Black Bay QC, Ottawa River

Here's another blog post about paddling into Black Bay on the Ottawa River. The other post in 2015 was a spring trip, and this one is a late fall paddle (Oct 29th). Black Bay is a beautiful paddling area, so there's never a bad time of year to be in there. 

My track was 11.5 km

The launch point for this trip was the usual one at the Morris Island Conservation Area parking lot. From there, I paddled across the river in calm conditions and headed towards the eastern end of the last channel on the Quebec shoreline (Ch4 E). From CH4 E, I paddled my 14ft Widgeon kayak all around Black Bay's periphery in a counterclockwise direction and then back to the Morris Island launch point.  The 11.5 km paddle included a detour into Camp Bay to check out the islands and the scenery.

It was a beautiful sunny day (15C), and there were still some great fall colours – especially on the oaks.  My lunch stop was at the sandy beach inlet in the NW corner of Black Bay.  I also made a couple of other stops for nature breaks and to look around.  The river and the bay were pretty quiet.  I did see one motorboat in the distance (probably fishing), and that was it for human activity.  I did come across one large Northern Watersnake, one white-tailed deer, and a few birds for wildlife.

Most likely, that was my last paddling outing until spring 2020!

This old map shows where crews had started construction during the 1800s in excavating two canals with locks around Chat Falls. The project was abandoned before any locks were ever built, but you can still find the locations of the two channels today.

Old map of Chat Falls