Panuke Lake?
Hugh Newman
I've been eyeing Panuke lake on google maps for quite some time now. Where is the best spot to put in on the northern side? Seems to be a lot of dirt roads on the southern section. Are any of them good enough for regular car to drive on? And anywhere to put in down there? Looking at the NS gov lake inventory map there seems to be a few camps along the shores too.
Please share any knowledge you have about this lake. Thanks.
PS: Anyone know what the fishing is like in there?
Hugh
Dusan Soudek
the best access to Panuke Lake is from Hwy. # 1 near St. Croix via, you won't believe it, the Panuke Lake Road. It's unpaved but usually in good shape. Another road goes to the dam at its outlet, but I don't have a firm recollection of it.
Access from the SE via the Bowater Mersey logging roads, i.e. the "Ingramport River Road", is problematic, as the roads are normally gated. The latest rumour is that the gates are now unlocked. That they just look locked but that the locks are gone. That needs to be verified.
Another access is via Dauphinee Mill Lake, Coolens Lake, and the Indian Hill portage. That will get you to the head of Panuke Lake. It would be a full day's trip to get there this way.
I don't know much about fishing in Panuke, but know tht there is small-mouthed bass there now.... They have a bass tournament there every year.
Dusan Soudek
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terry...@bellaliant.net
Terry
PS. Please note my new primary Email address: dev...@chebucto.ns.ca
On Thursday, July 19, 2012 2:35 PM, Dusan Soudek <sou...@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:
=============
terry...@bellaliant.net
This weekend I fullfilled a lifelong ambition to canoe across the
Province,
from Hubbards to St. Croix, via Panuke Lake. My son Paul
came with me, and
there were two other canoes as well (Peter Mumford
and Dave Young in one, and
Paul Bottomley and Mary MacCormack in the
other). The trip was done under the
auspices of the Halifax Outdoor
Club, and organized by Peter.
I've attached my GPS track of our trip onto two topo maps.
The
total distance travelled by canoe and foot (over land and water)
was 42.3 km.
We took a day and a half to do it, but it would have
been easy to do in one
day. Saturday was mostly rainy, but Sunday was
sunny and warm.
The
trip could have taken less than 9 hours of paddling and 2 hours
of portaging,
in total, including rest stops, but not including the
camping
stop.
This is how it would break down:
Dauphinee Mill Lake, 1 hr.,
5.5 km
Portage 1, 46 min., 0.8 km
Coolen Lake, 18 min., 1.4 km
Portage
2, 1 hr., 2.6 km
Panuke Lake, 6 hr., 28.3 km
Portage 3, 32 min., 0.3
km
Reservoir, Dam 1 to Dam 2, 1 hr., 1.9 km
Reservoir, Dam 2 to Dam 3, 30
min., 1.0 km
This is how it could have ended, as there is no need to
portage at
dam 2. In fact, the other two canoes left the trip at Dam 1, at
the
end of Panuke Lake, and did not go on to Portage 3. My son Paul and
I
went on, and I wanted to try the actual St. Croix River.
The
overflow of Dam 2 spills to the northeast into what becomes the
St. Croix
River, but the reservoir continues north without
obstruction, on to Dam 3,
where the flow enters a penstock and the
canoe trip must end. Instead of
doing that, Paul and I portaged out
on the right at Dam 2. At first, the
stream in the ravine is not
navigable, but then a stillwater begins, and we
put in there.
However, to our dismay, we found that stillwater to be quite
short,
followed by another long unnavigable section, so we aborted the
river
at that point, and portaged back to the reservoir. The route shown
on
the map is our actual route, and the dashed line labelled
"Better
Route" is what we should have done to stay in the
reservoir.
So instead of the last line in the table above, what we
actually did
was this:
Portage 4, 1 hr., 0.4 km (most of the time
spent scouting)
stillwater, 11 min., 0.2 km
Portage 5, 45 min., 0.3
km
Last leg of reservoir, 16 min., 0.5 km
One thing that was really
interesting was at the head of the
stillwater, the end of portage 4, there
was some evidence that there
had once been an old dam at that location (now
breached), and at the
other end of that stillwater, the start of portage 5,
there is still
an old dam (holding back the stillwater) and evidence of
old
sluiceways, etc. It seems like there must have been mills at
these
locations in the past.
The whole trip was really a lot of fun. I
had a great time.
I've uploaded some photos from the cross-province Panuke Lake canoe
trip on
my facebook page ...
There were too many photos for one album (limit is
60) so I had to
split it into two volumes.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5066&l=786f8&id=525626073
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5092&l=f0827&id=525626073
=============
