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It rained a little last night, but now at six-thirty the clouds are breaking up.  The small lake just south of the 90 meter portage is an unexpected treasure.  As the channel opens, a rock face looms in front of me, catching the early morning sunlight.  To my left, between two rocky points I see the far shore rising steep and high.  Lilly pads bob up and down on the water as I paddle through.  All is quiet except for the voice of the wind and morning songs of birds. 
If I were free to stop and stay, I'm sure that this small lake would hold me for a while.  I find a spot near the narrows on the eastern shore with room for a small tent.  This, I imagine is where I would stay, waking each day to this view.  I linger here for a while, hoping for the day when I might do just that. 

By nine o'clock I'm through the first fifty meter portage and entering an area of forest that saw fire, perhaps around 1987.  The western shore is burned, and a little further south, both shores are destroyed.  As the land changes, so too does my mood.  I'm a bit wary now, paddling slowly into a desolate landscape. 

Now the channel ahead narrows, and deadfalls block my way.  It's not unusual for a clear trail to change over the winter, to become blocked and difficult or even impassable - often after a single storm.  I'm starting to get a little worried.  There are few visitors to Woodland Caribou Park, and this route is not an often traveled one.  I might be looking at a very bad day ahead.  I reach a spot that gets very rough.  With much difficulty, I turn the boat around, get on my knees and pull myself through branches from three old trees that fell and now lie across the channel.  Finally I'm stopped by several large logs that completely block the way ahead.  I scramble ashore and suddenly realize that I'm standing on a faint portage path.  I missed the landing just 20 meters away - it's in a weedy area just upstream.  Much of my fear vanishes and I have to laugh at myself for missing the portage.  It's happened to me many times before, and I'm sure it will again.  The occasional difficulties and accompanying emotions are what makes a trip in Woodland Caribou Park an adventure. 

After the portage, the shores flatten out.  This is grassland, and my path through it is a small, shallow creek, twisting and turning, with barely enough room for my sixteen foot canoe.  I'm still on my knees, paddling backward.  I can take a few strokes, then the canoe behind me goes out of control and bangs into the muddy shore.  There's a slight breeze, the temperature is perfect for paddling and the skies are mostly clear.  I pass a big beaver lodge, then cross a large beaver dam.  Again I get the impression of a faint musty smell as I pull the canoe over.  By ten o'clock I'm entering a small lake with wide grassy shores.  I hear an airplane, but it's way off in the distance.  There's a point of land on the southern shore of this lake, and I mark a possible campsite.  

A new beaver dam gives me another portage on the western side of the lake.  This is a common occurrence along the lowland trails.  The dams make for a nice float upstream, but water gets mighty scarce just below the dams.  There's another lift-over and the channel gets very narrow and shallow.  Luckily, the bottom is gravel and sand and I'm able to walk for a hundred meters until I can float again.  The channel widens again, and I realize that this is a great day.  The sun is bright and warm now, and my only companions are the wind and the dragonflies. 

As I slowly paddle on this bright sunny day, I suddenly get an odd feeling of familiarity, and I remember.  Not one day, or one place, but many summers of exploring the open fields near the house where I grew up, of walking through new and unknown places, of grasshoppers and cicadas humming, the excitement of a wooded lot, of an unknown path ahead.  There's no picture in my mind, no event that comes forward, yet the memory is there, and again the world is an exciting, mysterious place.

The channel gradually gets deeper and wider.  I pass high shores burned clean by fire.  I check my compass and find my heading to be 300 degrees. I must have missed the fork in the channel, but I'm headed in the right direction.  By noon I'm at the small pond just east of the 150 meter portage.  After the narrow trail behind me, it's nice to be in the open, even if the shores are low and swampy.  For the next hour I follow the channel as it meanders back and forth.  At times the turns are abrupt, and the view ahead is blocked by tall grass, so I yell and make noise.  I don't want to round a turn and surprise a moose. 

I do meet my moose, however as I start the 600 meter portage.  I don't see her until I walk up to higher ground and look back into the swamp where I just came from. She peers back at me, decides that I'm no big deal, then puts her head down to eat.  The land here is still burned but it's not hard walking on the portage.

The trip from this portage to Sylvia Lake is a challenge.  Two large beaver dams are breached and the water in the channel is shallow.  Often I use the paddle to push as the bottom of the boat scrapes and slides through the murky ditch.  The breaches in the dams twist and turn. It's impossible to thread the canoe through so I have to unload and carry it over.  Finally I get through, but now I'm muddy and hot.  The channel just east of Sylvia is full of dozens and dozens of wild flowers that cling to the narrow shore.  Never have I seen so many of these exotic plants.  By three o'clock I reach Sylvia, and find a camp site on the southern shore.  Clouds move in now, and the wind keeps blowing.  I rinse out my clothes; I'm just too tired to wash them in soap.  Later that evening, a couple in a green canoe passes my campsite.

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Copyright 2000 by James A. Hegyi http://www.canoestories.com/wcp20.htm