How Violette and Stan picked the route, how we trained, what permits we needed, and how we're feeding two people for five days out of a single 30 L barrel. The trip happens during black-fly tail and mosquito head, in water cold enough that a capsize is the central thing we worry about.
Réserve faunique La Vérendrye covers 12,589 km² of contiguous land and lake across the Outaouais and Abitibi-Témiscamingue regions, about 180 km north of Ottawa. It is the largest contiguous wildlife reserve in Québec (the Assinica Reserve has a larger total area, but its territory is split into four non-contiguous pieces). Route 117 traverses the reserve from south to north. The small community of Le Domaine on Route 117 is where most SEPAQ services concentrate: permits, fuel, food.
The territory holds more than 4,000 lakes and rivers, two large reservoirs (Cabonga and Dozois), and 800 km of interconnecting canoe routes. Two Algonquin First Nation communities live within the boundaries: Kitcisakik on Great Victoria Lake and Lac-Rapide on Cabonga Reservoir.
The bedrock is Canadian Shield. The dominant trees are black and white spruce, jack pine, eastern white and red pine, and white birch. The reserve was established as a hunting and fishing reserve in 1939, the year the road from Mont-Laurier to Abitibi (now Route 117) was expected to open the territory to thousands of hunters and fishermen. It was renamed in 1950 for Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, the 18th-century French-Canadian explorer, on the bicentennial of his death. It gained the formal status of wildlife reserve in 1979.
Paddling Magazine calls it "a blissfully quiet alternative to Algonquin". That's the half of the appeal that the SEPAQ brochure undersells.
SEPAQ's canoe-camping programme lists nearly 20 mapped circuits in La Vérendrye, ranging from gentle 3-day loops to 14-day expedition routes with serious portages. Their own description is unsparing: "most of the circuits are designed for an independent and experienced clientele." We wanted something between those poles. Long enough to feel remote, short enough to be safe with a two-person crew (plus dog), forgiving enough that one bad-weather day wouldn't blow the trip.
After weighing four candidate loops we settled on SEPAQ's Petite boucle Chochocouane n° 61, a 69 km counter-clockwise circuit in the Chochocouane sector. The loop follows the eastern bank of the Rivière Chochocouane, which is SEPAQ route n° 60 and, per Paddling Magazine, "the premier whitewater river" in La Vérendrye with class I–III rapids. We don't have the whitewater experience for the river itself. The lake chain east of it gives us the same drainage on water we know how to read.
The reasons we picked this loop specifically:
The paddling season here runs mid-May through late September. The trade-offs by window:
The wildlife and the daylight pushed us to June. The reserve is at its loudest in the third week, with loons calling at all hours and moose feeding in the shallows at dawn. We take out on June 21, the summer solstice, with 16 hours of usable light. That builds enormous margin into every paddling day. The crowds don't arrive until July, so most campsites will be ours.
The bugs are the cost. We're bringing head nets, permethrin-treated shirts, and a screened tarp for the kitchen, and we're accepting that some days will feel like a siege. Water temperature is the bigger cost. The north lakes will sit around 12–15°C, which is "swim back to the canoe immediately" cold. Both of us paddle in 2 mm wetsuits the entire time the canoe is on the water, no exceptions, even at 25°C and sunny. PFDs are obvious. The wetsuits were the decision that took the most discussion.
A self-supported trip like this is less about peak fitness and more about durability. We built a base over the previous 18 months with weekend trips in Algonquin (Ontario) and the Mauricie (Québec), gradually increasing portage distance and pack weight.
Charlie is an Australian Shepherd, born November 27, 2025. By the time we put in on June 17 he'll be just under seven months old, which is young for a five-day canoe trip. The decision to bring him wasn't automatic. We weighed it for months.
The case for bringing him: Australian Shepherds are working dogs with strong stamina, he's been on every weekend trip we've taken since February, his recall is solid in low-distraction settings, and we don't want him to associate the canoe with being left behind. The case against: he's still growing, his joints shouldn't take long portage carries, and a seven-month-old dog in a tent with mosquitoes is its own kind of test.
The compromise we landed on: Charlie walks every portage on his own, on a 10 m long line, while one of us shuttles gear and the other walks with him. He never gets carried over a portage. On the water he sits in the middle of the canoe between the food barrel and Violette, in his Float Coat, with a kneeling pad under him. We've practised loading and unloading him from the boat about thirty times over the spring, including capsize drills where he learns to swim to shore on cue rather than back to the boat. His vet signed off in May after a full orthopedic check.
Target: 3 200 kcal/person/day. We dehydrated 70% of the meals at home over April and May. The remaining 30% are commercial Mountain House meals for the harder days and as emergency rations.
Total food weight: ~6.5 kg for two people across five days, with one extra day's worth as safety margin. All of it lives in the bear-hung barrel.
Three layers, in order: avoid the situation, handle the situation, signal for help.
We pull a marine forecast from Environment Canada (Lac des Loups area) the morning of departure, and again on day 4 if we can get a clear view of the sky for the inReach to sync. No phones once we're on the water.
The 575 m portage on day 3, mostly. It's the longest of the trip. It sits between two stretches of R3 rapids that we'll be walking rather than running with the loaded canoe. It lands at the halfway mark, when fatigue from the first two days has had a chance to compound. The rule we've agreed on is: start at first light, two trips for the gear and one for the canoe, and don't push past the portage on the same day if anyone's gassed.
Cold water is the bigger underlying concern. Mid-June water on the north lakes runs 12–15°C. A capsize means the hypothermia clock starts immediately. The 2 mm wetsuits cover this. They're the single piece of equipment we discussed the most.
Wind on Lac Bastude and Lac Laspron is third. The north reach is the widest open water on the loop, and even June afternoons can build 20–30 km/h sustained without much warning. We'll be off the big water by 11:00 on day 2, even if it means a 5:30 wake-up.
Black bears are a much smaller concern. The food barrel goes up on a proper bear hang every night. Anything smelly (toothpaste, sunscreen, wrappers) goes in the barrel. We cook 50 m from where we sleep.