Canoe No 1

Trip No 3

 Got up early and had a coffee and cleaned up my room. Ron Varity picked me up at 10:00 am to go to Kipawa. In Kipawa we waterproofed every thing for the trip and loaded everything on the Kipawa Queen II and started up the lake for Turtle. It was rough, very rough, everyone had to stay inside the boat because the waves were coming over the Bow. We got to turtle and Paul Jumped off the Roof of the Kipawa Queen and went through the Dock.

My Canoe consisted of Rogie (Roseanne) and Duke and I. This was the first trip where Mr. C. was not leading the trip, instead it was led by Rogie who still had allot to learn about leading. She was strict some of the time at other times I felt she wasn't strict enough. She wasn't consistent but her heart was in the right place.

Duke, what a character, this was the first time meeting him because he hadn't been on a trip in four years which is one year before I started. He had the same humour (wheel nuts) as I and we both shared the same musical interests, which is great when singing wile paddling.

The first day was tough we were behind but the wind was behind us, so put up make shift sails by using our raincoats and ponchos. This was the first trip that we paddled past sunset. But the spookiest part was taking a portage at night. I had the Canoe and it was dark and I had a hard time following the person in front of me. It was a logging road that we portaged on so the walking was easy. Tina and Janice and Marnie also had a hard time and got lost and thought they were going to be eaten by bears and they had there little knives out. I don't know what good that would have done but what the hell we found them after about 5 minutes. Our campsite was at the end of the portage in a kind of clearing. Every one hit the sack early.

About half way through the day Rogie put me in with Tina, and Janice's canoe and took Marnie in there canoe to even out the strength of the canoes. Now I was with Janice a 15 year old who is Maggie's (Gil Lanthier's wife) niece and Tina a 17 year old girl whom I have known since I was four. I had a blast and laughed a lot. Our first task was to line the canoes up the rapids and I took ours and fell in a couple of times doing so to Tina and Janice's enjoyment. Once we got to the top of the rapids we paddled another lake and came to one of Pat's (My Uncle) fly-in camps were we slept the night on the clearing in front of the camp.

The Next day we were guide and Mr. C tried to fool us by telling every one to go of to the right of our destination to fool us into following them and not trusting our navigation. Even though I new they knew this lake, I took a bearing and was sure we were going in the right direction but we all worried we were going to make fools of ourselves. We finally went the way I was almost sure it was. Later, we realised we were right when the canoes began to follow us regretting their scheme didn't work. We got to the rapids way ahead of everyone and we had to wait because their canoes were behind after trying there little trick on us it had slowed them down considerably. Once they caught up Tina and Janice told them they can't fool us, and that great voyagers are sure of themselves, but in realty we almost followed them.

The big question now was whether to portage the canoes around the rapids or line them down the rapids or to run them. I wanted to run them. Janice and Tina didn't want too, so Tammy said she would give it a try so she hoped into the bow and we ran the rapids and we didn't get stuck or damage the canoe. Once we had gone down the others followed. We went down the Kipawa River to Lake Watson. We had to canoe up wind on Watson, my muscles ached the lactic acid was building in both Tina and my arms, but we knew that if we stopped to rest the wind would push us away from are destination so we couldn't.

We got back on Lac Des Loups. We were last, and falling behind. I was quite annoyed at the rest of the group for not waiting for us, which was very undrifter of them. So in the spirit of undrifterness I stole some crackers from the food box, which we were assigned to carry that day. Tina Janice and I laughed and ate them joyously, we were quite hungry. At that point Janice and Tina had to pee so we stopped and they disappeared for awhile. All of a sudden they both came running back out of the Bushes laughing their heads off. Janice had peed on her poncho and I laughed so hard I almost peed on my poncho. Our laughter was fuelled by the fatigue caused by Watson Lake. Being rebellious, I wrote it the whole thing about Janice and her poncho in the log. All this wasted allot of time and we fell further behind. So after a while the group couldn't see us and hadn't seen us for a considerable amount of time so they finally waited for us and we caught up. And it was my turn to paddle.

We arrived at the campsite on Ogascanan. Our campsite was on this beautiful beach and the sun was hot. There was one problem this lake is always moving so it never warms up so it was exceptionally cold. The worst part is most of us hadn't been in the lake for two days so we all stunk. My desire to be clean outweighing my fear of temperature, and I ran in soaped and shampooed as fast as I could and ran out. It was great to be clean even though my voice was now an octave higher.

We had Goulash. Yuk! But I ate it anyway, I was starved. We had canned fruit salad for desert. I carved a dagger out of cedar and Tina kept asking for it and in the end I gave in and gave it to her. A little later a fellow drifter (Beaver) through it in the fire cause he didn't think any one wanted it. Easy come easy go. Well we had popcorn and watched the brilliant Northern lights take over the sky and you could hear it whistle, even though I read somewhere that that's an old wives tale. I went to bed late that night and I froze. It was dreadfully cold and went below zero, which make my sleeping bag worthless, well almost it did help a little. I kept waking up trying to get warmer and suddenly I herd the crackling of a fire and ran out of my tent to warm up next to it. I also had to take to urinate pretty badly but I had to get warm first. I made my self, a Hot chocolate from the boiling water on the fire after that I relieved myself. We only had three measly French toast for breakfast that morning, I was not pleased and hungry. So I ate more crackers once we got back in the canoe.

We woke up to fog on the lake and took off as it lifted and I was in the middle. We saw 8 loons about 10 feet away from us, by this time the sun was out and it was hot. I am in the middle again and Janice and Tina are paddling really hard trying to keep up, I am really proud of them they are really pushing hard. I know they do, but everyone teases them and says they don't try. They do. It is pretty hard for a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old girl to keep up with 18 and 20 year old guy but they accomplished it. I began to think "Right now we have 8 canoes all together, this is how I remember the drifters. This is power."

Later that day Tina and I were paddling on Hunters Lake the last big lake before Kipawa Lake and suddenly I hear a plane. Janice's dad was right behind us but the throttle is low so you can hardly hear it. Once he was right over our head he pushed his throttle down and scared the shit out of Janice who was asleep in the middle.

We then arrived at the next portage, one of the worst on the trip and Tina had the canoe she carried it all the way we were all pretty tired but we had one more long portage ahead of us. Tina and I began to squabble across trout lake, Janice just watched and enjoyed the drama of are flaring tempers. It was my turn to take the canoe across. Once we got to the other side we were on Kipawa lake 2 miles from my camp. Civilisation greeted us when Mrs. C brought by motor boat Pop donated by Chuck and Key. We drank it enjoying the carbonation and the coolness of it.

We paddled Kipawa lake and got back to our Island and began to wash and set up for the nights festivities. All the kids parents and relatives came over and brought tons of fresh bred beans pie etc. We all made hogs of ourselves. And there must have been three guitars on that island that night, but like too many cooks spoiling the broth the same happened here and nobody really formed any groups for singing like previous years.

The next day I had to go back to Montreal I packed the rest of stuff and gassed my Mg midget and headed for home with no lights, no wind shield wipers and no horn. Suddenly like night and day my problems were different. Will I make it in this car to Montreal before sundown. I wonder if they will want me back at the Job, I wonder how much work there is to do on the upstairs apartment before we can rent it. I wonder how my girlfriend is and my brothers’ girlfriend and the rest of the gang. These problems are much more complex not like the ones I experience 24 hours before. Whose turn is it to carry the canoe. I wonder what's for lunch. I wander what time we'll camp tonight. "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" and when everything is everyone's you feel free, even our name drifter means to wander freely which is one of the things the Trip is all about.