Missinaibi Provincial Park

A Canadian Heritage River Park Protecting About 500 Kilometres Of The Missinaibi River From Missinaibi Lake To The Moose River; The Longest Free Flowing Undeveloped River In Ontario, And A Fur Trade Route With Ojibwe Pictographs · Chapleau, Ontario

The Missinaibi is THE LONGEST FREE-FLOWING UNDEVELOPED RIVER IN ONTARIO - roughly five hundred kilometres from Missinaibi Lake north to the Moose River and on to James Bay, with NO DAMS AND NO DEVELOPMENT ON ANY OF IT. The park is a narrow corridor following the whole length, and it is a CANADIAN HERITAGE RIVER for both its natural values and its history: this was a principal fur trade route between Lake Superior and James Bay, travelled by Ojibwe and Cree long before that and by the Hudson's Bay Company for two centuries after. OJIBWE PICTOGRAPHS survive at Fairy Point on Missinaibi Lake, one of the largest such sites in Ontario. Downstream the river drops through THUNDERHOUSE FALLS and a series of serious rapids in a gorge. A full descent takes two to four weeks and ends at Moosonee, where you put the canoe on the Polar Bear Express and take the train home.

Missinaibi River from Missinaibi Lake to Moosonee, northern Ontario, Chapleau, Ontario, Canada

THE PADDLING SEASON RUNS ROUGHLY LATE MAY TO EARLY SEPTEMBER, bounded by ice-out and by water levels. THE PARK IS A RIVER CORRIDOR with a road-accessible campground at MISSINAIBI LAKE at the southern end and essentially nothing for the next five hundred kilometres. INTERIOR CAMPING REQUIRES AN ONTARIO PARKS BACKCOUNTRY PERMIT. A FULL DESCENT IS A TWO TO FOUR WEEK EXPEDITION ending at Moosonee, and THE CLASSIC LOGISTICS ARE TO TAKE THE POLAR BEAR EXPRESS TRAIN BACK from Moosonee to Cochrane with the canoe. THE RIVER CARRIES SERIOUS WHITEWATER including THUNDERHOUSE FALLS, WHICH MUST BE PORTAGED - people have died there. Shorter sections can be run from road access points. Water levels swing enormously and change the river's difficulty completely. No cell coverage on most of the route.

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