The Nations Lakes and River system is nestled northwest of Prince George B.C. in the eastern foothills of the Northern Coastal Range. Bill and I have heard about for years, and found it’s remoteness alluring. This summer, with Viv’s ankle injury, the big hike we spent half a year routing and planning was sadly out of the question. So we pivoted to paddling! As it turned out, a massive fire broke out in the middle of where we would have been hiking so it all worked out.
Most people (every one else?) get a shuttle to the most northern lake, and paddle down the various lakes and rivers. But, we had so much time on our hands, and really wanted to be in the wilderness for a good while! Mid no-hiking-options-scheming, Bill looks at Viv and says, “what if … we yoyo it?” Viv immediately brightened into a huge smile.
To ‘yoyo’ something is thru-hiker slang for doing a route twice by going in, and then coming back the way you entered. After studying many YouTube videos of Nations River, and equipped with the knowledge that the legendary canoeist Adam Shoalts goes upstream for months at a time and seems to not hate his life, we decided to do it. How hard can going against the water flow really be?
Since our daily journals are kind of long, here are some summaries:
- The longest river section took us 6 hours to upstream. We imagined that all the animals were laughing at us – “look at these idiots going the wrong way!”
- Surprisingly, the hardest day was not an upstreaming day, but rather one with unforgiving headwind which made us paddle at less than 2km a hour!
- As far as the local outfitter knows, we’re the first to have yoyo-ed this route
- The full trip was 10 days, and day 9 was the first day we didn’t get headwind!
- It was awesome!
Now, our journals!
Day 0
We drove from Pemby to Prince George! Pemby had the evacuation alert lifted today, so it seems our house won’t burn down while we’re away. Phew!
Easy drive. We went to our favourite Pakistani restaurant in Williams Lake (Pak Samosa House). At Prince George we went 5-pin bowling for three hours and got their nachos – filling, but very salty.
Day 1 – 18km
The day started with some cold coffee and a four hour drive from the hotel to the canoe launch at the fishing lodge. Their outhouse smelled of freshly cut logs, had 3-ply, and automatically played music (seriously) while you did your business!
The paddle was rather nice, with scenery really giving us Ontario vibes. The one storm cloud was, as you might expect, consistently on top of us so we got to have some nice drizzle while looking at blue sky everywhere else. At least it was funny.
Camped at a canoe-in rec site called Sarah Point where we realized we forgot to pack tupperware. Luckily dinner isn’t that important.
Just kidding! We figured it out with what we had.
Day 2 – 20km
Bit of a lie-in – got going at 9:30am. Another beautiful day, very few clouds. Easy paddle along the rest of Chuchi Lake, and we spotted two moose! A mama and baby. Bill’s sneeze frightened them away.
As soon as the got to the river segment we realized it would be tougher than expected. Immediately it was too fast to paddle upstream. Luckily, it was also super shallow, so we hopped out and pulled the canoe with rope. We alternated paddling (in the deep, slow moving sections) and lining (in the shallow, fast sections). Still, it took us about 2 hours 15 minutes of hard work to get to Tchentlo Lake (the big one).
We were both pretty tired after the river (Viv was falling asleep while paddling) so we took a power nap break, and then decided to stop early at Miner’s Camp, where we promptly had a proper nap. We were supposed to go 15km more to Progress Point, so we are pretty behind on the itinerary now. Oh well, we have lots of buffer, and the river was much more tiring than expected.
Miner’s camp is surprisingly interesting, with rows of cases of core samples. No idea when or why they did this, but it’s interesting. The outhouse is unusable though, good job we have our shovel!
Day 3 – 20km
Shite headwind today. The thrill of moving 2km/hr. Foot and a half tall swells, splashing plenty of water into the canoe. Oh god. Bill even began to feel seasick. Can’t even stop for snacks or filtering water because we’d move backwards. Aiya. This was our hardest day of paddling ever.
The wind was so strong it made open water bottles whistle! Naturally, we did not make it to the planned campsite. Instead, we beached at a small sandy spit, terraformed a flat tent-sized sand area, and called it good.
Of course, the water was as calm as ever by the time we were having dinner. Grrr!
Day 4 – 22km
Lovely calm morning. We were motoring along at more than 4km/hr! And not even paddling that hard! What a difference fair weather makes. We had a break at Larry’s point but quickly made it to the middle river.
At first it was calm – a nice meadow section with not much flow. We had some great views of a bald eagle. At some point the river started flowing, and we had to do our old trick of lining the canoe. We were able to paddle parts but it took a long time overall. We went under a bridge (technically we could have portaged to the bridge) and had to carry the canoe once or twice around obstacles. All in all it took three and a half hours to get to Indata Lake, including a couple breaks.
The last river obstacle was an (in progress) beaver dam. Quite ambitious! As we paddled into the lake we saw the beaver! He slapped his tail at us and dove.
Paddling to Indata Camp was easy. We got to camp around 4:30pm – lots of time to swim and hammock! It’s a nice campsite but there are quite a few dead trees around. I think we are safe in our tent, but we did hear one fall as we lay in bed. Scary!
Tomorrow we tackle the final river section. It’s the longest, and almost definitely has log jams to navigate. We’ll see how we get on!
Day 5 – 18km – Hell River
A headwind paddle – anticipated at this point – brought us to our last river section. It immediately began with a massive log jam! Imagine a story tall pile of dead trees obstructing the river, and the only way to get around is to bushwhack with your canoe. YEP. Heavy packs in a mess of willow bushes dragging this heavy-ass canoe. That was a first.
Oh but it wasn’t the last. There were two more. The second one was the most hellish because it was much, much longer. Luckily it wasn’t raining (foreshadowing our return journey). There were also a few fallen trees to carry the canoe around but these were a walk in the park compared to the log jams!
Besides the log jams, the river consisted of the usual tough upstream paddling and walking the canoe when the flow was too fast, which was often. Our toenails started to turn into a shade of brown from all the mud (nostalgically, this happened last year too when we hiked for a day in mud).
But alas, after nearly 6 hours in the river, we made it to our last lake – Tsayta! Happy to call this a complete yoyo (and not paddle all the way to where people normally put in – there isn’t anything special there) because we are exhausted, we paddled (against headwind of course) to the first campsite and had two cups of tea, a nice game of Crib, and our favourite meal for dinner – beans and rice.
Day 6 – 20km – Easy River
After some debate, we decided to head back down the river to Indata Lake and then take a zero day, instead of resting at Tsayta Lake. The reasoning was mostly weather dependent – forecast was for rain today and tomorrow, but heavier tomorrow. So we figured we get it out of the way and relax tomorrow.
In the end, we barely got rained on! It was chilly in the morning, and we fought a headwind heading to the river (of course), but once we were on the river we were flying! Up river took almost 6 hours, but downriver took under 3 hours! The log jams were still a little annoying, but it was nice to know how many there were ahead of time, and the river paddling was a nice break this time, instead of tiring drudgery.
We paddled most of Indata Lake to camp at Limestone Camp (against headwind, naturally). We had a nap, and then our special dinner! Very yummy. From camp, it looked like dark rain clouds had just missed us. It’s currently raining, but not very heavily. We’ll see how tomorrow is though!
Day 7 – Zero Day!
Lazy day all day. It did rain more than yesterday, but still not very much. Very nice to rest our arms! We levelled up our stroopwaffle game by heating it up over the hot tea. Yum!
Day 8 – 25km – “Hot” Springs
Cold night last night. We slept so well that Bill slept through the alarm. Whoops. Got going not too late. Beautiful day. Partly cloudy but barely got rained on.
Short paddle to the river, then a fun ride downstream! Took us just over an hour, maybe an hour fifteen, versus our 3.5 hour upstream struggle. What a difference!
We paddled against slight headwind to the Tchentlo Hot Springs – more like warm puddles. They were pretty gross with pond scum too, and very shallow, so we didn’t get in. Just dipped our feet. Viv rated them 5/10, and Bill rated them 1/10. Was a nice lunch spot!
The haziness from when we first started is all gone – maybe after the rain – so we can see the nearby mountains much more clearly. Very pretty!
The water was quite calm as we kept paddling so we made good time. We decided to stop as planned at Progress Point, even though it was only about 3:30pm. The next nice spot to camp would be Miner’s Camp, which is more than 15km away, so a bit far.
Forecast tomorrow is for rain. We could pull another zero day, but we might push through it. Not sure!
Day 9 – 22 km – Skirting Around Storms
Rain was very heavy when we woke up so we relented to having another zero, after all a whooping 16mm of rain is forecasted. When the rain paused at around 10AM, we got out to make breakfast. There still are few things more satisfying than a warm cup of tea on a crisp wilderness morning.
Given the new lack of rain, Viv suggested the idea that we paddle on – and Bill agreed!
First day paddling without direct headwind! We were speeeeedy. At some point we saw a group of otters swimming along the shore! One poked his head up like a meerkat to look at us.
We kept on taking our wets (rain gear) on and off because various rain clouds were fly over us, but none lasted long.
There was one point the wind rapidly picked up within minutes as a storm approached. The waves were breaking, and it was the second strongest we’ve had on this trip! Luckily, unlike Headwind Hell Day, it was tailwind!!! Incredible! Both of us were simultaneously shocked at how fast we were going and how scary the storm clouds looked. Luckily the worst of the rain missed us so we got to just ride the waves.
We’re both very excited for the river section tomorrow. As we’ve learned, downstream is a lot faster than upstream so without any logjams, tomorrow’s river should be a treat!
Day 10 – 32km – Racing Out
We got up fairly lazily, enjoying the sun and drying things out. We left maybe 9:30am. The paddle down the river was fun, and only took about 30 minutes. We got a nice tailwind along Chuchi Lake, and mixed sun and clouds. Bill had a dip at one point but it was too cold for Viv.
At some point we realized we could probably drive out to Prince George and get yummy dinner! So we really started going for it, and the tailwind was really helping! We reached the lodge before 4:30pm.
We met one of the locals (not Daniel, actually didn’t get his name) who was impressed to learn that we actually went all the way upstream to Tsayta. Apparently there may have been some betting on us – him and Daniel definitely didn’t think we’d make it. Some people have attempted upstream paddles in the past, but no one has done it (he mentioned a pair of Swiss paddlers who didn’t make it to Tchentlo). As far as he knows, we’re the first!
Ripped it to Vanderhoof, but couldn’t find a good restaurant in PG that would be open by the time we arrived, so we went to Cozy Corner Pizzeria – not bad! Although neither of us got Pizza. Staying in Vanderhoof tonight, back to Pemby tomorrow. It will be a long drive – we have to detour to Kamloops due to a large fire along Highway 97 that pretty much wiped out Clinton.
Fin!
Love the trip and post!
🤩 wow you guys always have the most exciting adventures.
Thanks for the pics and the journal. Great memories for forever❣️❣️