Tag: grouse

So we are back to 15 Celsius and below! Brrrrr. We have not been to Wakami Lake Provincial Park before and I really like it here. We drove through the town of Chapleau and stopped for gas. Tip: you stop for gasoline whenever you see it when you are traveling up North. Chapleau is the closest place to the Park to get gas and it’s an hour drive away. So to get to Wakami Provincial Park, take 129 South to hwy 667 and then Wakami Lake is 21 miles down a paved bumpy road and then another 7 km on  a mostly gravel bumpy road to get to the Main Gate. Phew…… And just for interest, it is about 800 kms from where we live or about a 10 hour drive.

We had a beautiful site right on Wakami Lake, not one of the nicest sites we have been on but the view was great. So this lake is 35 kms long and also offers Interior camping, or backcountry camping. We had a welcoming committee, a bunch of ducks hanging around the shoreline at our site. This park has very poor Cell Service/WiFi, you have to go to the Parks Store to use it, and also no electricity sites in the Park. I don’t mind no electricity, it feels more like camping. They have four trails, 1 km to 2.5 km, but two were closed while we were there. Canoeing and kayaking on Wakami Lake and they also have backcountry sites.

They have a nice Day Use Area and while we were there (and we were the only people there) we saw Bald Eagles, Sandhill Cranes and Canada Geese having some fun. No photos sadly, they were too far away. This is a big fishing area/park and they have fish cleaning stations here as well. I would venture to say we were the only ones not fishing.

 One day we drove back to Chapleau for some groceries and gas, closest place for both.  The very small town of Sultan is somewhat close (35 Kms away) but they have no stores or gas stations.

There are a couple of nice trails here, although some were closed due to storm damage. We did the Beaver Meadows Trail, only about 1.7 kms and this trail needed trimming back and there were so many trees cut down and then just left where they lay. The trail did not get closer than 50 meters to the water but there were some very pretty, mossy spots.

They have a Logging Trail and it was an okay trail, not long at all but a very informative walk. They combined a hike with displays and information on the history of the Park. There was lots of construction taking place and some displays were rotting or falling down. So sad because it is part of our history and actually quite interesting. I hope they aren’t letting it go permanently.

We spotted a Northern Flicker but he was too fast for us and our cameras! We also had an interesting experience when we were sitting at our site having a beer and watching the water, which can be mesmerizing. So I was sitting by myself, Clint had went into the trailer to get something. I noticed two dragonflies flying together and then they landed on the table where my drink was. I called to Clint to bring cameras because I thought they were making little dragonflies but Nope. The one was eating the other one. You could literally hear him chewing the other ones head off. The sounds he made were incredible. So he chewed the head off and a bit of the body and then flew away.  Needless to say, that dragonfly did not get up again. A tad gross but also very fascinating. I did not know they ate each other, maybe they were rivals? So these are photos I took with my IPhone, Clint didn’t bring my camera out lol.

We also saw some Grouse as well as lots of ducks and although they have bear issues here, so they said, we did not see any bears.

We did drive just outside the Park and just before the gate was a nice spot that we stopped at a few times. We kept driving and just outside the gate we found an old dirt road that we drove down to see what was there.

Down the highway a ways, I think we were on the way to Chapleau, we spotted these signs on the side of the highway.

So that was our time at Wakami Provincial Park, I really liked it here, I don’t know why. Probably because we were in the middle of nowhere lol. But now it’s on to Fairbanks Provincial Park!