Trip Report: Albany River
by Joan Furlong and Mary Jo Wuetrich

The legendary Albany River flows across northern Ontario and empties into James Bay. We had the first ten days in August to paddle the Albany, so we settled on a 100-mile section from Osnaburgh Lake to Minimiska Lake.

Our party consisted of 5 MCA members. Mary Jo Wuetrich paddled her 14' solo wilderness tripper "Lonestar," a Mad River Guide. John Norman and Jim Catlin (who joined the MCA at the end of the trip) paddled an Old Town Penobscot, a 17' straight-keeled Royalex cruiser. Randy Strobel and Joan Furlong were in an Old Town Appalachian, a 16' whitewater playboat.

Jim flew into the airport at International Falls from Appleton, Wisconsin. We picked him up on our drive to Pickle Lake, Ontario, five hours north of the border. We had arranged for Canoe Frontier to drive us from Pickle Lake to the put-in on Osnaburgh Lake. Later they would also be responsible for flying us out of Miminiska Lake back to the airport in Pickle Lake.

After about 2 hours on Osnaburgh Lake we got hit with a huge storm—nearby lighting strikes, thunder and hail-like rain—a harbinger of things to come. It rained over half of the time we were on the river. In addition, our outfitter had reported to us that it had been a wet summer. We had an unexpected abundance of mosquitoes, not to mention black-flies and their biting and blood-thirsty companions, deer-flies. The bugs felt more like June than early August.

The second day, after running our first class I rapid, we smelled smoke. We suspected another camper had left their campfire smoldering. We stopped to put it out and discovered a nascent forest fire of about two acres. There were multiple charred areas that were still smoldering and we saw some areas still aflame. The area had lots of blow down and we figured that lightning from the previous day’s storm had caused the fire. The area was far too large for us to douse with our bailers, but we were not concerned as the ground was saturated from the same storms.

The information we found about the Albany River before we left was sketchy. We thought it could be bigger and pushier then it was. However, it turned out to be what we were looking for: lots of class I and class II whitewater. We scouted the class II’s from shore and found most of them to be much easier than they appeared. There were four well-trodden portages around waterfalls. We found out later from Lisa Cox (owner of Canoe Frontier), that there was a dam just west of our put-in. Lake St. Joseph is its reservoir. The dam’s influence can be felt down to Fort Hope. She said that when other rivers are raging with the spring run-off, she paddles the Albany because the water level is manageable.

We had to be creative in finding our campsites. The Albany is in that gray area between the Canadian Shield and the Hudson Bay lowlands. There were some small rocky sites but otherwise it often involved bushwhacking in the alders. One of our favorite pieces of gear turned out to be a Kelty sunshade. It was ironic with all the rain we had, but it worked great. It was self-supporting, waterproof, and tall enough to stand under. We don’t know how it would react in strong wind, but it held up fine in moderate winds. Jim had replaced the original carbon fiber poles with aluminum poles, which made it lighter and stronger. The retrofit was done by TA Enterprises of Vancouver, WA. Custom poles are what these folks do for a living.

The river itself was very scenic and clean with abundant crawfish and clams. Except for a couple of fishing and hunting camps, the banks were just as clean. We didn’t see much wildlife except for some curious otters, and a couple of moose. The trees were full of cedar waxwings and chickadees. Pelicans, a Harlan’s hawk and sandhill cranes were also spotted as well as many eagles and a couple of osprey. Except for a very few people fishing, we had the river to ourselves. Speaking of fishing, Jim and John did catch a few Northerns, which were a welcome addition to our menus.

Randy celebrated his 44th birthday on the trip. MaryJo prepared a special birthday dinner of curried tofu that was delectable, followed by freshly baked brownies and candles.

A single engine propjet (with 650 reassuring horsepower and a cooler of ice-cold Labatt’s) picked us up at Minimiska Lake. The cost was $700.00. The view from the air was captivating. All you saw was a boreal forest of black spruce and poplars pocketed with bogs, lakes, tiny creeks and rivers. No roads or logging could be seen anywhere. This country and Wabikimi to the south remain virgin wilderness. The view to the North of endless boreal forest was especially tempting. Wild rivers like the Attawapiskat, Ostokwin, Winisk, and Ekwan lay just beyond the horizon. We’ll be back, soon!

Thanks Uncle Wally!