(End of Stage 1) Day 4 Monday May 30 – Private Barge Crossing to Jim Smith Point

May 25, 2016

• Wake Up Time: 3:40 am


• Departure Time: 5:50 am


• Arrival Time: ?


• Distance Paddled: 37 kms (Total: 118)


• Total Paddling Time: 7 hours and 26 minutes


• Weather Weather Conditions: Good to Very Good later

At this barge crossing campsite there was a little bay just around the corner from where we were. Little did we know, when we set up camp there yesterday, that this was a gathering spot for a large flock of geese. Of course, they all arrived at this spot later in the evening after we went to bed. I love geese but these guys kept squawking most of the night and kept me up. They did this intermittently throughout the night. So, needless to say, I got a restless sleep. But this is the joy of being out in the wilderness. It became music to my hears as they say.

This would turn out to be one of the best days out on the water so far, in terms of the weather. We woke up at 3:40 am with the temperature being quite crisp (4 degrees Celsius). But it seemed colder than that because we noticed frost on the boats when we were packing them up.

We knew that we were going to have a spectacular day when we crawled out of our tents and noticed that the sky was completely clear. We could see stars and a faint orange light over the mountains to the east. It was a spectacular morning. Now this is what makes life worth living. Oh yeah!

We got out on the water at 5:50 am and started paddling in dead calm waters. We would end up paddling 37 kms that day. The longest distance yet. Prior to this trip, I used to think that 10 to 15 kms was long. But our strength really started to build up. Nonetheless, at the end of the 37 kms I was really worn out.

The very first thing we came across out on the water was a beaver swimming. That was pretty cool because Arnie and Maria actually got quite close to it. It was almost as if the beaver was curious about them and wanted to check them out.

As we paddled on, the scenery really started to change. Up until the barge crossing the general landscape was, more or less, soft rolling hills with the odd farm along the shoreline. It was actually quite beautiful but not what you would expect in the British Columbia interior. But, from this day forward, we would start noticing some dramatic changes in the geography.

First of all, with the lake becoming much narrower, we started to come across a lot more of the underwater dead forests along the shore. As stated before, much of the water on this circuit exists because of flooding from the Kenney Dam. With all these dead trees sticking out of the water, we started to notice a lot of Osprey nests and, therefore, began to refer to this area as Osprey city. We were treated to some spectacular aerial displays of flight. Honestly, Ospreys are one of the most impressive birds to watch. We were certainly graced by their presence. The nests themselves are equally as impressive and as large as Bald Eagle nests from what I could see. We also started noticing a lot of fish jumping. Arnie was really tempted to cast his fishing line out. But we just found it too awkward to start fishing with the amount of paddling we were trying to get in each day.

After a while on this long paddle, I started to notice that I was really struggling to keep up with Arnie and Maria. Then a funny sound started to catch my attention. The sound of my kayak cart wheels slightly dragging in the water. This cart was tied down to the outside, back of the kayak. I guess I didn't really notice this before because, on the previous days, we had windier conditions. But then it finally hit me after just over one hundred kilometres that, maybe, these damned wheels (slightly touching the water) were creating just enough drag to cause the kayak to slow down.

Well call me stupid and tell me that this is just obvious. But, I have to say that I did have other things on my mind during the first few days. So, at our next break point, I decided to turn the kayak cart around and fasten it so that the wheels were no longer touching the water. When we got back into our boats and I pushed my kayak away from the shore, lo and behold, a smooth glide like I hadn't experienced yet on this trip. All of a sudden I realized that this damned boat is supposed to glide in the water almost effortlessly. The boat actually moved forward about 6 meters without a single paddle.

Ok, I wanted the resistance to build up my strength. Over one hundred kilometres of paddling resistance. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. When I started paddling without the resistance man did I start to move. The rest of the journey would be much more comfortable in terms of physical exertion from paddling.

But, before I leave this spot where I made this small adjustment, I have to mention the two bald eagles that were displaying a spectacular aerial ballet right in front of us. At first we only noticed one eagle but then a second appeared. There was a nest right near the beach where we landed. My guess is that, with our presence there, they were trying to distract our attention away from the nest. Eventually, they started to catch the thermals and rise up higher into the air. These birds are truly amazing to watch. I've seen thousands of these birds here in British Columbia over the years and I never get tired of seeing them. With the average wing span of an adult eagle being about six feet, they are impressive to say the least. What was really cool was that they returned to the nest as we were paddling away.

So from this point on I started to feel the distance and my arms started getting tired. Our goal was to reach Jim Smith Point and look for a camping spot on one of the islands just off the point. This would mark the end of the first stage of the trip (i.e. as mentioned in the intro regarding the three main stages of the Nechako circuit).

Maria and Arnie had gotten a fair distance ahead of me. On the last stretch of paddling for the day I kept looking ahead at the land and couldn't figure out where the point was. The land that I was looking at, which had a point, seemed so far away and I wondered if it could be that far away after all the distance we had covered already. But then I noticed that Maria and Arnie had turned their canoe towards the shore well before the point I was looking at.

It took me about five minutes to catch up to them and, once I did, I realized that we had finally reached Jim Smith Point. The island that was just off the point was actually very close to the point itself. We paddled a little ways along the shoreline of the island but couldn't really see any good places to land the boats or to set up camp. However, Jim Smith Point itself had a really nice beach area with great views all around. There was also a good place to set up a bear cache away from our tents. However, we couldn't see any signs of bear activity in this area. So that's where we ended up. It was great choice.