Trip Report – Hatic Slough 2026-04-19
Well, for a trip pitched as an easy country slough paddle this trip did not deliver on that! We were ambushed by the spring water miser with unexpectedly low water levels. In fact, as a long-time paddler of this water way, I’d never paddled it this low, so, we were in for a new experience along with four other tandem canoes. This was also the first “dog friendly” trip run since the new policy was adopted and we had 2 canines with us.
Our party of 5 canoes – Carole and I (and Monty), Ron and Corrine (and Ginny), Madeline and Katie, Regula and Zoly along with Dave and Serrat, met at the info centre, east of Mission. From there we drove the roughly 8km to the launch spot on Sylvester Road. It was then I realized we were in for a challenging paddle; the area we were launching at is normally a single canoe launch but this day there was enough room to launch four canoes because of the low water. After getting everyone in the water, we head down the channel toward the lake where the low water had a muddy look. The occasional large carp would bolt below us when our canoes crept up on them drifting just below the surface.
As we entered the “lake” we were paddling in six inches and less, water. The task was to find small channels with deeper water in these very shallow spots. Anyone who has paddled Wigeon Creek at low tide know this experience but I suggest this was even lower than that. It’s a four kilometer paddle up to the 4th bridge where we normally stop for lunch. On this day the sun was out and it was quite warm. On the last leg to the 4th bridge, we notice a really nice shady beach not normally exposed, and considered it for lunch. It was decided to continue to the bridge, assess, and return there if it was a better location to eat. That was the case, so we scooted back down and stopped for lunch. By this time in the paddle, we were finding better sections of water to paddle and after lunch the rest of the trip was downstream. One advantage of the shallow water at this point in the paddle is the active current created and battled all the way up becomes a bit of a coaster ride all the way back down.
We had a good lunch break giving everyone a chance to rest, then headed back down. It was a much nicer trip down as the light breeze at our backs, we could not feel paddling up, was now a cool breeze in our faces. That along with the beautiful sunny day kept spirits up and salvaged what could have been a trying day. The dogs appeared to have good day along with everyone else. A candid appearance by “Buddy” the beaver completed the trip.
