Trip Report: Murtle Lake, BC

August 8-14, 2025
By Dennis Pennell

Routes As Paddled
Day 1: Myrtle Lake Lagoon Boat Ramp to Strait Creek Camp: 5.43 miles
Day 2: Strait Creek Camp to Moonlite Bay Camp: 4.9 miles
Day 3: Moonlite Bay Camp to Murtle Beach Camp: 5.38 miles
Day 3 Supplement: Paddle up Murtle River: 2.08 miles
Day 4: Myrtle Beach Camp to Eagle Point Camp: 2.22 miles
Day 5: Eagle Point Camp to Wavy View Camp: 5.56 miles
Day 6: Layover at Wavy View Camp
Day 7: Wavy View Camp to Murtle Lake Lagoon Boat Ramp: 9.11 miles

This is a trip that I have been wanting to do for years. Murtle Lake, in Wells Gray Park, is the largest non-motorized lake in North America (except the Park Rangers use motor boats to patrol, check campsites, do maintenance, and such). The closest “town” is Blue River, BC. The lake is shaped sort of like a backward “L”, as shown here:

You can read about it here: Wells Gray Park: Murtle Lake | BC Parks, as well as see a map of the lake with the campsites.

We did this trip in a Bell Northwind 17. It was a great choice for this trip. The current model is the Northstar Northwind 17. We used a double bent Bending Branches Viper paddle, a straight Bending Branches Java ST paddle, and two Lighting paddles - one of which I bought from Gordon Taylor.

Although there were some mosquitoes, they were not too much of a problem. We never used our headnets, but did use some repellant a few times. A bigger annoyance was the flies. There were several different kinds, ranging from small (like deer flies) to large (like undersized horse flies). And most of them were either really dumb, or they had a death wish because the only way to get them off you was to kill them. Which was too easy. Just slap them since they don’t move.

The west arm of Murtle Lake has most of the hiking opportunities, and most of the people. The west arm camps are much closer together, as well as closer to the launch point. The north arm is much less visited by paddlers, and thus was the part of the lake where we wanted to be.

The trip starts with a 1.5 mile portage from the parking lot to the lagoon. Note that the portage trail is mostly downhill going in, and mostly uphill coming back out. Word to the wise: don’t take too much stuff since you have to haul it back out - uphill. You are allowed to use boat carts, and can lock them up at the launch point. The portage is after a 23 Km drive on a gravel road from the community of Blue River. Blue River has a couple of hotels, two or three restaurants, and a Petro station that sells pretty much everything.

All the camps had at least one bear box for food storage. All of the camps had outhouses with toilet paper. Most also had hand sanitizer dispensers. Some of the outhouses are up a steep trail into the forest. Eagle Point Camp outhouse and bear box trail is especially treacherous.

The water temperature in the lake is pleasant enough in the shallow areas for a swim, especially when the sun is shining. But going deep would be a frigid experience. This huge lake freezes over in winter.

The first night we camped at Strait Creek, and we had several neighbors in the “group camp” setting. Our immediate neighbors to the north were an older (my age) couple that we barely heard at all. Our neighbors to the south were a party of five, thirty somethings who talked and laughed so much it was like listening to a sitcom soundtrack. I am now pretty sure where the founders of Twitter came up with the name, as the thirty somethings sounded like a flock of little brown birds twittering in the bushes that also had been born with a laughing gene.

The highlight of camping at Strait Creek was the northern lights (see next photo). On occasion there are advantages to getting up and going outside at 4 AM.

Luckily, the rest of the trip we had the camps to ourselves……..it was wonderful. No more twitter. Based on reports from other paddlers, that would never happen on the west arm. Those camps are often full and you have to keep moving to the next, or the next, or the next.

The scenery on Murtle Lake is outstanding, especially up at the northern end of the North Arm. There are mountains up there that are reminiscent of the Grand Tetons (see first two photos below). This area also got a lot of the big weather the last few days of our trip. We were able to paddle up the Murtle River for a mile above the lake, getting pretty close to a huge pyramid shaped mountain that dominates the skyline. The morning after camping at Murtle Beach there were fresh adult and calf moose tracks on the beach. But we did not see any wildlife other than fish, birds, and a couple of ground squirrels. There were also lots of fresh beaver sign.

On day 5 and 6, we camped at Wavy View Camp on the west side of the north arm. Wavy View Camp had several big blueberry bushes loaded with ripe berries 15 feet from camp. Wavy Range is the mountain range on the east side of the north arm. The photo below is the Wavy Range.

The night of day 5 there was a major thunderstorm, with a lot of rain, lightning, and thunder. Luckily, there was not much wind associated with this storm.

We saw something else very interesting while camped at Wavy View. A flock of eleven mergansers put on a clinic on how to hunt small fish. They used a method similar to orca whales, in that they swam in formation and pushed the fish into shallow water near shore. Then they stretched their necks forward, put their heads under water, and swam forward like torpedoes to overtake the fleeing fish and catch them from behind. Sometimes they almost ran the fish up on shore.

Then on the afternoon of day 6, the wind kicked up from the north. We could hear it coming down the lake, and watch the waves building and moving south past Wavy View camp toward the confluence with the west arm. The waves got up to about 18 inches for a while, with some possibly even 24 inches. It reminded me of a windy day on the Columbia River gorge. Could be fun in a playful sea kayak. Not so much in a loaded tripping canoe. Glad we were not on the water when that storm blew through.

Day 7 was a pleasant and easy paddle to the takeout followed by the challenge of getting our canoe and gear back up to the parking lot. It wasn't as hard as I had feared, but not something I look forward to doing again.