We planned to set out from Ottawa on Saturday morning,
aiming to be at the outfitters at 8 a.m. when they opened. The alarm went off at 5 a.m. It took a while to get out of bed. We took turns prepping stuff, packing the
cold items, making tea for the road, cooking up eggs for wraps to eat in the
car, feeding the cats. No showering, no
hair washing, no perfume and I think LT doesn’t even use deodorant while out in
the woods. We were anticipating that the
blackflies would be out and very hungry.
I wasn’t looking forward to several days without washing my hair. I have very fine hair, it looks limp pretty
quickly when I skip a hair-washing day.
It took us longer than we expected to get out the door, we
were off schedule by 45 minutes, but arrived at the outfitters at 8:15. We stopped at the Sand Lake gate to get our
permit and some wood. Our previous
experience showed us that Grand Lake may start out like glass in the morning,
but quickly ruffles as the wind picks up in the morning. We got to Access Point 22 at the Achray
campground and joined the others setting off.
Fortunately there’s quite a bit of space at this access point. We were on the water before 10 a.m., however
the ruffles were working their way up into waves, not whitecaps, but as we cut
into them, my nerves were jangling. I
sit at the front of the canoe and had a real sense of how much the canoe was
bobbing.
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| Looking up Grand Lake |
After about 20 minutes of
paddling, my nerves calmed down, but didn’t disappear. After half an hour we stopped at an empty
camp site to have our lunch of fresh sandwiches, cut fruit and delicious
cheese. The rest of our meals would be
from dehydrated foods, except for tomorrow’s breakfast of eggs and bacon.
After lunch we got back into the canoe and continued up the
lake. There is an abandoned rail bridge
about 2/3 up the lake. No biggie. However it was a strange configuration. The bridge had been built on ground extended
into the lake and the opening was only about 12-15 feet wide. The lake is pinched into this space and there
seems to be a drop of about a foot. We
had to navigate the middle of the opening, avoiding rocks and climbing up the
drop. I got a little freaked after two
failed attempts. Being at the front
gives me a different perspective and I’m working on building my confidence in
the canoe after having had bad experience. Third
time was the charm as LT talked me through it.
Holy crap I had to paddle with every ounce of strength I had!
We had chosen a campsite that jutted out on a little
promontory, we thought it would give us some great sun in the morning. Ah, but we were not the first ones to
arrive. It was occupied. I voted for the site closest to the portage
at the top of the lake. I would do
anything to avoid having to cross the windy lake. It seemed like those last few kilometers were
the longest. We came around the bay,
spying the portage, but not seeing the site until the last minute. It looked good. We landed.
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| We'll take it! |
On the plus side, there was a breeze keeping the bugs
off. On the negative side, there was a
breeze that required a good jacket and helped me to burn a lot of calories over
the next 18 hours trying to keep warm.
The site is really nice, the trees have some major spikes in them,
railroad spikes. I feel very sorry for
the trees and I would never hammer either spikes or nails into them. However, I was happy to use the ones that
were already there. There was a chest
high table built between two trees that was perfect to use for a kitchen. There was a great flat spot for the tent.
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| Cozy Comfort |
I’m all about making this experience as pleasant as
possible. In anticipation of hoards of
blood sucking insects, I had invested in the Eureka! Bug Shelter and Tarp
(VCS). We put that tent up as well. Then we took it down and moved it to a
different spot. Turns out, we never used
it at all. I’m starting to call it our
“Bug Insurance”. Erect the thing and the
bugs bugger off!
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| Bug Insurance |
We had hauled a bag of wood from the park gate, LT was
planning on a great campfire that night.
Originally to scare the bugs off, but with the evening breeze, albeit a
bit less stiff, the fire would be mostly for pleasure.
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| Warmth |
Dinner was pasta with spaghetti sauce and various dehydrated
veggies (mushrooms, celery, corn, peas) and dehydrated ground sirloin. LT made some savoury bannock, which I had
added oregano and parmesan cheese to. We
both have Whisperlite stoves, their simmering properties are limited, we’re
going to have to hone our bannock skills.
Dessert was dried angel food cake chunks with rehydrated strawberries in
warm syrup and chocolate sauce (made right in baggie and drizzled on top).
I had explored around our campsite, okay, yeah, I was
looking for the thunderbox, and discovered the abandoned track behind our site
as well as the ruins, which were just four log-type lumps on the ground
completely covered with moss and growth.
When LT had assessed the site earlier, he had found the thunderbox
turned over. It looked like a bear had
flipped it, probably looking for food someone had thrown down there. He flipped it back over for me, he’s so
thoughtful! After dinner I suggested we
walk the track to the portage site, then walk the portage to see what the next
day held. We did the walk and it was
rather pleasant. The track smells
strongly of creosote.
There was relatively fresh bear scat, both between the campsite and the thunderbox, and
along the track. The portage was really
a forest road. The put-in at Clemow Lake
looked a bit swampy, but we’d manage.
There’s a drop between the two lakes, nothing major for the portage
walk, but a nice sound at the top where the water flows from Clemow into Grand.
The following picture (from Jeff’s maps) shows our campsite
on Grand Lake, with the ruins behind the site, and the train track, leading to
the portage, over to Clemow Lake. Also circled is the campsite we had the following night.
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| Our home for 2 nights |
That afternoon we had seen another couple canoe to the
portage and with only two sites on Clemow Lake, we knew we would not be able to
choose the next day which site we would take.
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| Sunset top of Grand Lake - hydro tower visible |
Thursday night I hadn’t slept well at home. I drank some pop late at night
forgetting there was caffeine in it.
Friday night was spent at LT’s, it’s very comfortable, but combined with
the early wake-up call and Christmas-Eve-like nerves, I didn’t sleep well
again. And the wind blew and blew and
blew Saturday night. I wriggled and
wriggled (usually I toss and turn, but in a sleeping bag in a small tent I need
to alter my movements). I had worn a
long sleeved cotton shirt to bed with underwear and socks. I have a Chinook sleeping bag that zippers
from the hip up to the top, however it is like a jacket zipper. I had pulled the zipper up without engaging
it with the opposite set of teeth. My
bag wasn’t closed as I thought it was. LT
had given me one of his precious silky Ranger blankets. I had placed it on top of my silky sleeping
bag. But two silks make a “Not”. The slippery Ranger blanket had slid to one
side where it had zero contact with me.
Finally at 2 a.m., still awake, I was like an overtired 3
year old, I was beside myself. I sat up
in the tent (one cannot stand in it), and burst into tears. LT awoke as I sobbed that I was “soooooooooosooooooooosoooooo
cold” and “soooooooosoooooosoooooo tired”.
My twisted logic then stated that I would never make a soldier. It only took a few minutes before I gathered
my dignity and fished out my fleece shirt and put that on. Then I put the Ranger blanket inside the
sleeping bag. And I figured out how to
properly zip up my sleeping bag. With LT
curled up behind me, I finally fell asleep.
The next day when I apologized, I noted to him that in almost one year
of knowing each other it had been the first time he’d seen me cry. He responded that technically it was dark so
he hadn’t actually seen me cry. Yeah,
he knows how to make me feel better.
