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Knowledge Base
Villages Baie du Poste (Mistissini, Mistassini Post) Maps (1:250,000 scale) Lac Baudeau 32-P Arrival In 1991 to 1993 we put in at the end of route 167 North, which is the road to Lac Albanel from Chibougamau. There is a provincial park campground (Réserve Fauniques des Lacs-Albanel-Mistassini-Waconichi) with drive-up camper sites here. We usually paid for just a couple of nights on the reserve since most of our summer would be spent outside of the park. The campsite at the head of the gorge between Lacs Albanel and Mistassini is an easy hour and a half paddle from the provincial park campground but bus fatigue advised for an overnight stay each year. We
also found that, as all the kids were minors, one adult fishing license
covered us all for a small catch of fish each day. Day
1 The
heading across Lac Albanel is marked on the Kenneally maps at 290°.
This is about right. Head out between the two groups of small
islands just N of W of the point at the end of the bay from the landing. There
are three portages around the gorge between Lacs Albanel and Mistassini.
The first is a 150-yard portage on the left bank. It is found at the
end of a long sweeping bend, 20 yards above the rapids. The landing is
small so we sent canoes down in pairs as the landing is in swift current
and it was the first portage at the beginning of the first day. This
rapids could be run without much difficulty. It is a short,
straight, steep shot with good-sized waves (although nothing compared to
the river below). We were usually still hazy from the bus and
hadn’t had time to get familiar with the kids. Furthermore the
gorge itself begins just a couple hundred yards below so an upset would
have been catastrophic for the gear. This portage puts out in a deep bay above the gorge itself. We camped across the bay from the portage at the lip of the gorge. The campsite itself is on the bay side in a (now old) burn. We found just enough room for the tents. The site was reached by 9:15 A.M. In 1992 and 1993 we saw “wildlife” here: a woodchuck and a mink. Day
2 The
second portage of the summer is 700 yards long. It begins SW of the
campsite on the same side of the bay and crosses the burn to a small pond.
Paddle to the next pond to the N and then wind your way up the creek N out
of the second pond. The
next portage begins where the creek dries up. It walks about 1000
yards to Lac Mistassini. Beware the corduroy and the steep hill at
the end if it is a soggy day. There is a campsite at the end of the
portage. It is grassy, and was well littered with winter detritus
all three years, but there is ample room to wait out a wind if necessary. We
found “Carp’s Snowy Point” campsite tucked away at the end of the
long point separating the portage bay from the east body of the lake. The
site is in the shelter of the point on its eastern shore. There are
three small clearings. The old fireplace was found in the center one
under an old windfall. We put our kitchen in the southern clearing
with the staff tent. The northern clearing was fairly well
overgrown. The campsite was true to the 1974 Sakami River notes in
the Keewaydin Map Room. We were windbound here a day and a half in 1992 and firebound here for two days in 1993. Danny Carpenter and Heb Evans (both long-time trip leaders at Keewaydin) were “snowbound” here in flurries and a chill in late June of 1972. Deep in the bay is a fishing outfitter run by the local Cree called Camp Vieux Poste. The managers proved very helpful in 1993, providing us both with information about the fires on the Wabissinane and a ride down the lake so we could phone in our itinerary changes to the base camp in Temagami. (I am sure Dan Sr. heard the radio call first from their island and headed over to Keewaydin “for a potato or two” and to tell Danny).
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