Making a Kayak – The First Trip (Nation Lakes BC, Canada)

My personal goal for building my kayak was to be able to use it on a trip I wanted to go on in summer of 2013. The idea was that we would take our kayaks to the Nation lakes, northwest of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. The nation lakes is a chain of four lakes connected by the Nations river, the lakes starting at the top most are Tsayta, Indata, Tchentlo, and Chuchi. The Nation river connects these lakes which eventually drains into the Arctic watershed. Our plan was to bring a river boat along with us to motor up the lakes starting at Chuchi lake, up the rivers between the lakes clearing any log jams along the way. Once we got up to Tsayta we planned on doing a loop around Tsayta and back down the rivers and lakes to where we started. The river boat getting us upstream and providing support for our group.

After a long drive we arrived at a small boat launch on Chuchi lake. We packed everything into the river boat, including 4 kayaks and 7 people and motored our way up stream. Chuchi lake can have some big wind and good sized waves and this was the case the afternoon we arrived and tried to take off. We ended up coming back to the boat ramp and catching up on some much needed sleep before heading out the next morning when the water was nice and calm. We motored our way up Chuchi lake onto the nations river which was pretty shallow at this point. This got us to Tchentlo lake and we continued to the section of the nations river that connect Tchentlo with Indata lake. We ran into a couple of log jams in this stretch of the river but we had planned on this being the case and quickly cleared the logs in our way. Once we entered and crossed Indata lake we were all tired and decided to camp on Indata lake for the night.

The next morning we found the Nations river that connects Indata to Tsayta lake. One of the big reasons we came was to spend a good amount of time on Tsayta fishing because we were trying to time a big hatch with our trip. The stretch of the nations river between Indata and Tsayta is the longest of the chain and when we ran into the log jam you can see in the above picture we were all bummed out about the fact that this was bigger than we could clear. Not everyone had a kayak and the prospect of portaging the kayaks around the blockage and paddling up river for miles forced us into the decision of turning around at this point. We could have paid someone to drive us to Tsayta, come down in our kayaks and portaged around this blockage with ease but we had decided early on that we would be going up and down stream. Such is life and sometimes mother nature doesn’t agree with your plans.

So we got out the kayaks, turned the river boat around and headed down stream. This ended up being a good thing from my perspective, yes it meant we didn’t get to fish the hatch we were hoping to hit, yes it will be less miles than we had planned but we got to really explore Indata lake for an extra day and that ended up being really cool. The people in our group that had been fishing in these lakes really didn’t spend much time fishing here in the past so they were off to test the fishing. The camp we stayed at was really nice with a sandy beach, a picnic table, and a out house. This far from civilization it was almost 5 star camping.

Going down the Nations river between Indata and Tchentlo has some warning signs about it having some class 1 rapids, now I am not a very experienced white water kayaker but it wasn’t a big deal. We ended up in Tchentlo Lake, which is the longest of the chain, turned out to be my favorite. The Nesabut peaks in the back ground for much of the lake, nice camp grounds and even a hot spring make this one the best of the chain in my opinion.

You can see from the image about that the hot springs (maybe we should call them warm springs as they weren’t really hot) are right on the lake with a great view for taking a relaxing soak. A provincial campground is right across the inlet from the hot springs if you really want to be close and spend some time. Tchentlo lodge is nearby and can be seen from the hot springs but not right next to it. I paddled over and spoke with some of the lodge owners and they were nice people who live there year round.

This campground at Tchentlo lake is typical of the campgrounds we found in this chain of lakes, some had banks that were stepper but most camping was very close to the water. Chuchi has a nice campground in an island at about the midway point of the lake and it was pretty nice. All in all we spent 7 days on the water in the middle of July and it was great! A few things to keep in mind when kayaking the Nation lakes

Prepare for any weather, it can be really cold and it can be really hot (no joke it was hot during our trip).

You don’t have to worry about a flash light in the early half of summer! It was light late and I never got to see the stars or Aurora Borealis like I had hoped.

Some wild life you might see would include Bear (black or grizzly), moose, caribou, wolves, wolverines, bald eagles and many other small game.

Remember that you are a long drive from any kind of help so be prepared for wilderness situations and emergencies. This is serious.

These lakes have great fishing for rainbow trout and lake trout (mackinaw). If you love fishing you will regret not bringing a pole!