Day 2
Tim River to
Shippagew
Approx 10-14 miles since the river is so twisty
860 meters of portages

The day started out with no rain. The sky looked clear so it should be a good day. My body was still sore from the long day yesterday and the portages. Plus I knew that tomorrow morning we would have the longest portage of our trip. I really was not looking forward to that. The bugs where out but didn't seem as bad as the day before.

After some coffee and breakfast we broke camp and said goodbye to our 1st campsite.

Down the Tim river we headed. Yesterday we crossed beaver damn after beaver damn but today they eased up some. The river is twisty back and forth and narrow. Today was a good day to really learn how to steer your canoe. The water depth varied in the river from shallow to deep. The river sported all kinds of plant life. The grass in the river looked like long flowing hair and on the land wild flowers where everywhere.


I read many trip logs about the Tim river and the length of time to do the river. Well I have to say they are all true. The river was endless it seemed. We paddled and paddled. The day turned out to be a wonderful day, sunny with a slight breeze and bugs where OK. Both of us liked being in smaller water since you can see all around you better. nature was everywhere. Except for the little noise we made it was quite. There wasn't any planes flying over just the sounds of nature. Pretty relaxing even though your body was sore.

It was about noon when we made our 1st portage of the day. Just after the rapids we decided to try some fishing in the rapids. We used some little silver spoons and started catching fish. nothing supper big but fish is fish when it comes to fighting them. This is where we had our 1st experience with the black flies. We both had our long shirts and bug nets on plus our gloves. The black flies where attracted to the dark color of my gloves. They would not move off my hand for anything. You could swat them but back they would come. They where not biting though the gloves so we just had to learn to tolerate them. We saved a few of our catch and started a fire at the nearby campground and cooked up some fish for lunch. This was a nice break in the middle of day. Smoke from the fire chased away the bugs so we could remove our head nets and eat.

This stop took us 2-hours and we where only half way on our trip so we put the fire out and started paddling again. We made our next portage in short time and kept heading down the river towards Shippagew. The river opened up more and the trees spread apart. Felt more like paddling in a large open field with tree lines on the edges. The wind had pick up and was blowing pretty hard at our face. I thought the wind blew out of the west where this wind was coming out of the north northeast. Blowing wind slowed down our progress and made paddling more strenuous. This went on for hours it seemed. Our arms started to feel the affect of the wind. We spotted a moose on one of the many curves.














Beaver damns, I thought we where done with those hours ago but the Tim river still threw more at us.

We finally made it into the cover of trees so the wind had slowed down and the river narrowed up. This made paddling easier. We spooked another moose on the river.

We made it to our last portage to Shippagew. We made short work of this and headed for a campsite. Shippagew is a smaller lake not to wide. The wind was blowing again straight at our faces. We could see the red markings of the campgrounds but our progress was slow with the wind. We both wanted to get off the water and relax so we pushed hard and made it to camp.

Our campsite we chose was perfect with great views of the lake. We where glad we made land and could relax while staring out at the lake. The bugs had died down so we could shed some clothes and kick back. We made some dinner and just enjoyed the surroundings.














In the evening when the water calmed down to glass we went for a short paddle around. Just stopping to listen and stare. The loons where calling all around. Once back to camp we watched some beavers swimming around in the lake near camp. Another wonderful day and we did not see another person all day.