We’ve meant to do this paddle up the Widgeon Creek for a while now, even before the kids came along. I first heard about this place from Katie’s cousins, Brian, Steve and Jon Healy, back when we first got the canoe.
Our next-door neighbour Mike has gotten into kayaking in the last few years, and he gave us a little more details about it, and we decided to finally do it now that the kids are old enough to sit up in the canoe for the 4-hour return paddle.
The one thing that we had heard about is that because this river changes with the tides, you may run into shallow water at different times of the day, so you do want to double-check your tidal charts to make the best plans you can. We were lucky that the water was fine on the way up to the campsite, but on the way back down, Katie and I did have to get out of the canoe and walk it alongside us so that we didn’t hurt the canoe scraping along the bottom.
We picked a perfect weather day for the excursion, and it was a hot one! There aren’t many shady places to hide on this river, so we were well prepared to be out in the sun for a few straight hours, wearing our mandatory on-the-water floppy hats to protect our heads and necks.
We’ll definitely be making this trip again the next chance we get.
The hardest part about this paddle is crossing the Pitt River, where you enter the mouth of the Widgeon Creek. It seems like every yahoo in the area comes to this boat launch to show off their motorboats—to see how loud and fast they can get them going. It takes about 10-15 minutes to cross the river, and I’d recommend putting the life jackets on for this part of the paddle. They aren’t necessary once you clear the 2-3 feet wakes in the Pitt River.
Here’s a map of where it is.
You can see the main tributary running up and to the left just as you cross the Pitt Lake river. On this day, we took that first left at the ‘Y’ and headed up to the campsite.
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