TO LAC BRUTON (LAC LEGOFF) ... JULY 21

55A -- Sunset At Bruton.

At foot of lake a turn to the NW is made and rapids start almost immediately.

R Island in center. Shot this first part to the right side of the right channel, then paddled down this for a couple hundred yards to where three channels dropping over ledges go around two main islands. These were about 2’ ledges in all channels this year and either the left (where we lifted over) or the center channel can be lifted over. Paddle less than 100 yards to P. (Other years they have not lifted over -- have shot left down this).

P On left 250 yards long. Swings to the left (upstream) at the beginning. Smooth rock landing. goes through the burn.

C.S. At both ends of this portage, the one at the far end is better. Nice C.S.! (Also one could bush a nice one on the island between the left and center channels where we lifted over)

Lac Tesecau paddled through.

R Just after Lac Tesecau, run on right

R Farther on, ran on right.

Lac Poncet

Horse Race mild at narrows before circular pond with island.

R mild, at narrows just after circular pond with island.

R after rocky section. Top part of R runs west, then it takes a sharp right to the N in the bottom part. Easy run.

C.S. We couldn’t find the one described as “On the right up rocks just before shore swings NW to become Bruton”

C.S. We used C.S. about 4 miles before marked rapid out of Bruton (Legoff), on eastern most of 3 large peninsula like extensions coming up from the south (actually the middle one is an island) just west of the two islands shown on the 4-1s on the end of a peninsula -- small but good.

Saw the first people we’ve seen since Mistassini, almost 2 weeks ago! There were 2 men and their boys. They had flown in for a couple days from somewhere in N.Y. We caught them just in time to send off some mail.

Meatball broke a paddle today. No good spares left. We have glued and stringed 2-3 of the broken ones together so they MIGHT work if we break another. Just pray! I wanted to take 6 spares, one per canoe but the camp would only give us 3, and the other two were ones people brought on their own.

This morning was REALLY cold. I was cold in my sleeping bag. A really heavy and beautiful mist rising off the lake for a couple hours. Took a sunrise picture (& a picture of Lac Bruton). It was a good long day. 20-25 miles of paddling, only a couple real easy rapids and swifts. Most of today we went though a burned area. A N-NW wind picked up later in the day, and by afternoon it warmed up quite a bit. It turned into a beautiful partly cloudy day. I’m so hungry. I can’t wait until I can stuff myself. Had a really, really good spaghetti and freeze dried beef meal last night. Trouble spot #7 is tomorrow. The Martin is finally getting a good size and getting really pretty.

Later: A great Spanish rice meal, but again I’m still starving. Tomorrow looks like a long tricky and canoe beating day, especially since the water is so extremely low on the Marten this year. It’ll be good to have that rest day the day after to recover and patch up canoes! Had some Orange Pekoe tea tonight, went great with the bannock.