.

I also ran across two broken beaver dams. The first below (blue arrow) was easy to paddle over.

A bit further along (red arrow), there was a more intact dam. This took me a couple of tries and some light cursing to get over and I finally dragged myself up on the left side.

I'm not sure this would be passable in lower water. At this point, the creek had also narrowed to between 4 and 6m wide.

Eventually, I hit the bridge at Range Road 22 (yellow arrow). The creek continued on beyond it but looks narrower. There was a third broken dam under the bridge and this one I could not get past. The current was strong and there were some hidden rocks right in front of the chute that made things tricky. I could have carried around but I was tired and the paddling beyond didn't look great so I turned around.

Overall, a nice trip (thank to Seana for suggesting it) up a creek that I haven't seem anyone really post about. This was a good paddle option for a windy day. I'm not sure what it would be like later in the season if the water water level dropped. I'd say even six inches less water would make portion of the paddle much more difficult and the channel narrower, especially near the far end. It might also be pretty buggy.

I'd certain go back here. The bird watching was great and there were also beaver and muskrats. It is probably about the same distance as Pipestone Creek is from Edmonton but offers a different vibe.