Amiskowan Lake to Shady Lake, Prince Albert National Park, SK

In mid-June, we tried to paddle through Amiskowan Lake, up the creek and into Shady Lake in Prince Albert National Park. We did this paddle three years ago, but in Jul,y and the weeds were challenging. We were hoping coming a month earlier would make for an easier paddle.

Access to Amiskowan Lake is on the Narrows Road. You then paddle about 4km, east through Amiskowan, find the creek mouth, up the creek, and into Shady Lake. It is a good paddle there and back plus however much time you want to spend in Shady Lake. There is lots of wildlife and only one road (a culvert over the creek). We parked at the green arrow above and the skidded our boats down the steep bank to the lake.

The lake was about a foot lower than last time but it still looked doable so we thought we'd give it a try. We got most of the way through the western basin and started east only to find that beavers had dammed the whole lake (red line above)!

I've seen bigger dams in terms of height and volume, but never one that long. It wasn't possible to get close to the dam due to the water levels and the sides looked like a muddy nightmare. We decided we were too old and lazy to try to carry around and, instead, we took a quick tour of the lower basin before going elsewhere.

Hauling the boats back up the slope to the road was a good work out! I'm strong and this was hard.

While we were loading, a fox wandered along the shoreline, looking for lunch and briefly stalked a muskrat before bounding off after a bird.

Not every paddle is a success and I was happy we had a back-up plan.

Amiskowan Lake to Shady Lake, Prince Albert National Park

In July, we were in Prince Albert National Park and did a two lake paddle: Amiskowan Lake to Shady Lake. Access is off the road that runs along the south side of the lake (top left of the map below). There is a widening in the road and room for maybe five vehicles to park (we never saw another vehicle there during our five days).

There is lots of room to unload and Amiskowan Lake is pretty. 

It is a bit of a steep entry, maybe 10 vertical feet down to the water on a steep slope. But we managed to get in with dry feet.

The lake itself is long and narrow and basically you just head east to the end, where you find the creek entrance. The lake was weedy by the first week of July and the Canadian Parks staff said it was very hard paddling in the summer.

The connecting creek is fairly interesting. The first half is just weedy oxbows against the mild current. This seemed a bit endless.

It slowly gets narrower, with a faster current, and more alpine. A good introduction to current in narrows spaces for a newer paddler.

We saw a pair of deer up close (both times coming around a blind corner to everyone's surprise). There were also herons here.

 

Then there was a low and narrow bridge. It was okay in kayaks (paddling was tough but you could use the ridges on the corrugated culvert to push yourself along).

Then out into Shady Lake, which was mostly unremarkable. Lake, reeds, trees, repeat. We did see an eagle that we chased down the lake from tree to tree.

Then you turn around and reverse the trip. It was three hours of solid paddling and was probably the most challenging trip we took in the park. 

Jenn came to appreciate it on the return trip (where the current worked with you) but that was our only paddle that day (I was bushed). Definitely an early season (or maybe autumn) paddle.