(Stage 2) Day 5 Tuesday May 31 – Jim Smith Point to Wayne's Cabin (Aslin Creek)

May 25, 2016

• Wake Up Time: 3:40 am


• Departure Time: 5:50 am


• Arrival Time: ?


• Distance Paddled: 22 kms + 3 kms hike (Total: 143)


• Total Paddling Time: 3 hours and 49 minutes


• Weather Conditions: Good with a nice tail wind but mostly overcast skies

This was to be a short day of paddling after the long day we had yesterday. It was funny that 22 kms of paddling now seemed short. Normally this would have seemed like a long paddle prior to this trip. However, we were planning to do a 10 km hike that day to a lake on a trail that showed up on our maps. The trail head was in an area called Aslin Creek in Entiako Provincial Park. We thought that a hike would be a nice change from paddling. That was the plan for this day.

The big concern for today was to get past Chelaslie Arm which can have very high winds. This is a very large inlet just to the north of where we needed to paddle. Since our next camp was on the other side of Natalkuz Lake (where we were now) we decided to cross over to the south side of the lake just prior to reaching Chelaslie Arm. This was a very good choice because, even though it was a fairly wide crossing, we had very calm waters. The end result was that we easily got past Chelaslie Arm. This was another area that the forestry people warned us about for high winds. Oh well, not on this day. Good for us.

Overall it was a nice comfortable paddle on the lake with overcast skies. But, man does the weather change fast around here. It was overcast when we started. Then cleared and then quickly back to overcast. By the time we reached the bay where Aslin Creek was, I was ready to get out of the kayak for the day. But to our surprise, when we paddled into the bay, we saw a log cabin with a dock. We paddled up to the dock, got out of our boats and walked around to see if anyone was there. There was a big sign that said: “Wayne's Cabin”. It looked like an outfitter's cabin for hunters and fishermen. The cabin seemed very well equipped with a nice cooking shelter, a ready made bear cache, and a very interesting outhouse.

We walked around the property to see if we could find the trail that we saw on the map and it looked like there was a trail behind the cabin that ATVs had used. So we figured that this was very likely our hiking trail. While looking around we saw some fairly fresh signs of bear activity (e.g. bear scat and tree scratchings). No doubt this was active bear country here. We decided to take our chances and set up camp right on the property.

It's probably a good time to mention that my buddy Arnie is an expert with whips. In his travels to Australia several years ago he learned the art of whip making and whip cracking and this guy can crack a whip for sure. Arnie used to crack his whip in the neighborhood and make quite a loud noise. It was so loud that some other neighbor (not me) complained to the city about the noise. This never bothered me. But on this trip, I realized that there is a damned good use for this whip. The cracking of this whip at the camp would have the effect of letting bears know that we were here. It sounds like a gun shot or maybe like a bear banger.

Now there are pros and cons to this. Making a sound like this could send a bear right into someone else's path. But, after being out there for a few days, it was pretty clear to us that we were the only people in the area. There was no one else around especially on this part of the circuit (i.e. stage 2).

After setting up camp, Maria and I decided to get a few things together (i.e. day pack and bear spray) for our hike and off we went. Arnie stayed behind. For much of this journey while paddling, we did notice the massive expanse of dead forests looking at the land from the water.

This country, referred to as the Cariboo region of British Columbia, has been severely afflicted by pine beetle infestation and then massive forest fires. The amount of devastation in terms of distance is quite shocking, to say the least. I knew that this existed from the news coverage on television but you don't really get a true sense of it until you're in it. This became much more apparent during our hike.

We followed this ATV trail for a while but eventually ran into an open area in a small valley that had burned down buildings. It looked like there was some sort of camp. There was all kinds of debris like 100lb propane tanks, stoves, beds and more. It looked like a war zone. This is when we started to get a true sense of the scale of devastation in the area. At this point we couldn't find a definite trail to get to this lake that we were looking for. But there was still a clear ATV path that continued on in another direction. So we followed this path and eventually realized that we were doing a loop back to where we came from. Which was fine.

Along this loop we arrived back at the end of the bay that we paddled into and stumbled onto another log cabin. We couldn't actually see this cabin from Wayne's cabin. This cabin was also really nice and very rustic. Like something you would see in a painting. To the side of this cabin was a shed that had five quads and a dirt bike. These two cabins were definitely actively being used but no one was around while we were there.

On the way to this second cabin we saw a lot of fresh bear scat and then there was a hunter's stand. We figured that we should make plenty of noise while walking this trail. The best bear defense is to let them know you're there. So we started shouting out: “Hey Bear”.

Eventually we ended up on the trail that took us back to Wayne's cabin which I started referring to as “Wayne's World”. We got back to camp and settled in for the day and did a little exploring around the cabin. The outhouse is definitely worthy of note. It was actually quite a nice structure. In it there was a “Shit House Poet's Wall” which was a whiteboard for people to write stuff on. One of the lines that caught my attention stated the following: “Some of the biggest dicks in this country hang out here”.

Although we couldn't get inside Wayne's cabin, it was sure nice to have the cabin there. Later in the afternoon it started to rain so we moved our camp chairs up to the covered porch of the cabin and got some nice shelter. We sat there for a while and then started getting dinner ready in the cooking shelter just below the cabin. Then after dinner we had a ready made bear cache to hang up the big food barrel. Altogether this was really an expected luxury camp.

Before going to bed we made sure that we cleaned up any traces of us being there. We wanted to make sure that we left this property exactly as we found it. I think we did a pretty good job of erasing our footprints. If Wayne happens to read this, thank you Wayne.