Ontario's Woodland Caribou Provincial Park - A Different World for Canoe Travelers

The Story of a Solo Canoe Trip Through Ontario's Woodland Caribou Provincial Park
By James Hegyi

CHAPTER 2
Through the Fire Scarred Land

It's three o'clock before I'm on the water, and a stiff wind is up on Red Lake. There are cabins and a few solar powered beacons on the way to Pipestone Bay; it will be a day or two before I'm actually in the park. At five o'clock a small island appears that looks like it has a flat spot for a tent. As I circle the island to look for the best landing, a loud splash startles me. It's a large beaver diving into the water, rolling on his back so that I only see his small hind legs as he disappears. He's been active on the island; there are many small tree branches chewed off and stripped, and the new growth of a small pine tree is half eaten.

a beaver circles in front of the island...

Soon the tent is up and macaroni and cheese are cooking on the gas burner. Later in the evening, the beaver circles in front of the island, smacking his tail over and over. I don't think he likes the intruder that interrupted his routine. My wooden paddle stays in the tent with me that night; I don't want any accidents with the beaver prowling around. Around midnight, thunder starts to boom to the south, and it rains a bit, but not heavily. I've had a long day, and I try to get back to sleep.

I'm up by seven the next day, and the wind is gone. It's a gray, overcast day, pretty good for paddling. There's a cabin ahead, unoccupied this time, and a campsite a little way beyond on the same peninsula. I stop to mark the campsite on my map. I'll continue to mark campsites for the rest of the trip.

An hour and a half later, the first portage landing appears. The land here was destroyed in the 1987 fire, so the vegetation is new, small and thick. There's a good landing, but the first leg of the portage is wet bog. The mosquitoes are out in force, so on go a head net and a pair of brown gardening gloves. I'm already wearing a long sleeve shirt and long pants, and a pair of high-top Converse basketball shoes, my "wet" shoes for this trip. Moose tracks near the landing look fresh, so I make some noise as I slowly walk along the path. After a few minutes of bog, the land rises, then it really rises, with a hard climb up a steep hill. The first hill levels out, then there's another smaller hill. It takes me thirty minutes to get to the end of the portage, and I start back for the canoe. On the way back, I meet two men carrying canoes up the hill. The younger man is full of energy and enthusiasm. His clothes are fresh and smart, unwrinkled shirt, shorts, hiking boots and sheath knife. As he springs up the hill, I ask where he's from.

He spotted my single-seat canoe at the landing. A few minutes later I meet the rest of the group. A young man and a young lady are struggling, double packed, up the long steep hill.

"You're near the top of the hill, it's mostly downhill from here on" I reply. Despite the heavy load, they've packed well. When I reach the beginning of the portage I don't find any packs. This group carries it all in one trip. I'm not traveling light this time. A heavy shortwave transceiver and battery, camera and two week's supply of dried food bring my pack to about 38 kilos (85 pounds). I'll be walking each portage three times.

The portage is completely blocked by downed trees...

Later in the day I finish the second portage, and run into a snag. I'm on a small, unnamed lake, and my map shows the next portage starting on the southwest shore. I find the landing and the worn pathway, but the path is completely blocked by blown down trees, and it's difficult to even walk, much less portage a pack and canoe. As rain starts to fall, I search the shore for an alternate landing, but I don't see one. Thinking that the downed trees thin out further into the portage, I climb through and make my way to the top of the first hill. It just gets worse. This area burned in the fire, and just about every tree that was nearby is across the pathway.

This is a pattern that I've seen in Quetico Park, a pattern I'm still just beginning to understand. After fire burns the soil, many trees fall at the first strong wind. Almost all trees die, but some have roots that go deep into cracks in the rock. Some of these trees will stay upright for a long time, but they are unstable, and a few will fall each year. As new vegetation grows low and thick in the coming years, the stark, black trunks of some trees remain, shadows of the forest that once was, and some day, will be again. I'm not sure if the fallen trees I'm looking at fell ten years ago, or only a few months ago. I start to worry about the route I selected. Maybe it hasn't been maintained for a few years...

It's harder to get back down to the canoe, and as I crawl and scramble over the trees, my brain starts to work again. The people from Fargo are not here, but they must have traveled out of this lake somehow. There's not a single footprint or canoe mark on the portage landing - nothing. So, if they didn't come through here, there must be another portage, not shown on the map. None of the trees here are cut, and it's unlikely that they all stayed upright, then all fell years after the fire. I look at the contour lines on my map and think of where I might make a portage. Within ten minutes I'm walking a new, freshly cleared portage on the other side of the lake. Here I find the small footprint of the young woman, the sharp sole imprint of the man with the hiking boots.

Only a few weeks ago I was reading the journal of Joseph Nicolet, the astronomer who mapped the source of the Mississippi River in the 1820's. He noticed that his native guides would not talk or sing when traveling. They were concentrating on the land, watching for signs of what was coming, feeling the river, the weather, and looking for enemies.

They were thinking. I realize now that I stopped thinking about an hour ago. Often in the past, while running around the indoor track at the YMCA, I would fall into this habit. It's a good habit for getting through a physical workout, but a bad habit to fall into when traveling in canoe country.

Knowing now that my maps might not show the correct location of the portages, (a new map will be available in 1999) I find the new portage out of Lund Lake and start walking. The portage has been routed through a small pond. The landing is muskeg and I sink into three inches of water as I stand on the shore. In the days ahead I'll find that there are many areas of muskeg or bog to cross. In dry weather, these areas might, of course, be different than they are now.

On the small unnamed lake west of Lund Lake, I decide to look for a camp site. This area is still in the '87 burn, and campsites are not always easy to find. I paddle from shore to shore, poking around islands and points. With overcast skies, the memory of the mosquito infested portages and the primitive look of the fire damaged land, my mood is somber. Evening is often the least enthusiastic part of the traveling day, especially when traveling alone.

It's a rock fire ring that finally catches my attention on a fire swept peninsula. This is a new fire ring, made by a crew that might only be a week or two ahead of me. There's a small, sheltered level place for the tent. I've found my campsite for the night. There are downed branches and driftwood all over the place, so I put a small fire together and get some relief from the bugs. I'm too tired to try for fish, so it's stew for supper.

All goes well until about three in the morning. Then thunder rolls down from the sky and slams into my barren rocky island. A heavy, penetrating rain rides down on an angry wind and slaps against the tent, rattling the fabric and shaking the poles. Lying on my back, I start to feel the splash of water on my face. Here, revealed to me in the middle of a much needed rest, is another mistake I've made.

One of my last minute decisions was to buy a small self supporting tent to replace the pup tent I was going to take. The pup tent needs to be staked or tied to trees, and some of the literature for Woodland Caribou pointed out that there are places in the park (like the one I'm at now) where there's no soil for stakes and no trees for tying down a tent. I have a nice Eureka Timberline, but it's made to sleep three people and weighs fourteen pounds, too much for a solo trip. I didn't want to always have to tie the tent to rocks, so when I saw an inexpensive self supporting tent on sale, I bought it. I spent two hours sealing all of the seams, but that's not the trouble with this tent. It seems that one of the wall panels is of the wrong material - it's not even waterproof! Another wall on the other side is sorta waterproof. When the drops hit it, some of the water pops through.

I have a large trash bag in the tent, so I hop into it, sleeping bag and all, and try to spread my raincoat over the rest of me. Curled up in the middle of the tent with water occasionally dripping on my face, I don't get much sleep. The storm seems to stop, but only for a few minutes. Three soakers roll in, and heavy winds rock the tent sides back and forth. I finally do sleep, and eventually wake up damp and depressed at about eight o'clock. The rain lets up at eight thirty, so I pack up wet and get moving.

Each traveler in the forest has his moment. The owl lives for the long glide from his high perch to the prey that waits, unknowing, in the land below. The eagle's moment comes as he rides the high wind, circling and hovering effortlessly in the afternoon sky. The beaver's time is evening, and his place is a slow narrow stream, a shoreline of tender young trees, his plan for dam and lodge as much a part of him as the powerful tail that speeds him to his nocturnal work.

For the canoe traveler, the moment comes in early morning as the stern of the canoe slips from the shore, as the first powerful stroke of the paddle sends out a bow wave that ripples a glassy smooth lake, as eyes come up to look forward through the misty surface to distant wilderness shores, to lands and waters not seen, to risks and challenges not taken, not yet faced. The moment blends with hundreds of past, private moments, for in each boring day, in each tired evening, in dreams not remembered, the canoe traveler forms the vision that now fills his eyes and lifts his spirit.

On my way to the first portage I find two campsites on a point of land. There's an area of forest here that was not burned in the '87 fire. The first portage is very wet and begins with a walk through muskeg. The water is six inches deep in some places. Sometimes my feet sink into the mushy vegetation, but they always come up clean. There's no soil, no dirt here below the plants.

The second portage begins on a beaver dam. I get on my knees, turn around and back into the logs and sticks on the right side of the dam. Again I see fresh moose tracks, not eroded by the rain that fell the night before. This portage is short, but I make lots of noise as I walk through with my pack. There's not a lot of room here and if I can't get along with the beavers in this place, maybe the moose might not appreciate my company either.

The third portage has a waterfall in the forest next to the path. There are many small areas here that escaped the fire, but as I finish the portage, I again see only the small trees, the depressing dead tree trunks that poke out of the green, a primitive landscape that brings no satisfaction to my eyes. I feel very worn out today, the long drive, the sleepless wet night, the overcast skies and the wet, mosquito infested portages have worn me down. It's three o'clock now, and I decide to make an early day of it. The sun is shining, and I want to dry my gear before the weather changes again.

I have to do something about my tent, but I'm tired and my inventiveness is not up to par. I sew loops of parachute cord to tag out the side panels so that the water drips past the tent bottom. I add loops to my rain coat and the top of the tent so that my coat can be used as a fly to cover the defective panel when I sleep. I try to rig the plastic bag over the other panel, but by now I'm out of ideas. Maybe the weather will improve...

I'm in the sack by seven thirty. The sun is still well above the horizon; it won't set until nine-thirty, and on the one day that I stayed up late, it didn't really get dark until eleven. It's not the sun keeping me up, however, but a very large raven that keeps screaming around my camp. He finally lands in my campsite and I peek out of the tent screen to see what he's up to. First, he goes into a fighting stance and charges the bow of my canoe. Next, he "counts coup" on my fishing rod, jumping forward to give it a peck, then jumping back to defend against the counter-attack. A small scrap of wet paper is tasted, then he finally gives up and leaves me alone.

Next, the expert moves in to take over this "keep the camper awake" project. Smack! Splash!, Smack! Splash! Did the beaver from the other night follow me or do they all hate me? Maybe it's revenge for all of their ancestors that ended up as hats in Europe. Each time I'm almost asleep he wakes me up again. Exhaustion finally wins and I drift off. Outside my small leaky tent, the sun settles and the drone of mosquitoes becomes a steady hum. There is no storm this night, and I sleep deep and dry until morning.