We chose a beautiful spot on the eastern
shore to set up the tent on the first night of the canoe trip.
A high ridge ran all along the western shore of the lake. Misty
white fog rose between the old growth red and white pines. It
was almost raining, but not quite.
We woke the next morning to welcoming sun. We
tried to get an early start, as the day trip we planned would
take us nearly 30 kilometres, including
12 portages into and out of as many lakes and
ponds. And we knew we were unlikely to find trails on half of
them.
The first portage did have a trail, sort of.
It probably had not been used for a long time. Several trees
had fallen, which made it difficult to carry the canoe.
After we made our way across a hundred metres
of sphagnum bog at the end of the trail, we happily set the
canoe back onto the water. The wind was against us, of course.
No matter that it was a west wind, and we were travelling
north. The long skinny lake made a perfect funnel for the
wind to come toward us.
The next lake we wanted to go to lies at the
top of a creek that flows into the north end of this
lake.
We easily found the little beaver pond as
indicated on our map, but we did not as easily find a way
through the forest. It was at least a half kilometre between
the two lakes, and the forest cover was quite heavy. Just as I
was contemplating a new plan for the day, Allan decided to walk
around a long abandoned beaver pond to see if travel would be
easier on the other side. Indeed it was.
We bushwhacked through a short bit of thick
forest to the old pond, paddled across it, then had a lovely
walk through the open forest of big yellow birch trees along
the stream.
The lake we came to was a clear, clear, blue,
sparkling in the morning sun. There was no evidence of anyone
having been there before. As we cruised the shoreline, we
looked for potential campsites for future trips. Opportunities
were few.
It was an easy hundred-metre walk to the
next, larger lake. This one was also clear blue, and free of
any sign of human disturbance. We had lunch on a tiny island. I
swam in the cool, clear water. We picked a few blueberries, and
looked over the map to see how far we had yet to go.
The next portage looked easier than the last,
just 50 metres at most into a little pond. After that it would
be less than 50 metres into the next pond, then perhaps half a
kilometre to get to the big lake at the other end. From there
we would have easy paddling for the next 10 kilometres before
we began portaging again.
The 50-metre portage brought us into a pretty
little pond. As we paddled across, the far shore showed only a
line of trees with nothing behind. Hmmm.
I stepped out where we thought might be a
good place to cross to the next pond and walked about 15
metres, looking for a possible trail.
YIKES! Not only was there no trail, there was
no land! I was standing on a cliff, 75 metres above a little
beaver pond. How could we have missed seeing those three
contour lines on the map that crossed this narrow bit of land?
Apparently, we were far too focused on the distance, and not
the content. Hmmm. What to do now? We sure did not want to
retrace our steps.
Allan went over toward the creek, and found a
little animal trail that would down a steep slope. Only small
animals used this track, they could easily slip under the many
large trees that had fallen across. We made our way down,
slowly, carefully. When we were on the water again, we
looked
with awe up to the heights where we stood
just a little while ago. Now we clearly knew why those two
pretty lakes we crossed earlier in the day had seen so few
people. Chances were good it would be a very long time before
they saw anyone else.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
