canoeing Waverley - Salmon River Long Lake Wilderness Area (HRM) last weekend...

[Dusan Soudek]

   On Saturday, four of us had a grand old time canoeing, hauling-over and portaging up Lake Major, through dammed East Lake (drawn down by Halifax Water), and on to the head of an unnamed pond just upstream of Long Duck Lake, where we camped at the site of Ernst Camp, an early-20th century loggers' camp. In the evening we took the old Three Mile Road and explored its namesake lake, the impressive old dam at Ernst Lake, and caught a glimpse of the difficult-to-access South Red Trout Lake.

   On Sunday morning we portaged into crystal-clear Dudley Lake, paddled across, and hiked over an old logging road to Byron Lake, the terminus of our trip there last fall, via Salmon River Long Lake and and the Otter Lake roadhead. And then we backtracked all the way home to our cars near the outlet of Lake Major.

   The flow in navigable East Brook below East Lake was surprisingly high, and I briefly considered running the section to Lake Major. The deerflies weren't too bad. And, yessir, we found the first ripe wild blueberries of the season!

   Dusan Soudek