Introduction

My wife and I have had Wabakimi Provincial Park on our bucket list for some time.  We've done countless trips to the BWCA and Quetico, and three trips to Woodland Caribou Provincial Park, but somehow Wabakimi never worked out.

There are several hurdles to negotiate to go to Wabakimi.  For a long time, it was difficult to obtain a planning map for the park.  Last December, however, we located a newly published official Wabakimi Provincial Park planning map (obtained from canoeing.com, but now available from other outlets).  So, that hurdle is no more.

The next one is logistics, though.  It seems like most Wabakimi trips start with a train ride to Shultz's Trail, Allenwater Bridge, or the Flindt River, or with an expensive float plane flight.  We were not inclined to take the train since it seemed like all too often you disembark in the middle of the night.  Also, we would have had to crate our pampered dog in the baggage car.  A float plane flight, on the other hand, would cost more than we wanted to spend.  Given that we had three weeks, we elected to paddle into the park from Little Caribou Lake instead.  This would be a fairly daunting way to enter the park on a shorter trip, given that you have to travel about 27 miles to the north and west before reaching the first fork in the path on Smoothrock Lake, but it worked well for us.

We also wanted to include the Kopka River in our itinerary, both for the scenery (spectacular!) and for the river experience.  Initially, we considered doing a large loop including the Brightsand River, but in the end cut most of the Kopka off.  Still, we were glad we saw the Seven Sisters portion of the river.  It made a great ending to our trip.

click here to go to Day 1

click here for maps of the trip

Calm evening on Smoothrock Lake