Up until this summer I’d never paddled any part of the Nipissing River. I’ve been looking at it for years, but had never been able to make the timing work. My trips tend to focus on routes that can be done in three or four days, which makes getting any distance down the Nip difficult. Entering the Park across its western border between the Tim and Kawayamog access points, and flowing east, eventually, to Cedar Lake, the Nip runs through the central northwest part of the park, and is decent enough trip just to get to, let alone paddle. As a result, much of the river is about as interior as you can get in Algonquin. Once you’re on it, there are very few easy outs. This requires setting aside a decent chunk of free time if you want to paddle it, and  free time is something I vaguely remember from my 20s, but not something I have much of these days. 

This summer, however, I managed to set aside a full week for a solo trip in early August. I immediately knew what I wanted to do with that week, and booked a loop starting from the Tim access point and ending, 8 days and 136 KM later, back at the Tim access. In between visits to the Tim Lake parking lot, I planned on paddling the Nipissing from Big Bob to Highview, cutting north through Birchcliffe to Maple Creek, coming back south by way of Nadine and Robertson, then heading home through Shippagew and the low maintenance route just north of the Tim River. It was an ambitious route for me, but I thought it was doable. 136 KM works out to less than 20 KM a day, and I’m generally comfortable with somewhere between 15-20 kilometers on any given day.

Hold on, I need to rework that last sentence a bit. 

136 KM works out to less than 20 KM a day, and I’m generally comfortable with somewhere between 15-20 kilometers of lake travel on any given day. Now, in my mental tripping dictionary, “lake travel” doesn’t mean only paddling. It’s basically shorthand for a typical tripping day that would include lakes, portages and even some creeks or rivers. What it doesn’t mean is 20 straight kilometers of river travel. And what it definitely doesn’t mean is 20 not at all straight kilometers of sometimes river sometimes creek masquerading as a river travel in early August. That, as it turns out, I am not comfortable with. At all.

The first part of my route, 30 of the first 35 KM in fact, was along the Nip. In between the Big Bob portage and Grass Lake, and particularly in between the P200 and P165 along that stretch, the Nipissing gets narrow, shallow and crowded. Alders lean in from either side of the river until it can feel like you’re pushing through the world’s scratchiest hedge maze (it’s like the banks are lined with angry cats and they all want to take a swipe at your eyes). There are quite a few switchbacks, which means there are quite a few opportunities to swing round a corner, realize you’re about to ram into the wall of alder on the far side of the creek, overcorrect and instead ram into the wall of alder on the near side of the creek. But, even more aggravating than these two, uh, aggravations, is the constant hopping in and out of the canoe to drag across mud flats, rock gardens and beaver dams. The end result for me was that a 5 KM stretch that would have taken me less than an hour on open water took over three hours along the Nip, and left me feeling like I’d just done 25 KM.

This was day 2 of my trip. I was meant to be ending the day at Highview Cabin, which is another 15 KM of river travel (give or take) from Grass Lake. By the time I arrived at Grass Lake I didn’t think I had another 15 meters in me. I ended up pulling out on the campsite at Loontail Creek Junction, my trip plan in flames. I paddled out the next day, tail between my (very sore) legs. My 8 day epic adventure had turned into a 2.5 day epic fiasco. It sucked.

And it was preventable. Or, at least, it was forseeable.

Water levels decline as the summer wears on. In early spring the melting snow and ice feeds into Algonquin’s rivers, making them higher and faster. A particularly rainy summer can keep that going for a while, but eventually things slow down. Water levels start to drop and rivers become creeks. A relatively pleasant paddle in May can turn into a relatively unpleasant slog by September. That’s what happened for me. I should have realized that water levels were going to be a problem. It was August, and it hadn’t been a particularly rainy summer. Heck, there’s even a warning on the map that reads “low water levels (especially later in summer) and alder can be a problem between Big Bob Lake and Loontail Creek on the Nipissing River”. I should have paid more attention to that warning. But I didn’t, and things went south. Or, more accurately, things did not go south. Or north. or in any direction at all. Things ground to a standstill and my patience ground down to nothing.

I’ve spoken with people who have done this stretch of the Nip in spring. Their experiences have typically been very different from mine. Sure, there are still the twists and turns and occasional run in with the alder spiders, but from what I’ve heard, this section of the Nip is actually quite pleasant to paddle in May and June. Higher water levels mean fewer record scratch stops as your canoe glides above creek rocks and submerged logs, not into them. Your progress might still be slower than on open water, but at least you’ll feel like you’re making progress. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I should have given myself more time to deal with this part of the river. If I’d set my first night for Big Bob Lake, my second for Grass Lake and my third for Highview cabin, that stretch between the two portages would have still been tough, but it wouldn’t have been insurmountable. Because I’d planned such long days to start the trip, I had no chance of catching up once I fell behind. 

And maybe that’s the overarching lesson here. Sure, being aware of and planning for changing water levels is important, but really that’s just part of making sure you understand your route. 20 KM from Big Trout to Burnt Island is one thing, 20 KM from Big Bob to High Dam is another. The distance might be the same, but the difficulty is likely very different. Water levels matter. Maintenance levels matter. Time of year matters. Terrain matters. I forgot all that. My main focus was on the distance I wanted to travel each day. I’d like to say that all other considerations were secondary, but honestly they didn’t even factor in. Once I’d measured my 15-20 kilometers on the map, I moved on to my next segment with no thought for what those kilometers might hold.

That was a mistake. Hopefully, not one I’ll be repeating any time soon (that sound you just heard is the May 2023 trip I just booked clearing its throat and suggesting I should maybe re-read this section).