"I told you they were real!" said the exasperated camper as Hadley and I paddled closer towards the Pioneer Camp canoes. This was the same camper we came across two hours earlier at the end of White Otter Lake Falls. Although we passed the Pioneer LIT group at the end of the White Otter Falls portage, they had pulled ahead of us coming into Dibble Lake with only the ONE camper having seen us. This would seem to be highly unusual, but with the way that Hadley and I travel rivers it shouldn't be real surprising. Let's go back to that White Otter Falls portage to show you what I mean...
It was around 10:30 am when Hadley and I reached White Otter Falls with no one around to be seen. As with most portages around rapids, we decided to scout the set and the portage to see if we would be able to run any part of it. It turned out we could. Instead of carrying our boat and all of our gear on the well signed Trans Canada Trail portage for 750 m, we made the decision to put in after the falls where we would then ferry across the rapid to the other side, do a quick carryover across a sloped rock, and end up in the position to shoot the tail end of the set. It's probably not what most people would do, but we really go out of our way for moving water. This whole ordeal takes us about forty-five minutes, during which, in the meantime, the Pioneer Camp canoe trip had pulled up to the start of the portage and begun their 750 m trek to the bottom of the set. So there we are with big ol' grins on our faces as we float by the landing of the actual portage and see two canoes, a half dozen bags, and one tired looking teenager. We paddle over, say hello, give him ten Path of the Paddle stickers and carry on our way before anyone else from his group arrived.
Approximately 3 km past White Otter Falls is another section of the Turtle River that contains some turbulent water ending in another un-shoot able rapid. Unbeknownst to us at the time there is a well-used portage that travels across a narrow spit of land and takes you right to Dibble Lake, OR you can do what we did...
First we portaged our heavy barrels through a rock garden/jungle gym to the bottom of the first set of rapids in order to shoot the set with a little less weight in the canoe. We shoot the set and I learn the value of being an active listener. I was in the bow and we were cruising down the v hitting all the gnarly waves when Hads yelled "STOP, STOP!" I found this a fairly strange thing to say in the middle of a fast moving bit of water as coming to a full stop is easier said than done. I turned my head and yelled "WHY?". That's when I heard the sound of Kevlar on rock as we scrapped over an impractically placed pillow rock. When we get to the bottom I look behind me to see Hadley giving me a glare that would stop a bear in its tracks. She informs me that she was in fact yelling "DRAW, DRAW!" which I must admit in retrospect makes a whole lot more sense than "STOP, STOP!"
Anyways, we end up shooting the second set no problem before encountering the aforementioned un-runnable falls. Keep in mind that at the time we assumed this was the only route to Dibble Lake, so we find it strange when there are no obvious landings and/or portages to get around the falls. Instead there are 10 foot cliffs on river right and a nasty dense looking forest on river left. What we end up doing is climbing up a pile of driftwood logs to some boulders, from where we heave all of our gear and the canoe up a 5 foot cliff face to get to the 200 m bushcrash that would take us to Dibble Lake. All in all this takes us close to half an hour. As we are loading up our boat we see a group of 5 red canoes being loaded less than 1 km from the falls. It is at this point that we are struck with the epiphany that maybe our chosen route isn't the primary way to get into Dibble Lake.
We finish loading our canoe and manage to catch up to the leap frogging Pioneer trip. As we get closer we see one of their leaders chuckling to himself. We pull up and say hello, and also ask about their route into Dibble. Not only does he describe the nice portage trail that they had just used to arrive in Dibble, but he explains the story of the Path of the Paddle sticker ghosts. Apparently the poor camper had been the focus of some chiding by his fellow group members due to his story of the mysterious White Otter Falls couple who handed him ten stickers. Having already walked the extent of the White Otter Falls portage multiple times and seeing no fellow paddlers/portagers, it's no surprise that the Pioneer Camp leaders found it odd and somewhat unbelievable to find one of their campers with a handful of stickers and a story of two paddlers canoeing down the river not 500m past the unnavigable falls.
So there turned out to be an added benefit to us taking the route less travelled on the Turtle River. Not only did we have a blast shooting 3 fun rapids, but we were able to give the campers the solution to the mystery of the Turtle River ghosts.
The following videos are from a couple of our favourite sets that we shot on the Turtle River. It's a great river full of shootable Class 1, 1+, and 2 sets. We give it the classic POPA two thumbs up!