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June 20th, 2002 Glen had a dream last night. Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, he thought he heard the sounds of children. Maybe there is a story about children playing at the base of Crooked Rapids. We left the portage from Hell and our semi-comfortable campsite around 9:00am for Knee Lake and beyond. At Knee Rapids we landed on a sloping rock shelf and scouted the rapids. We were unable to find any sign of the portage from the top or the bottom. There appeared to be a faint trail along the top along the bedrock, but it didn't go anywhere once we reached bush cover. With the low water, exposed rock and a vague route at the bottom on river right, and no apparent portage, our options were limited. We decided to carry along the shore. This was done relatively smoothly, although footing was a bit tentative. There appeared to be a reasonable route beginning on river right, passing to river left, and then back to river right with some nasty looking "canoe rippers" near the bottom. It is likely that we could have run this set without mishap, but the consequences of an error in judgement is not something to be taken lightly. Glen and I saw at least 3 eagle nests on our route down to these rapids. Lots
of bear sign, but didn't see anything. The last section of minor rapids was easily navigated down the left side. We stopped to fish a little there and Glen caught a nice sized walleye. We stopped for lunch in a protected bay on Knee Lake reserve. This area is obvious still used by family groups on a regular basis, as there are a number of fairly well maintained cabins in this bay. After soup, walleye and tea, we continued toward Bentley Bay. Knee Lake is a Beautiful area with wide bays and channels in every direction. It took us the rest of the day to paddle out to Bentley Bay and then up the bay to Elak Dease, a once thriving Dene community. We were able to ride with the wind for at least 13k from one end of the bay to the other. For those who were able to sustain their families through trapping, hunting and fishing it must have been with great sadness that they stopped returning to this paradise. Chris and I used our hand held radios to locate a campsite as we arrived. This was the first time we made use of hand held radios. It was an interesting experiment, but probably didn't save us much time in this case. I thought it might save some time in locating campsites, and allow us to communicate across bays and islands when a good campsite isn't immediately available.
There is nothing on earth like being out here. Everything we need we are able to carry with us. The world of streets, telephones and all of the things that make the consumer based world function seems to very far from here. Tomorrow we paddle to Dreger Lake and possibly Sandy Lake.
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This evening we dined on hot spicy chicken gumbo, wild deer sausage, and dried
fruit. We are working on making our packs a little roomier and a litter lighter.
The objective is to have no food left when we stand at the top of Devil Portage
on Hayman Lake.