Non-Rest Days in Algonquin: From pedalling to paddling

September 21, 2016

Somewhere along the way I must have confused paddling with pedalling, because on Monday morning Doug cooked me breakfast (eggs and leftover garlic bread), made a pot of coffee for the ride (all for him, I'm not sure he even had a mug), loaded up some canoes, and drove me to Canoe Lake, where I was going to give my legs a bit of a break and destroy my upper body instead.

I'll say this upfront: solo canoe tripping is really hard, even more so when you don't have a solo boat with a seat in the middle, but are instead trying to paddle a tandem boat without a bow paddler. That's my only complaint about Algonquin Bound, the way they advertise solo boats when they don't actually have any.

Portaging is also really hard, but more on that in a minute. First, a little background.

Tom Thomson was the most famous member of the Group of Seven (Canada's most-loved artists who painted a lot of Algonquin landscapes), which is very impressive considering he died before the group even formed. Thomson spent a lot of time in Algonquin and drowned mysteriously in Canoe Lake, the very lake I was paddling across. Would I suffer the same fate? (Hint: No.)

The lake is one of Algonquin's busiest spots and is full of people even in September. When I reached the portage at the end of the lake, I admired and envied the men who could reach down, pick up their canoes, and lift them overhead in one effortless movement.

I had a lot of time to admire them because I was waiting for everyone to leave the portage so I could hoist my canoe without witnesses. It had been five years since I had carried a canoe on my own and I knew the first attempt would be awkward and embarrassing.

I had a couple false starts, followed by nearly crushing my neck, but I managed to carry the canoe, and was soon back on the water, in Algonquin's interior, and was reminded of my summer cycling training when I was constantly passed by other canoes, by far the slowest on the lake.

During the trip, the portages got easier as I found my technique and I eventually remembered I had problem-solving skills and didn't have to waste my energy doing stupid things.

All the effort was worth it.

The first night, the air was calm as the sun went down. I sat on a rock by the water. There were fish splashing occasionally, an asshole chipmunk scuttling around the campsite, a pair of loons diving for food, chickadees chirping in the trees, a lone paddler watching the sunset (the lake was otherwise empty, everyone having reacjed their campsites for the day), a lovesick moose calling across the lake, and a beaver that swam along by the shore, just below where I was sitting, and it didn't even get spooked when I sneezed. Not a single motor. Not a single mosquito. Well, I did see one, but it was too stupid to find me.

I know I can't take photos of loons without a super long lens, but I try anyway

Later, a few bats flew around, silhouetted against the last of the light, and in the morning I saw two flirtatious moose splashing across a narrows I would soon be paddling through.

Moose are so awkward, huge heads and bodies on spindly legs, almost like a Dali painting, only less melty. I also find them funny for some reason.

I paddled behind a swimming beaver, to its beaver dam, which I had to cross. I tried to land alongside it, without success. I caught the canoe on some branches, kicked back off them. I tried again, again without success; the sticks were poking out too much for me to step out onto the solid part. I wondered what the beaver was thinking about this person who appeared to be attacking its dam.

Finally, I moved to the side, where there was rock, emptied the canoe, picked it up and lifted it over, all the while keeping an eye out for an irritated beaver, but I guess it was used to paddlers.

I had four portages that day and managed to sink my left leg knee-deep in muck at one of them. Water levels are low this year. Mosquitoes attacked me at my most vulnerable; once, after feeding on my arm, I had to watch a mosquito, fat with my blood, fly around in front of my face while it tried to find a way out from under the canoe.

I was exhausted when I reached my destination, but still had most of the afternoon. I didn't know what to do.

I was too tired to write, so I amused myself by trying to take photos of small branches waving in the wind. It's harder than it sounds.

When that got boring, I spent a while peeling the skin off my sunburned back and shoulders.

After that, I noticed many different types of mushrooms and decided to figure out which ones were edible and which ones were poisonous. I didn't have a field guide, so there wasn't much point to the whole endeavour.

You're lucky I'm not posting all my mushroom photos

I was going to finish this with a photo of my dinner captioned "edible or poisonous?" ...

... but from a distance, my dinner looked a bit too much like this mushroom. Actually that's not true at all. It resembled a different mushroom, but that photo didn't turn out well.

It was a wonderful day because, aside from an occasional, distant airplane, there were no motors.

Finally got a chipmunk to stay still long enough for a photo

That night was one of the quietest nights of my life. The air was silent, the lake was silent, the forest was silent. There was only the faintest trickle of water in an unseen creek. At 4:00 am, a loon called, another replied, and it was silent again.

I enjoyed the sunrise from my canoe, then started the trip back. Headwinds all day except for the last 8 minutes. I didn't take many photos from the canoe because when you're the only paddler, you stop moving when you stop paddling. Even worse, in a headwind you actually go backwards.

My canoe at a portage that was much longer than it was supposed to be due to low water levels

That's the last portage--finished. No, wait, second-last. One more tomorrow.

One last night on a lake, another beautiful evening, but I wrote this in my journal: Is there anything sadder than a loon calling for its mate, over and over, but getting bo reply?

The answer is yes, of course there is, but not at that moment. I was tired, but it had been a great trip. I wanted to stay out longer but the canoe rental fees would've bankrupted me.

I did get annoyed seeing so many large groups of people, 7 or 8 boats, or even anyone else at all, on "my" lakes, and the campsites look overused, all the lower branches on some trees broken, probably from so many people hanging their food bags. There are bits of garbage here and there, but it's not bad given the number of people who use the park.

But the thing is, any one of Algonquin's campsites, a few on each lake, would make excellent building sites. If this area wasn't protected it would be full of motors instead of moose, parties instead of paddles, and you wouldn't be able to watch a quiet sunrise from a canoe, the only other signs of life being a pair of loons and one other camper sitting silently on shore, facing the growing light to the east.

Looking behind me on Canoe Lake, 20 minutes from the end of my trip and one minute before one of the brackets holding the seat snapped under my apparently immense weight

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