Paddling the Upper Namekagon River - 5 Days Canoe Camping

The Namakagan River is a federally protected, wild and scenic riverway, flowing 100 miles through the north woods of Wisconsin. With its headwaters at Namakagan Lake, many canoeists begin their trip at the outflow. During times of low water, the first 10 miles can be impassable. For this reason, we altered our plans and started from the quaint little town of Cable. Our plan? Paddle 50 miles to the town of Trego. Along the way, we hope to provide some useful information, river characteristics and even some campsite tours. Join us now as we spend five days on this beautiful river, simply known as the Namakagan. We arrived at the Philippi Bridge landing, unloaded and set up a shelter, just as some storms rolled in. Not an ideal way to start the trip, but we made the most of it. Okay, well, we're at the Philippi Bridge landing. We've just been set up under the tarp there, waiting out the storm, getting a late start. And I imagine we're going to have to do some bailing here. The aftermath of the rain. She's quite full. With the rain subsiding and Chief Navigator Rizzo leading the way, we set off on our five-day adventure. After the Highway 63 Bridge, the current increases with many riffles and small rapids dominating this first stretch. Leah and Scott, first rapids. Nothing big on this river. I think there's one class two and there's several small class ones. Now here we're coming up on the second bridge and it looks like we're gonna maybe possibly get some clearing coming up here. Just a few miles in, winds died down and the skies began to clear, making for a much more enjoyable paddle. This is the low bridge that they were talking about, that says you have to portage around so there's a little spot right here. At Leonard School Road, there's a low clearance bridge, making a short portage to the right necessary. Six miles into our trip, we reached Pakwawong Lake, an 187 lake impoundment created by a log dam. It features good fishing as it winds through wild rice marshland. So we're just entering Pakawawong Lake now for Pakawawong. Beautiful sunset. At the lake outlet is Pakawawong Dam. During high water levels, it's possible to run the dam. We chose to play it safe and take the short portage. There's also a nice campsite at this location and we planned to stay here, but it was already occupied so we continued on. Downstream it gets quite scenic. We paddled into the evening through a slow quiet stretch before reaching site 81.5 where we would spend the night. So I didn't get much footage last night. We got here at night, had to set up in the dark. This is site 85. What is this? 85? 80, 81. So we're back. I still got Riz in her hammock. She's got her own hammock. She's back here. And we were strung up back there too. We made it work, but not a group site. So it's pretty small. Toilet back there. And we're just getting packed up day two. Gonna do a nice long section today. First morning. It wasn't that great of a night. We didn't get there till late. But now the morning is sunny and starting to get warm, but super windy. Although the Namakagan has a wild and remote setting, many stretches flow parallel with Highway 63. Therefore, the sight and sound of traffic does exist at times. A few miles in on the day, we decided to take a break and check out this nice group site which is located on a nice narrow stretch of river. Here we're coming to Larson Road Bridge, we believe. At Larson Bridge, the river becomes rocky and shallow in places. The deep channels on the bends proved to be our best route. Nice place out here all by itself, huh? Much like the previous day, the skies began to clear by mid-morning, making for a great day to paddle. After a long day on the water, the dogs were happy to be on land and Riz quickly got comfortable in her hammock while we enjoyed a nice night out by the campfire. We broke camp and set out to a comfortable sunny morning on the flowage, and we were immediately greeted by a bald eagle. Phipps Flowage offers some good fishing, including bass, walleye, northern pike, and panfish. I tried my luck and after just a couple casts, I caught this decent-sized bass. Well, I almost caught it. Well, we have to portage here because there's a little dam here that probably if you were a kayaker, you might be able to go through there because you don't have much gear, but we have a lot of gear. So we are not going through that. After assessing the situation, we decided to skip the portage. You can see why this is dangerous. Me and Missy already ran it, but you can see spikes sticking out of bridge here or something. We scoped it out and we seen it was good enough, deep enough to run it. Saves us the portage. At trout run landing, the river is fast and rocky with several riffles until it slows at 240-acre Lake Hayward. Lodging and supplies can be obtained at several locations in the town of Hayward. It's also home to the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. As we made our way through Lake Hayward, we faced a stiff headwind which had us searching for any advantage we could find. All right, so we made it to the Hayward Dam. New portage way down that way. It's probably a 30-40 rod portage. Exhausted from a steady headwind, rising temperatures and a tough portage, we set up camp four miles from the dam at site 62.6. The dogs were happy to be on land and Riz found herself a new roommate. We began our fourth day paddling through moderately wild and very scenic shoreline. Four miles further downstream, the river was slower, allowing for the opportunity to do some more fishing. This section is excellent for bass fishing and this time I managed to land a small one. The river drops about two feet at the rapids at Stinnett Landing and even though we got quite wet, the best route was down the center chute. From Stinnett, the river remains fast and just after Grote Landing was Chimpanzee Rapids, which was a tricky class two, so I wasn't able to record much. That turn looked a little gnarly there. Yeah, it was too fast. We would have hit that dead log sideways. We paddled about 10 miles for the day before setting up camp. Okay, I just wanted to show you our progress. So we got up this morning and we started right here at 62.6 and we went along the river for about 10 miles. We ended up over here where we're staying tonight at 52.6. And we got this map from the National Parks website. We just printed it off on this waterproof paper. After a mild night, we woke to another nice day and set out for our final day on the river. Much of the next section is characterized by long deep flat water stretches flowing through deeply cut banks giving us a feeling of wild seclusion. Some kayakers. This is Springbrook Landing. All right, site 48.3. We're not going to stay here but it looks like a nice site so we'll check it out. Let Riz run for a little bit too. Not bad. Get a nice view of the rivers. Looks like there's good enough options to hang your hammock. Nice. All right, Riz, let's go. On our final day, we wanted to take time to check out some of the other campsites. This was a nice site with a lot of space. With half of us sleeping in hammocks, this would have been perfect. Not all sites are suitable for hammock camping. As we paddled into the afternoon, the temperatures began to rise, so we stopped to let the dogs cool off. Many sections on the Namakagan have a nice sandy bottom making it ideal for swimming. Want to go over there, Riz? Nice looking group site. 41.8. Right on the bend here. Yeah, I'll take it. See how it looks up here. The next site we came to was a group site which are indicated on the signs. We decided to stay here for lunch. Most group sites include a picnic table which is nice. Keep in mind if you do stay at a group site, be prepared to share it with the larger parties that may arrive. River tubing is a popular activity on this part of the river, and summer weekends can get quite busy with tubers, mainly from Earl Park Landing to Trigo. Our takeout spot was just past the visitor center at the Trigo Town Park Landing. If you're planning a trip down the Namakagan, be sure to stop at the visitor center. The friendly park rangers will gladly answer any questions you might have. If you like this video, be sure to check out some of our other videos in the St. Croix series, and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you on the next adventure.