The trip
Some of you will recall that around a year ago I had some friends visit me on the AT and take me to NYC. Well those same friends are also fans of the camping life, so while I was in Canada for the summer we decided to squeeze a four day canoe trip on Lake Opeongo in Algonquin Park into our schedules. (My schedule was easily squeezed - the others have jobs.)
The plan was to canoe 10-12kms out to a campsite on an island, set up there, camp/paddle and eat for a few days before paddling back to the cars. A little like creating our own version of Upper Goose Pond in Massachusetts.
The best part was that only half of us were paddling to the campsite - the rest were taking an outfitter's ferry. Such luxuries meant that we could bring a lot more gear and food, and have a bit more of a glamping experience. Which we did. In spades.
Day 1 - Getting to camp
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| Maple paddles like a champ. |
Maple was new to backcountry canoeing, so we headed off to learn a little about shoulder strength. It was a fun, challenging paddle, including a moment when we discovered that we'd set off without a map of the lake, so had to rely on my memory for navigation.
I'm not really great at navigation with a compass and a map in hand, let alone having both of those things only in my brain. Fortunately for us, my memory worked really well when assisted (read, supplanted) by the Google maps I'd downloaded to my phone, so we still found our way to the campsite. On the way we were harassed by a large group of seagulls who thought we were being a bit cheeky paddling so close to their chicks in the water. In our defense, we didn't even notice the chicks until we were practically on top of them. The seagulls did not seem particularly interested in our excuses.
We arrived just in time to make camp, and begin what ended up as an epic multi-course meal prepped by Mike and Nettie. There really are some times when glamping is the way to go.
Day 2 - Goodnight sweet prints.
Friday morning it was clear that the forecasted rains were not going to pass us by. Most of the crew decided this was a perfect excuse to do not much of anything at all except sit at camp, read, nap, and otherwise just be happy not to be at the office.
Yours truly is not that wise.
I decided I'd grab a canoe and go for a paddle. Bundled up in waterproof wear I headed off into the light mist on a serene lake to enjoy the quiet (not many make their way out in this weather), and generally just be glad to be on a lake again. I took a few shots, some of which even turned out reasonably nicely and was feeling pretty good about myself.
Then I happened on an island where the water was so calm and still that it made for a nearly perfect mirror so I decided to find a good spot to turn the canoe sideways and take a picture that in my head would end up something like this:
Just as I turned myself into position to take the shot, and without any warning, I found myself in the lake frantically trying to get back to the surface. I'm still not sure exactly how it happened - I mean, in the image to the right, you can see how glassy and calm the water is. It's unlikely that a sudden swell pushed me over.
As I floated at the surface trying to don my PFD, I thought I must have leaned out too far to take the picture. That made a lot of sense until I realised that my camera was still in my zipped pocket which meant I hadn't gotten anywhere near that point in the process. Fortunately it also meant that I hadn't dropped the camera to the bottom of the lake, so I might still salvage photos from the memory card - though the camera was clearly now an ex-camera.
I didn't have a lot of time to think about these things though, while floating alone in the middle of a large lake. My thoughts turned to getting back into the canoe somehow. It was a long two-person canoe, so self-rescuing was going to be a tall task. Instead of burning a lot of energy that way, I swam it to the shore of the island. There a couple of young guys camping took time out of updating their instagram accounts with photos of this idiot who'd tipped his canoe on the calmest day in history to help me right the canoe and set out again.
In the background of this shot of our accompanying pupper (taken by Chantelle), you can see me returning to our camp as a drowned rat.
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| Hershey looks at the camera, probably wondering why I'm so wet. |
Day 3 - Short excursion
Day 3 was relatively uneventful. Maple and I took a canoe ride out a few kms to a trailhead, hiked in to find the small deer pond that definitely wasn't worth the mosquitoes, and then headed back for camp. The rest of the day was just chilling out at the campsite now that the rains had passed.
Day 4 - Hershey starts to make sense.
Immediately on Day 1, Colin and Chantelle's dog had developed a couple of peculiar behaviours at the campsite. The first was a desperate dislike of the area near the fire pit. Hershey hated this place so much that when playing fetch she would run across the tent-flies around the outside of it rather than through the wide open space. Even if we placed the ball in the area, and tried to entice her with food, she'd look at us like we must be insane to be standing in what was so clearly the world's most terrifying 3 m2.
She would also get uncharacteristically upset if anyone left the campsite, particularly as it got darker. And particularly if that person was Maple, who happened to be the smallest of the party.
On Day 4, Mike figured out why. While using the thunder box early in the morning, he saw something like a large cat scurry up a tree. He didn't get enough of a look to identify it (lynx or bobcat?), but now we reckon that it had sprayed near the fire and that Hershey could hear it going about at night so knew that the forest held dangers of which we were unaware.
The lesson here is, when your accompanying dog tells you a place is unsafe, don't ignore the pupper.
Luckily for us, this was our departure day allowing us to escape without any more dangerous big cat encounters. Maple had decided that she was done with canoeing so Colin agreed to paddle back with me while Maple would ride with Dave and Rebecca as a third in their canoe.
Epilogue
If I summarize the trip for people, I say "we accidentally camped on a lynx's home turf, and I lost my camera in a near drowning incident. So it was a pretty awesome weekend."
And on the way home I had an email confirming that my Australian work visa had come through, so it was now official: Wallaby was going home.
