Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise
14 July 2008 | Pulpwood Harbor
John
7/7/08
Pulpwood Harbor
Today we got going at 0830 with a very uncertain agenda. We really wanted to see Old Dave's Harbor and the lighthouse on the north end of Otter Island but our cruising guides were talking about 8'-9' at the entrance which is a bit tight for our 7' draft. Nonetheless, we set off for the entrance and on the way were treated with a sighting of a woodland caribou high on the eastern bluff. At the harbor entrance, we sent Isak and Deanna out in the dinghy with the handheld depthfinder only to discover that the entrance was rather filled in with rocks and the deepest that they could come up with was 7'. Since it was rather calm, we anchored just outside the entrance and I stayed with the boat while Deanna, Isak and Stefan went ashore to check out the harbor and lighthouse. After about an hour, they returned with a cloud of mosquitoes following them out to the boat. The lighthouse wasn't open, however the lightkeepers house was open and a highlight for them was seeing the registry of all the cruisers who had come before.
After clearing them of as many mosquitoes as possible, we continued over to the waterfall directly opposite the harbor on the mainland. Because it was a calm day, we were able to maneuver quite close to the base of the falls (200'). From there, we continued on to the north under sail in a really sweet 10-12kt warm offshore wind until it died an hour later. Our tentative plan was to enter the White Mud River which we'd heard so much about.
We arrived at the north end of the peninsula that forms the river mouth and again sent Isak and Stefan in the dinghy ahead of the boat. Although the depths that they reported showed promise initially, soon they were unable to row against the strong current and were on their way back out. We "poked" into the mouth of the river and were surprised to see that the current was extremely fast (in excess of 5 kts) along the left hand bank certainly. Clearly, the river was running too fast to prudently enter so we went north to check out Pitchrock Harbor.
Pitchrock Harbor was beautiful and a fairly straightforward entry, however, we just felt that there wasn't adequate protection from the northwest and the southwest in the area that was available to anchor so we continued on to Pulpwood Harbor. Although fairly scary to enter from the standpoint of the narrowness of the entry through all of the barrier rocks, once inside Pulpwood, your are completely protected save for the small entry area at the west end of the anchorage "basin". After anchoring, we took the dinghy over to the Hattie Cove area and used the nice (and hot) showers over at the campground located at the headquarters of the Pukaskwa National Park. After showering, we met the friendly staff located at the modern visitor's center and then returned to the boat for grilled pork tenderloin.