Monday, April 7, 2008
Can't find the other Bill Mason quote...
The one in "Waterwalker" where he talks about going back for the second load and how that's the one part of the portage when you actually get to notice things and see what you're hiking through without the distraction of a 75 pound boat resting on on your shoulders or three packs perched on a tumpline and straining your head forward to keep them up there or a 60 litre food barrel with20 pounds of tent/sleeping bag/tarp bungee-corded to it.. The idea that you can just absorb the nature around you while you walk back unencumbered....that's what I wanted to bring to this blog.
Trip Log: Gould/Blue Lake, Ontario. July 25/2007.
This was one of my favourite trips of last year, even though it's a route I've done several times since getting the Green Canoe back in 2006. It was the first trip I took with Sam that he actually had to portage between lakes. Granted, it was just the one portage and a pretty easy one at that, but still, for a five year old (and any canoe-bie), Sam did very well.
Here's what happened:
We had loaded the car (by we I mean Me of course, as I pack my trips myself because a) I know what I want and need and b) that way I know that I have to be responsible for everything....[lots of well-intentioned splitting of the packing goes awry when one person assumes the other person's looking after an item or list....then, suddenly 4 hours paddle away from a re-supply, you realise you have a stove and no gas or condiments but no food])
So, we get in the car and head up Sydenham Road...I'll be honest, I can't remember whether we hit the Tim Horton's on the corner of Sydenham and Princess or (more likely) stopped at the MacEwan's Gas in Elginsburg for schnacks....in either case, we get to to Sydenham and head through onto Bedford Rd. then onto Alton Road and make our way to the Conservation area...I stop, pay my money, ask for a car tag and... get this....get told "Oh, we never bother to check...."
Your donation dollars at work, folks.....
Personally, I'd rather switch off with my co-worker every hour or so and take a walk down that 1/2 km. and check out the parking lot rather than be stuck in that cramped hot wooden booth all day...but, that's just me..
So, I get the boat off the car and the tie downs in the car (I used to stow the red front "Y" one under the front of the car but I've become paranoid about losing it) get the gear out, then get the boat down to the water...As usual, there's a group being taught canoe/camping craft (Note to self: Grace and Sam are taking those classes, they look like fun)
That day's topic: toilet trowel technique...some of the girls looked like they'd rather hold it in for the entire trip than actually poo somewhere other than their own bathroom, let alone have to drop their Old Navy shorts and La Senza bikini briefs to squat over a hole in the woods, then have to deal with more than merely pulling the handle to flush it away.... ( I shouldn't talk as I haven't had to poop in a cat-hole in the woods since the night Allen Sung, Chris van der Maas and I camped out in a farmer's back 40 across from Canada's Wonderland the night before its official opening, back in May of 1981. )
Got everything loaded up and stowed, got Sam in the bow seat (he insisted on being carried to the front of the boat, so as to not get his feet wet....(not so much troopage on this front), pushed off (I still get a rush from pushing off from the put-in, much like feeling a jet rumble beneath you and knowing you're on your way or "fairly embarked" as Thoreau put it, back in the 1840s...)
Paddle past the kids trying to make their canoes spin around a fixed point on the water and head for the lee shore of Gould Lake to avoid the winds that come up in the late morning, then up past a rock the size of a football field that comes up to a flat plateau about 4 inches under the surface which would make a great "shallow end" to splash on if it didn't drop off again to about a billion feet almost immediately after.
We get to the mouth of East Bay, paddle in and head over past The Rock to the "take-out"...
Truth be told, this is not an official take-out because the portage up to Blue Lake isn't an official portage, as far as I can tell, anyway.....You basically drag your gear up a small 4-5 foot berm, step onto the Tom Dixon Trail, head up the middle of the "V" of a small valley and hill for about 425 metres, hop onto the Famous Trail (which ironically, I'd never heard of before looking up whether there WAS an official portage between the lakes) and head another 10-15 metres down to a swampy put in.
Sam again was very good at carrying some stuff and actually was able to keep up and out of my way at the same time..(I was afraid of either getting tripped by him or whacking him upside the head accidentally with the ass-end of the canoe).
However, the put-in has the double whammy of being VERY shallow right off the shore and very mucky/froggy, so you need to wade about 5 feet out through calf deep ooze and frogs to get enough draft under the keel to get in and then push off
However, yet again, Sam wanted no part in wading out to the bow or even to the stern, so I had to carry him to the bow.
Well, after getting the back floor of the boat FILTHY from my muck-encrusted shoes, we pushed off and got to see 3 Great Blue Heron nests just around the corner....very pretty and BIG, but deserted that day...
A quick paddle down the lake(it's about a kilometre and a bit in length) brought us to the biggest beaver dam I've seen, at least 20 across and obviously very well constructed and fairly old as the sediment had enveloped it and there looked like there were no new logs there.
On the non-lake side of it, you can see were the lake USED to run down through the rocks back down into Gould Lake, before Bucky and family blocked it off..
A quick look around, then back we went to the froggy portage... the bugs were a bit more aggressive going back down as I think I was a bit sweatier now, but still, nothing like earlier in the season, when that portage was slightly buggy-hellish (I'd been a bit afraid how Sam might deal with the swarms of bugs on the walk, but he was OK with them and they seemed to never be there in the numbers I remember.)
Back we went to the beach and loaded the gear up (Sam being a bit less inclined to help, but good enough to just hang out while I got re-loaded onto the car)
Then, Sam enjoyed snacks as we headed back the way we came...
I was so happy that Sam carried through on his first portage that I made up a little certificate for him to put on his "power wall"
He wasn't as thrilled as I hoped, but it's still there, which is more than I can say for some things there, so, I suspect he's somewhat pleased.
Here's what happened:
We had loaded the car (by we I mean Me of course, as I pack my trips myself because a) I know what I want and need and b) that way I know that I have to be responsible for everything....[lots of well-intentioned splitting of the packing goes awry when one person assumes the other person's looking after an item or list....then, suddenly 4 hours paddle away from a re-supply, you realise you have a stove and no gas or condiments but no food])
So, we get in the car and head up Sydenham Road...I'll be honest, I can't remember whether we hit the Tim Horton's on the corner of Sydenham and Princess or (more likely) stopped at the MacEwan's Gas in Elginsburg for schnacks....in either case, we get to to Sydenham and head through onto Bedford Rd. then onto Alton Road and make our way to the Conservation area...I stop, pay my money, ask for a car tag and... get this....get told "Oh, we never bother to check...."
Your donation dollars at work, folks.....
Personally, I'd rather switch off with my co-worker every hour or so and take a walk down that 1/2 km. and check out the parking lot rather than be stuck in that cramped hot wooden booth all day...but, that's just me..
So, I get the boat off the car and the tie downs in the car (I used to stow the red front "Y" one under the front of the car but I've become paranoid about losing it) get the gear out, then get the boat down to the water...As usual, there's a group being taught canoe/camping craft (Note to self: Grace and Sam are taking those classes, they look like fun)
That day's topic: toilet trowel technique...some of the girls looked like they'd rather hold it in for the entire trip than actually poo somewhere other than their own bathroom, let alone have to drop their Old Navy shorts and La Senza bikini briefs to squat over a hole in the woods, then have to deal with more than merely pulling the handle to flush it away.... ( I shouldn't talk as I haven't had to poop in a cat-hole in the woods since the night Allen Sung, Chris van der Maas and I camped out in a farmer's back 40 across from Canada's Wonderland the night before its official opening, back in May of 1981. )
Anyway..
Got everything loaded up and stowed, got Sam in the bow seat (he insisted on being carried to the front of the boat, so as to not get his feet wet....(not so much troopage on this front), pushed off (I still get a rush from pushing off from the put-in, much like feeling a jet rumble beneath you and knowing you're on your way or "fairly embarked" as Thoreau put it, back in the 1840s...)
Paddle past the kids trying to make their canoes spin around a fixed point on the water and head for the lee shore of Gould Lake to avoid the winds that come up in the late morning, then up past a rock the size of a football field that comes up to a flat plateau about 4 inches under the surface which would make a great "shallow end" to splash on if it didn't drop off again to about a billion feet almost immediately after.
We get to the mouth of East Bay, paddle in and head over past The Rock to the "take-out"...
Truth be told, this is not an official take-out because the portage up to Blue Lake isn't an official portage, as far as I can tell, anyway.....You basically drag your gear up a small 4-5 foot berm, step onto the Tom Dixon Trail, head up the middle of the "V" of a small valley and hill for about 425 metres, hop onto the Famous Trail (which ironically, I'd never heard of before looking up whether there WAS an official portage between the lakes) and head another 10-15 metres down to a swampy put in.
Sam again was very good at carrying some stuff and actually was able to keep up and out of my way at the same time..(I was afraid of either getting tripped by him or whacking him upside the head accidentally with the ass-end of the canoe).
However, the put-in has the double whammy of being VERY shallow right off the shore and very mucky/froggy, so you need to wade about 5 feet out through calf deep ooze and frogs to get enough draft under the keel to get in and then push off
However, yet again, Sam wanted no part in wading out to the bow or even to the stern, so I had to carry him to the bow.
Well, after getting the back floor of the boat FILTHY from my muck-encrusted shoes, we pushed off and got to see 3 Great Blue Heron nests just around the corner....very pretty and BIG, but deserted that day...
A quick paddle down the lake(it's about a kilometre and a bit in length) brought us to the biggest beaver dam I've seen, at least 20 across and obviously very well constructed and fairly old as the sediment had enveloped it and there looked like there were no new logs there.
On the non-lake side of it, you can see were the lake USED to run down through the rocks back down into Gould Lake, before Bucky and family blocked it off..
A quick look around, then back we went to the froggy portage... the bugs were a bit more aggressive going back down as I think I was a bit sweatier now, but still, nothing like earlier in the season, when that portage was slightly buggy-hellish (I'd been a bit afraid how Sam might deal with the swarms of bugs on the walk, but he was OK with them and they seemed to never be there in the numbers I remember.)
Back we went to the beach and loaded the gear up (Sam being a bit less inclined to help, but good enough to just hang out while I got re-loaded onto the car)
Then, Sam enjoyed snacks as we headed back the way we came...
I was so happy that Sam carried through on his first portage that I made up a little certificate for him to put on his "power wall"
He wasn't as thrilled as I hoped, but it's still there, which is more than I can say for some things there, so, I suspect he's somewhat pleased.
Canoe Quote
I would not know how to instill a taste for adventure in those who have not acquired it. (Anyway, who can ever prove the necessity for the gypsy life?) And yet there are people who suddenly tear themselves away from their comfortable existence and, using the energy of their bodies as an example to their brains, apply themselves to the discovery of unsuspected pleasures and places.
I would like to point out to these people a type of labour from which they are certain to profit: an expedition by canoe. What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature
P.E Trudeau. Canadian Prime Minister, Law Professor, Canoeist.
I would like to point out to these people a type of labour from which they are certain to profit: an expedition by canoe. What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature
P.E Trudeau. Canadian Prime Minister, Law Professor, Canoeist.
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