Petite boucle Chochocouane n° 61 · Réserve faunique La Vérendrye
Violette, Stan, and Charlie (the Australian Shepherd) are paddling SEPAQ's Petite boucle Chochocouane this June. It's a counter-clockwise loop through the western sector of Réserve faunique La Vérendrye, with 21 portages over 5 paddling days, taking out on the summer solstice. There is no road access once we are past the put-in.
The trip plan, the gear, the route map, the journal we will publish after we're back, the live Garmin tracker, and a comment box for family.
The full loop with an interactive map, day-by-day distances, portages, and campsites.
View the map →The full kit Violette and Stan are paddling with, broken into six categories.
See the kit →Route reasoning, training, the food plan, and what we're nervous about.
Read the plan →Short dispatches and photos. Real entries land after we're off the water.
Read posts →A Garmin inReach pings our position every 10 minutes from put-in to take-out.
Track us →A comment form. We'll read everything once we're back in cell range.
Say hi →The reserve covers 12,589 km² of contiguous land and lake in the Outaouais and Abitibi regions, about 180 km north of Ottawa. SEPAQ's canoe-camping programme maintains 800 km of developed trails across nearly 20 lakefront circuits, with 500 overnight campsites spread thinly across the whole map. SEPAQ is also blunt about who the routes are for: "most of the circuits are designed for an independent and experienced clientele." Paddling Magazine calls the reserve "a blissfully quiet alternative to Algonquin". Two Algonquin First Nation communities live within the boundaries: Kitcisakik on Great Victoria Lake and Lac-Rapide on Cabonga Reservoir. The reserve was renamed in 1950 for the explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, on the bicentennial of his death, and gained wildlife-reserve status in 1979.
Our loop n° 61 follows the eastern bank of the Rivière Chochocouane, which is SEPAQ route n° 60 and, per the same article, the reserve's "premier whitewater river". We don't have the whitewater experience for the river itself. The chain of lakes east of it gives us the same drainage on water we know how to read.