Paddling the Trent-Severn Waterway:
Lock 8 to Percy Reach
Trent River
written by: The Land Canadian Adventures. Read more articles by The Land.
Difficulty: Easy, but be aware and respectful of power boat traffic.
Distance: Approximately 3km round-trip around Percy Boom – but as short or as long as you wish. Consider coupling your journey with camping at Lock 8. The bottom of the lock has a huge grassy, treed area level with the water.
Portages: None
Shuttle Info: Round trip – no shuttle required.
Directions: 12 minutes south of Campbellford. Map Link.
Best Time to Go: You'll share the waters with some larger boat traffic when locks are open May to October. Even when the locks aren't operational, this route is always accessible without any portaging if you put in at the boat launch at the lower side of Lock 8.
Your Starting Point:
Lock 8 of Trent-Severn Waterway is a great put-in location. For a small fee, you can try paddling through the locks after putting in at the canoe dock on the top side about 50 metres from the parking lot. Under the advice of the lock attendant, and depending on boat traffic, you may have to wait a couple minutes before the gates open. Generally speaking, the smaller craft move into the first chamber where you’ll find a rope hanging down the side. It is best to loop (not tie) a rope of your own around this to keep you anchored to the side of the lock as the water levels very slowly drop, or just loosely take hold of the rope with your hand. However, if you are kayaking, or simply can’t wait to get paddling, then park at the south side of the locks and put in at the shallow waters of the public boat launch where you can head right into Percy Reach.
Your Route:
As it is essentially a bay or “reach”, your route options abound; you can head south west to explore the wetlands and inlet to the west of Jett Island where the splashing Muskie love to hang out.
Heading east from the lock brings you to Hickory Island so you can seek out the huge bald eagle’s nest on the south east side.
Of significance is the fact that Samuel de Champlain paddled these very waters in 1615. Read more in the history section below.
Family Canoeing Percy Reach Route
Trumpeter Swans
Wildlife and geography:
My throat tightens at the thought of it still, as tears well up with joy and awe at the thought of the bevy of trumpeter swans who joined us at Percy Boom during our fall paddle. These magnificent creatures, the largest of Native waterfowl in North America, thrived in the years before European settlement, but were reduced to a population of less than 100 by the early 20th century. The swans that we saw are the result of a restoration project led by Ontarian biologist Harry Lumsden nearly 40 years ago and now the population is nearly 100,000 strong. It may not be a perfect recovery, as the hereditary chain was broken in their decline and they are as yet unable to migrate to the warmer waters further south. But moments like these, seeing the wonder in my daughters’ little faces as they watched the ballet take off in a flurry of wings and splashes, I’m filled with hope for their future and gratitude for these small adventures on the water together.
Samuel de Champlain was here in 1615.
Suspend your current reality for a moment; imagine paddling every day was your life (not just a dream that you have to squeeze into vacation days). Picture yourself traveling across a Canada without roads, specifically along Sagetewedgewam (Ojibwa name for the Trent River meaning ‘river hard to travel’). This is before the technology of canals and lift locks made the rivers and lakes that make up the 387 km long Trent-Severn Waterway navigable by boat anytime the water is open. Then imagine you come to a fork in the waterway, just west of Little Bobakaijuen (present day Hastings). You have to choose between one 14.5 km portage or paddle on and risk life and limb, down multiple sets of rapids and necessary portages around waterfalls over the next 43 km as the waterway drops an impressive 220 feet. You also happen to be travelling with at least 500 other paddlers. The year is 1615, and your name happens to be Samuel de Champlain. What would you do?...
It’s still a mystery, but it feels like you can get a lot closer to revealing it as you dip a paddle in along the shores of the Trent River at Percy Reach south of Lock 8. Exploring the mouth of Percy Creek (on the north west shore of the reach) you can wonder at the likelihood of Champlain and his troops taking the smaller waterways between Rice Lake and Percy Reach as long as they could. They would be adding time and lift-overs, but amassing fish and game to their 39-day journey from Huronia to the Iroquois Fort.
You can collect your own Sweet Gale for tea, like the First Nations peoples would have done for millennia before as they had been using what is known as the Percy Portage for hundreds of years before Champlain’s arrival.
The waterway has been altered since Champlain’s days there. It can be easy to sink in the sadness of a wilderness forever lost, incredible roaring rapids tamed, and the seemingly never-ending list of the pitfalls of human technology and development. Still, there are beautiful reminders of nature’s resilience when given the opportunity, and these offer further windows into what the experience of paddling the Trent was like all those hundreds of years ago.
More on Champlain’s Routes:
Richardson, Stewart. Champlain’s Route To Lake Ontario?
Heritage Gazette of the Trent Valley, Vol. 20, no. 1 pp3-9 May 2015
Trent Hills Percy Portage article
More on Trumpeter Swan:
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