Since age 3, our son Dylan, (now 8), looks forward to that yearly backcountry canoe trip we enjoy so much. Most trips are done in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada, a 7700 square kilometer paradise of lakes, swamps, rivers and Boreal forest.

This year, I presented him his own map of the park and told him it was his decision where we should go. After looking over the map for several days, he sat me down to present me a couple of choices and asked me a few questions regarding the possible destinations he chose. His final choice was to do something he had never been a part of, a whitewater canoe trip! Namely, a trip down the Petawawa River (Petawawa comes from a local Algonquian language word biidaawewe meaning "where one hears a noise like this"). My best friend and I were more than eager to do this trip since it had been on our “to do list” for many years.

My wife chose to sit this one out, although she has a great sense of adventure, it does stop short of rapids and portages made for mountain goats. So the trip was arranged for my best friend Kevin, my son and myself to run this river in early August when the water levels are lower.


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Day 1 – Lake Travers to Little Thompson Rapids (approximately 14km):

Departed Brantford, Ontario 3:00 AM, arrived Pembroke, Ontario 8:30 AM, hearty breakfast of Bacon and eggs at the Bonanza Restaurant.

Arrived at Algonquin Portage at 9:30 AM just outside of the Sand Lake Gate of Algonquin Park to pick up Canoe and Paddles and arrange the shuttle we would require for the van.

A quick stop at the Sand Lake Gate to get our permits and we were on our way to Lake Travers which is located at the end of a gravel road 65 km into the widerness of what is Algonquin Park.

We arrived at the put in on south end of Lake Travers at approximately 11:30am Thursday morning, the skies were clearing after an unsettled start to the day.

Having packed very light to provide room in the Royalex canoe for my son, we were loaded and underway quickly, making a bee line for the north end of the lake about 6 km away where the channel narrows to again become the Petawawa River.

It took us about 15 minutes to become accustomed to the Royalex canoe since it does not handle at all like the normal flat water canoes we were accustomed to. Once we reached the river, we paddled another 4 km until we reached Big Thompson Rapids, a 350 m Class 2 rapid littered with many boulders. The scenery here is very rugged, consisting solely of dense coniferous vegetation right to the shore.

We portaged our gear across then worked our way back up along the right shore, carefully scouting our route through the boulders. Dylan chose to sit this one out and watched us run it instead.

After donning our helmets, we started river right, dropping over the small ledges at the old logging dam, quickly pulling the canoe to river left where we had a relatively clear run to the mid point of the rapid, then pulled slightly right to left of center to avoid some large debris down river left, the remaining part was a straight shot through to the end. It was a wonderful feeling and a great sense of accomplishment to have successfully run this rapid since it was the first in a long time for us.

500 m later is the beginning of Little Thompson Rapid, a 100m Class 2 that is really not very difficult except for the large rollers after the 1.5 foot ledge that love to swamp canoes. Instead of running the ledge at river right fully loaded, we chose to go river left, then drop down behind the ledge and avoiding the large rollers, we were concerned that the rollers would swamp the loaded canoe. Well, that didn’t work out as planned, instead, we ran aground and ended up pushing the canoe and Dylan though river left, I jumped back in before the water got too deep and pulled the canoe into an eddy at river left waiting for Kevin to catch up to us.

We chose a nice campsite at river right about 1 km further down. Once we set up our hammocks and tarps, collected some firewood and hung the food rope, Kevin realized he had left his pipe at the beginning of Big Thompson Rapid, being the adventurer he is, he jumped in the canoe and headed back to get it while Dylan and I proceeded to get the fire going and start preparing a meal of souvlaki, mashed potatoes and gravy. It took Kevin about 1 hour to return from successfully retrieving his pipe, along with a very funny story about 3 canoes and 1 kayak that all capsized/swamped in the rollers at Little Thompson Rapids. The remaining hours of the evening were spent sitting by the fire and absorbing the wonders of our peaceful surroundings.

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Day 2 – Little Thompson Rapids to Schooner Rapids (approximately 18km):

The next morning we awoke to the birds chirping and mist rising off the river. After a hearty breakfast of oats, we broke up camp and loaded the canoe. The first 3 km of our day were flat water interrupted only by one short swift, the scenery was amazing as we paddled through the large valley with the hills rising up in the distance.

The first rapid of the day was the Grillade Rapids, a 400 m stretch of Class 1’s that were a great way to loosen the muscles for Crooked Chute. The Grillades are run best just right of center and your route is easily visible.

A short stretch later, we reached Crooked Chute, a 1.5 km stretch of Class 3 rapid. I believe that most of Crooked Chute is actually a nice Class 2 with no real surprises, it is rated a Class 3 because of the chute at the end – for us, the chute was a mandatory portage due to the intensity of the chute and our fragile cargo. Luckily, there are 2 takeouts before the actual chute so for us, the portage was reduced from 1500 m to approximately 400m.

We had a leisurely lunch at the old ranger cabin that is situated at the bottom of the chute and is available for rent upon request. The crooked chute area is a great spot to see many remnants from the logging runs that took place here in the early 1900’s.

After a lunch of mac and cheese, soup and some gorp, we continued on our journey. Next up was another flat water section about 1 km long interrupted by one swift. After this come Rollway Rapids, a straight Class 3 at a good grade with rugged rock walls on both sides. We contemplated portaging this rapid but upon further investigation of our map found that it was likely a hard Class 2 upped to a Class 3 only because of the 2 foot ledge about 2/3rds of the way through the rapid. The rapid is very fast and technical and strewn with large boulders in the worst places, you are continually changing from river left to river right and there are no spots for resting, once you enter, you’ve signed up for the whole ride. About 2/3rds of the way through, we spotted the ledge and set ourselves up to drop over – SUCCESS!

No sooner said than done, we obviously let our guard down, because Kevin pulled hard left where I felt the current was going to take us past the right of a large boulder, by the time I was able to react to Kevin’s move, the river was pulling us sideways into the rock, we got hung up and took in just a little water, both Kevin and I jumped out into thigh-high rushing water. I tried to keep the gunnels up on the upriver side, while Kevin heaved to straighten the canoe to no avail. We did manage to get it straight but at this point it was half full of water and we weren’t going to go anywhere fast. We got Dylan safely on top of the boulder tied him off to Kevin, while Kevin kept the canoe just downriver of the boulder via another rope, using the boulder as a tie off point. I swam to shore river right, backtracked upriver and threw my rope bag to Kevin who tied off Dylan to it, I then swung Dylan into an eddy directly across from the rock, got him ashore and threw the bag back to Kevin. We repeated the move with the canoe. Lastly, I got Kevin ashore as well. We emptied the canoe, put all items back into it and realized Dylan’s Thermarest which he’d been using as a seat has gone for a swim downriver – oh well, that was the least of our worries. Dylan did not want to finish the rapid, so we hiked up the rock wall and through to the end of Rollway Rapid while Kevin took the canoe the remaining 200 m.

The next 1 km was once again, flat water, we managed to air dry relatively quick whilst chatting about our little mishap – Dylan wasn’t all that amused and started to feel weary about every ripple in the river.

Next up were the upper and lower Natch Rapids – both rated as a Class 3, the Natch portages are very rough to say the least, but both Natch Rapids contained ledges Dylan didn’t want to do, so Dylan and I portaged while Kevin ran the canoe through. The lower Natch Rapid’s ledge ended up being nothing to speak of, we had swifts harder than this.

The landscape at the Natch Rapids is breathtaking, 100m cliffs with a number of Peregrine falcons circling overhead surround you as you wind though this twisting portion of the river, absolutely spectacular.

The next 3 km were uneventful, only interrupted by one swift. After this stretch came Schooner Rapids, a 2.5 km set of Class 2 rapids that is very forgiving, we chose a campsite about 500 m into this set of rapids on river left.

First things first – time to see how well we did with the waterproof packing – all I can tell you is that water will find it’s way into just about anything, even the sea bags managed to get traces of water into them rolled up as per instructions. We strung up some clothesline for our clothes and laid our Thermarests onto some blueberry bushes – oh yes, Dylan’s Thermarest was found floating just beyond Rollway Rapids. Since we still had plenty of daylight, almost everything managed to dry.

As we hunted for firewood, we came upon an area in the forest where all the trees were flattened by the 2006 mid-summer storm that caused serious damage across this part of Ontario (Dylan and I were at the Baron River at that time, but that’s another story), it made for an easy time gathering wood for the evening’s campfire.
After a good dinner consisting of chicken stroganoff followed by plenty of pudding, a tired Dylan headed off to bed while Kevin and I stayed up late taking in the magic of what is Algonquin Park. The gurgling of the rapids, full moon low in the sky, the Milky Way above our heads, we sat down on some rocks at the shore and watched the beginnings of the Perseids Meteor shower. The only sign of technology was the odd satellite making it’s way across the star filled sky.


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Day 3 – Schooner rapids to take out at McManus Lake (approximately 22 km):

Another restful night in the hammocks and we awoke to our second beautiful morning in the park. After a similar breakfast to day 1, we broke up camp and loaded the canoe, Dylan was in good spirits again and ready to take on more rapids (as long as they weren’t Class 3’s!).

We finished the remainder of Schooner rapids without incident, the rapids were getting more shallow and there was more gravel versus boulders now. The routes through the rapids were more forgiving but in exchange the rapids were getting more shallow and getting hung up with a loaded canoe became a more frequent occurrence.

After Schooner, we had about 2 km of flat water and then entered our final set of rapids called 5 Mile Rapids a 4 km stretch of Class 1 that is a ton of fun to bump through without so much of a splash into the canoe.

Towards the end of 5 Mile Rapids, you start to see silver maples along the river’s shoreline, something unique only to the Petawawa in this part of Ontario, the landscape flattens out relatively fast and the river becomes 3 long but narrow lakes that are joined by little swifts. At the end of McManus Lake is the take out, our van was parked in the parking lot as promised by Algonquin Portage who performed the shuttle for us.

The Petawawa can be run spring to fall, in high water (spring) this river is a monster and all rapids are increased by at least one class. In mid water, the rapids are about the same as in low water, sometimes actually more forgiving because there will be less boulders to deal with.

During our trip the water levels in the Petawawa were just slightly higher than low which made it easier getting through the last few shallow rapids.

We had a great time doing this trip, the Petawawa is one of the best whitewater Canoe rivers in Canada, the rugged wilderness it winds through is spectacular to say the least, a memory we will all cherish forever. In Dylan’s words: “Well dad, I imagined it to be tougher than it was”.

I would not recommend running this river unless you meet all of the following criteria:

• You are an experienced canoeist, proficient at all paddle strokes, must have Class 2 whitewater canoe experience at minimum.
• You are using a whitewater canoe (unless you plan to portage EVERY rapid).
• Are capable of doing tough rocky portages with many elevation changes.
• Don’t mind getting wet!

Copyright © 2007
Matt Osterroth