ÐBlB`Ð"• Ã *#ÃDrifter Trip 4ƒFriday August 19, 1988. The adventure all started when Ron and Indra and John Travik

brought me to the bus station to go to Kipawa. The bus left at

11:30 pm. Saturday August 20, 1988I was very tired so I fell asleep but, woke up somewhere in

between Montreal and Rouyn when the bus stopped for a half hour.

Got back on the bus and next thing I knew I was in Rouyn were I

had to wait an hour for the next bus to Tamiscaming. The sun had

finally come up when I got on the bus for Tamiscaming. I knew

that my chances of being on this trip were getting very slim.

When I got to LaTang, I asked the bus driver to let me off so as

to save as much time as possible in getting to Kipawa. After I

was let off the bus, I hitched a ride to the gas station. Then I

began to walk but hitched the next ride that came along with two

french guys going fishing in Kipawa. They dropped me off at

Kipawa Air Service and I walk to Buchers store and saw Pat and

said "Hi". I then met Chad Cunningham and he told me I just

missed the Drifters. They headed up to Turtle and hour ago.

Sherie Cunningham then saw me and said we could probably catch

the Kip Queen if we hurried. To my surprise, I found my boots

and my paddle in the Drifter room. Chad, Sherie, and I jumped in

Sherie's Boat where I began to change and pack for the trip. All

the luggage that was left over sherie was going to bring back to

Kipawa for me. We caught up the Kipawa Queen at Bovia Narrows.

Everyone was vary surprised to see me. I through everything to

the drifters on the Kip queen and I jumped on. I surprised to

see so many red and black checkered Jackets, and was even more

surprised I didn't recognise them. A couple of old friends were

missing but a few still remained. Eleven candidates, that almost

outnumbers everyone on the first trip I went on. It seems that

every year we set a record in how many candidates we have. The

first thing we did on the boat was have a meeting to organize the

canoes since I came and screwed up the most recent rouster. I

was assigned to a canoe with Mich and Dale Wells. Mich is a

funny but, quiet badge holder with a strong stroke or a stupid

joke. There was a new system for this year, since there were so many

people (24) we had to split the group into two, Group A and Group

B for the portages otherwise chaos happens and it slows us down,

I didn't like the Idea at first but it turned out to be pretty

smart. My Canoe was in Group B.On the boat we chatted, told jokes and reminisced until we got to

turtle were every one unloaded the boat. As soon as I put my

canoe in the water I notice there was water coming in near the

keel. It looked like whomever was going to sit in the middle was

going to have a wet but for the rest of this trip. But luckily,

Mr. C had two of his lightweight canoes there and he told us to

go back and trade. This was great I thought, not only will our new canoe be dry but it will also be

15 lbs lighter. After we traded canoes still being disoriented

from coming from the city, I forgot were the packs go but,

luckily Paul was there and he showed me promised he would tell

anybody about my slip©up. We began to paddle up turtle to

Hunters Point then the sun came out so I took a bunch of shoots

with my disposable camera. We arrived at our first portage and I was out of shape but we did

alright. I was on clean©up and the job of the clean©up canoe is

to go through the trail last to check if some one forgot or

dropped something on the trail. So after I got my packs across I

went back to check the trail. On the way back I herd these

voices in the bush of to the left of the trail. Carol and Keven

had wondered of the trail and they were trying to get back on the

trail. It was easy to get lost at the beginning of the portage

with the tall grass and ferns it was hard to find the trail.

Carol's canoe was stuck so Keven, Carol and I managed all three

of us to push through the heavy bush to the Trail which was only

about twenty feet away. Once we had done that Carol took it from

there. Since Carol had been fighting bush by herself since the

beginning she was exhausted. Sweat was rolling down her forehead

and she was breathing heavily. But she wouldn't let me Help.

After a couple of rests and allot of blood sweat and tears she

got to the other side. We arrived at our campsite which happened to be the same campsite

as the first one on my second drifter trip. We were last and

that meant we get the last pick for our campsite. We ended up

putting up our tent in the sand it was the only one left. We had

spaghetti for dinner and we sat around and the sun went down and

I went to bed reasonably early. Sunday August 21, 1988Ü^ ÜŒWoke up the next morning had french toast. I also at allot of

the left overs of spaghetti from the night before. That morning

Mich, Dale and I traded our canoe with J.P., Keven, and Carol

because ours was all that lighter and easier to carry. We got

going up Ostabonie. We had a strong head wind so we stuck to the

shore as much as possible to shelter us form the wind and swell,

but still the waves and wind slowed us down. My Canoe was guide

we then went into Cooks bay where Lyle buzzed us with the Beaver.

We then portaged into Cooks lake and I told every one about the

camp Gil built. Our last two portages of the day were into a

little lake and then into Six Mile Lake. Our leader Mr. B.

thought of making a campsite but soon decided to go to the Island

we camped on two years back. I was first to the campsite and got

a nice tent spot. We had goulash with corned beef and pee's for dinner and sang

songs on the rock by the campfire. It was Sunday, so we had a

little ceremony and we talked about the colors of the Drifter

Badge. We all watched the beautiful northern lights. I went to

bed early again. Monday August 22, 1988Woke up and someone had a fire going. We ate left overs from the

night before instead of breakfast since there was so much foodÜ^ Ü
left. Mr. C got our group B going quicker on purpose that

morning and we left and hour before group A. We only had a

glimpse of them once at the longest portage once we were

completely through Mr. C saw them coming when he went back to

check for clean up. We got to our campsite on Ascoe and hour before Group A and we

set up our tents started dinner. We paddled to a little Island

Rock for our swim where we cleaned our canoe and ourselves. I

tied our canoe to someone's boot and forgot about it, Mich didn't

but he wanted to see the boot go in the water so as we pulled

away the boot came with us but Daniel stopped just in time. We

all laughed pretty hard. As we were coming back from our swim

the other group came in. They were tired and hungry. We had

portage stew and I made a fire on a rock for us all to warm up

and give each other massages two. Boy did that massage feel

good. I played the spoon game which isn't all that fun but it

was funny. I stayed up reasonably late. Tuesday August 23, 1988The next morning Mr. C was waking me up to cook breakfast, I was

cook. We had bacon and Pancakes which were good After I finished

cooking them I ate as many as possible and I was full. Group B

again left an hour earlier. We went down rapids and lined the

canoes down part of the rapids and got wet from the waist down

which was alright because Mike Verity spilt pancake batter all

over my pants that morning. Now they were clean. We saw some

beautiful falls that we had to portage around. We started upÜ^ Ü
Five Mile lake. We stopped for lunch and Daniel found a venice

fly trap kind of plant. When we came to the portage and the end

of the lake Mich said he was going to go to the bathroom so I

presumed he meant a number 2, but he was just taking a leek. So

I waited and waited and finely decided to go back and check for him. He wasn't anywhere to be found. He took a logging

road instead of the trail and got lost, mean wile all the canoes

were way ahead of us. We wanted to catch up and we began to

paddle when we got stuck on a rock. Mich just jumped out and

pushed us off. I asked if he was mad, and he said."No! Just

pissed off!" I laughed and we caught up with them at the next

portage. We were now on the Cherry River. and with it's twists

and turns it took ages to finely get to ostabonie. When we

finally got there Our campsite was taken so we decided to night

paddle and we paddled until 10:00 pm. We covered 32 miles that

day. Mr. C called it a Voyager day because it was so hard. We

arrived at the same camp spot we stayed at as the beginning of

the trip. It was beginning to rain. Our Canoe was the first to

get to this campsite. I was dead and so was Mich and Dale. Mr.

B said same camp spots so we had put our tent up on the beach.

My canoe made dinner which was Swedish meatballs and pistachio

pudding. After that I went straight to bed, I did not pass Go, I

did not collect my 200$. Wednesday August 24, 1988I woke up in a puddle, my sleeping bag was soaked from the knee's

down. So I huddled in a ball at the top of my sleeping bag, but

gave up an got up. It was pouring rain. I was the first one up

and attempted to build a fire and failed twice as the rain doused

my fire, finely I had a fire, and suddenly every drifter on the

trip was up and around it. I cut the bacon with Mike V. thick

for Breakfast, I like it that way and it was also easier to cook.

We had cereal as well which was good. We then headed out to

McNorton Bay I was in the middle and freezing from the rain. But

I doubled packed the first portage which warmed me up

considerably. Carol was in another battle with the canoe and

winning. We Paddled McNorton lake and looked for a portage and

couldn't find one and since the water was low we couldn't paddleÜ^ Ü
the streams and marshes to our destination. So instead of having

to cut a 6©10 mile portage wile being wet and cold we decided to

turn around and go to hunters point. But before we left we built

a fire and warmed up and dried off a bit. So we took the same

portage out of McNorton and paddled to hunters point in the rain.

The rain stopped for a while which was nice but there was never

enough light to take any pictures. We set up our tents on the

point but some Drifters stayed in a little school house for the

night. we had noodles and corned beef again but this time I

helped cook and we had one pot with peas and one without. We

told ghost stories and went to bed.Thursday August 25, 1988The next morning people got up slow and Mr B was not happy.

Breakfast consisted of beans and more beans. We found out there

was a hail as big as golf©ball weather warning and storm warnings

so we decided to shorten the trip and get picked up at turtle the

next day. So we spent the first half of the day cleaning out the

graveyard. And when we finished it looked great. We went to see

the mines in the pouring rain but didn't find them. That night

we talked about the drifters and the importance of our group.

Stephen went to the graveyard and hid in one of the graves and

when tracy sat close to the grave Stephen grabbed her leg and

scared the heck out of her. She screamed for at least fifteen

minutes. We all had a good laugh over that. Mr. C told Mr. B,

Mich and I all his best scares he has done to people. We got to

Bed at 2:00 am. I slept in the school.Friday August 26, 1988We got up at 6:00 am and got things ready for our paddle to

Turtle. We got off early the weather was still bad but clearing,

the first time we saw the sun in three days. So I began to use

my Camera again. We stopped at the church on Hunters point and

checked it out it was pretty neat to a community in the middle of

no where. It's to bad it's a ghost town now. Lyle buzzed us as

we were canoeing. We stopped for PC on a campsite we stayed at

last year. Some one had trashed it we could tell we were getting

closer to civilization. We paddled to turtle and stopped for

corned beef sandwiches, I hope I never see corned beef again. We

got to turtle and loaded the Kipawa queen and headed back to

Kipawa where we unloaded the canoes and set off for Coe's Island.

At Coe's Island we set up all our tents. We cleaned most of the

equipment like food boxes and commissary etc. Then we all had a

swim to clean our selves off. Wile we were swimming we cleaned

the canoes as well. It was pouring rain during all this, but we

didn't care. After the swim we warmed up next to the stove inÜ^ Ü
the camp. We dried all our wet stuff. We gave the Badge to

Michael and J.P.. We all sang songs and played guitar. Michael

and I had some good blues going at one point. I stayed up late

and went to bed last.Saturday August 27, 1988Everyone got up early cleaned up the camp and all the equipment.

Gil picked me up and we went to Kipawa were I saw Tina and talked

to Pat and what not. After Kipawa we went to snug harbour. When

we got to Gil's camp and I went up and saw my camp and talked

with Gil and Maggie about the Drifters and work and what not. I

could have kissed them when they served me a beautiful T©bone

stake tender and delicious. I got a ride with Regil and me Daren

Jenifer C. went across the lake the Coe's Island. We all took

pictures of the canoes, we sang (Hummed) songs for the parents

and gave out the badges, and the zinger award. I got a ride with

the Rolies back to camp Mike came over to say good©bye, Daren

sawed on his badge very slow, savoring each thread. I went to

bed early being very tired.Sunday August 28, 1988Gil woke me up and we went to church and after I took a shower

and changed and got my paddle and I went off to North Bay The bus

was at 4:30 not 2:00 so Gil and I had lunch. I had a cold coke

and a fruit salad. It was yummy. Got on the Bus arrived in

montreal at midnight. When I got home my back free of all the

packs and canoe's I was carrying only a few days earlier was

loaded with all the problems that had been waiting for me. The