SEPAQ canoe-camping circuit number 61. A 69 km counter-clockwise loop in the Chochocouane sector of Réserve faunique La Vérendrye, with 21 portages (longest is 575 m) and a single put-in and take-out near Lac Rousine.
This is the real GPS track, recorded on Stan's Garmin, one colour per day. The red star is the put-in and take-out near Lac Rousine; the three numbered markers are the wilderness camps, matched to their SEPAQ site. Click a track or a camp for details, use the control at top right to switch between satellite and street map, toggle a day on and off, or overlay the official SEPAQ published route (dashed grey) to compare it against where we actually went.
Four daily tracks, 81 km of paddling recorded (the loop is 69 km on the SEPAQ map; GPS runs longer with wind and wandering). Brown diamonds mark the portages, detected from the GPS as the walking segments and clustered per carry, so their count per day (in the legend) and their lengths are close but approximate. Camp SEPAQ numbers are our best read of the official map.
Four paddling days, three nights, done a day ahead of plan. Distances are the recorded GPS, camp numbers are the SEPAQ sites (our best read of the map). Tap a photo to open the gallery.
Moving 3h35 · avg 4.2 km/h · max 7.1 km/h
A hard, wet first day. A mix of rivers, streams and lakes, sun and a following wind and then rain, with long stretches of wading the loaded canoe down shallow rock gardens. We reached the north camp drenched, set up the bug net and tarp, and the sky paid us back with a rainbow and a full sunset.
Moving 6h29 · avg 4.0 km/h · max 6.2 km/h
The sun came back. A long day down the eastern arm of the loop, from the far north camp all the way to Lac Quenza, with a bald eagle watching from a dead spruce along the way. Big open water, current mostly with us, and the first dry evening of the trip.
Moving 7h38 · avg 4.3 km/h · max 6.6 km/h
The longest day, and a good one. Sunny, current mostly in our direction, nine portages over fallen trees and boulders, and a swim from a white sand beach that felt earned. We carried the canoe uphill more than once, and skipped one portage by pushing the loaded canoe straight up a rapid instead of carrying around it. Camp that night was on a small island in the middle of a lake.
Moving 1h52 · avg 4.1 km/h · max 5.7 km/h
A short, quick last morning back to the put-in, one full day ahead of schedule. One portage, then the final carry out to the parking lot. The black flies and mosquitoes were at their worst, so we finished in head nets. Bitten to death, happy, and proud of the loop. It is marked advanced, and it is: challenging canoeing, hard portages, and remote enough that no one is coming to save you, unless you have a Garmin inReach.
81 km paddled over 4 days, 3 nights, one day ahead of the 5-day plan. 20 portages plus the take-out carry. About 19½ hours of moving time at a steady ~4 km/h paddling pace (top speed 7.1 km/h on day one, with the wind behind us). The two long days did the work: 25.9 km on day two, 32.5 km on day three. All figures are from the GPS.
The permit for the Petite boucle Chochocouane n° 61, booked through the SEPAQ canoe-camping page, reserves the route and the nights on it; the wilderness sites themselves are first-come. The three camp numbers above (63-03, 60-73, 61-37) are matched from the official SEPAQ map to where the GPS track stopped each night. See the gallery for the full set of photos, and the journal for the dispatches sent from the water.