Canoeing Stuart River

A long weekend to start the summer.  What better way to celebrate than by canoeing 116 km downstream from our front doorstep with some friends, conquering an outstanding adventure.
We first attempted paddling the Stuart River a few years ago, but grossly underestimated the length of the trip.  This time we set out with tents, food, maps and more food. We put in on Stuart Lake, right across from the office, starting our adventure on a Friday evening.

The first set of rapids was near the start.  We all got a little wet from a pretty big standing wave and had to bail out.

It's an all right way to spend the long weekend :)

Rise and Shine.

Joss and Joe paddling down the river.

Lindsay and Mark paddling.

Km 37.....  or so

Eagle in a nest.

Lunch time.  Yum!

Some little hoodoos at our lunch spot.

Time to continue down the river.

Neat cliffs.

Wolf tracks at Saturday night's campsite...

A great day of paddling.  We're around 2/3 of the way there.

Joss is supervising while the boys set up camp.

Time for a little fishing.

And the food goes up a tree.

Day 3 and we're still smiling :)

The calm before the rapids

The Chun-Lac rapids.  They were pretty fun.  Not too big, but there were a lot of them.

At the confluence of the Stuart and the Nechako Rivers, there is a historic site - Chun-Lac.  This is the site of a Saik'uz native village. A few hundred years ago, another group massacred the villagers.  It was a bloody event.  The chief and some others returned to find a few people hiding in the nearby woods and the majority of their friends and family dead.   

Today you can see the dips in the land where the houses and the cache pits used to be.  It was a fairly large village in its time.

Caught a fish in the Nechako River :)

What a beautiful end to the weekend.

Almost there.

The paddling crew!