Playing it safe

One of the most important aspects of going out in the woods is safety. We need to be prepared, bring everything we need for survival, and be equipped in case something goes wrong. Hopefully we never have to use some of the items we bring. We have been adding some items to our kit for safety. Just because we haven't been faced with anything too scary, it doesn't mean it won't ever happen.

First and foremost - PFDs, personal flotation devices. As discussed in a previous post here, I wear my lifejacket when I'm in the canoe 99.99% of the time. And I encourage LT to do so as well.

Ready to go

First aid kit - we've been building on this and probably are carrying more first aid items this year than we have in the past. Like I said, just because we haven't needed it before doesn't mean we shouldn't have it on hand. We have some alcohol wipes, gauze pads, tape, and a tensor bandage. We also have some after bite, which is not an emergency item, but well used during June and July. L.T. has added some antibiotic cream, gauze and tape. 

I've added a tick remover. It's not very big and we've been lucky so far, so I'll tuck that into my pack. I also picked up a waterproof match box. We both carry a couple of lighters and I have a great flexible long-nose lighter that is refillable. It's another just-in-case item.

Match box and tick remover

I have a bear bell on the outside of my backpack. Although I probably don't need it as I'm usually talking as I'm walking through the woods on a portage to distract myself from the effort of what I'm doing. 

We have bear spray, which is a large can of pepper spray. The range is about 9 meters, so that bear has to be pretty close if you decide to use it. And the wind better be blowing in his direction not yours! I'm probably more likely to just toss the canister at the bear. 

This is a picture from the MEC website, check it out here.

We both carry Aquatabs, which are used to make lake water potable. We've never used them as we have two forms of water purification in our kit, a filtering system and an ultraviolet light Steripen. I have the Aquatabs handy in a side pocket, easy access.

In the same pocket I have an emergency fire starting kit with several fire starters and a lighter in a Ziploc plastic bag.

I've added an emergency blanket, I got it at the dollar store, so it wasn't a big investment. It's really only a silver plastic sheet that when placed against your body is supposed to reflect the heat you generate back to you. Cheap, small and light.

Pen for perspective

LT has added 2 whistles and 2 LED light beacons to our life jackets. The light is primarily designed for bikes, but it's a button-type light and he's managed to secure it in a fashion that it points forward and is flush with the vest.

And this may not seem like much of a safety item, but having a second set of car keys with us adds to a sense of security in case the first set is lost.

We both carry the same map with us. We use Jeff's maps, which are plastic and will float. One of us just might set the map down on a portage end and forget to bring it with us.  We double up on some items, like our stoves. This is in case one of the stoves fails during the trip. 

We carry an extra paddle. This is one that sometimes comes along with us. Or we bring a regular paddle. We've collected a few, we have 5 total including this one:

Do you have any extra safety precautions you take that you would recommend?

20 Minutes of Sheer Hell

This post is about an event that took place a long time ago, but it was a very scary thing and it has certainly determined how I approach being in a canoe on the water all the time.  Respectfully, very, very respectfully.

It was probably the early spring of 1990.  I was dating a chef that lived in Wakefield, Quebec.  I had my own small apartment in Ottawa. Chefs work weird hours, we often didn't have much time together on the weekends.  But this particular spring Sunday afternoon he was off and I was in Wakefield with him.

He owned an aluminum Grumman canoe, the exact same one that was auctioned off by Bill Mason's family this year (2015).  It was on display at the Outdoor Show in early spring here.  As I touched Bill Mason's canoe, many memories flooded back to me.

It was one of the first warmish days of the year, probably very early April. The first day you could go out without a heavy jacket. The first day we all run out of our houses and revel in the hope that spring is really going to come after all. The first day that the sun feels warm on your face.  I was wearing a thick cotton hoodie with jeans that day.

The chef decided we would go for a paddle on the swollen Gatineau River.  At that time there were still logs to be found in the river, it hadn't been cleaned up yet.  There weren't a lot, but they were there.  And there were big chunks of ice flowing in the spring run off.

He had spent many, many hours in the narrow section of the river just below the covered bridge with his windsurfing board during hot summer days and claimed he knew the water well.  I'm all for trusting when someone else has complete confidence in what they are doing.  I'll definitely defer to someone who acts like they know what they're talking about.  After all, it was his canoe, his turf.

We were able to walk over to put the canoe in near the General Store, a quiet bay, not far from the main road running through the town.  The chef explained that we would hug the shore as we followed the bay out to the main section of the river rushing by the covered bridge.  

He said "There's a big stone, we'll paddle up to just behind it.  We'll turn the canoe perpendicular to the flow and push out to the middle and get a great ride!"

"Um, won't that be dangerous?  Being perpendicular to the current?" I suggested.

"No.  The canoe will rock once, then twice, then it will right itself and it'll be just shoot out into the river."

"Okay, if you're sure."

We did exactly as he instructed.  We made it to the big stone.  We turned the canoe perpendicular to the flow, and as we started to push out from behind the stone the canoe rocked.  It rocked once, it rocked twice, then it rocked a third time and flipped.

Uh-oh.

In the first few seconds, the chef was a hero.  Going into the freezing water the first thing that happened was that all my breath left my body and I could not breath.  He calmly coached me to breath, just breath.  So I did. It was a shock, but that part was handled, now we had to figure out how to get out of this predicament.

The chef was a smart man.  But that day he was very stupid.  He was not wearing a PFD.  Nor did he even bring one into the canoe.  Here we were in totally freezing water, ice floating alongside of us, and we could not abandon the heavy, metal canoe.  I had on an old PFD that I had both zippered and tied. It's a good thing I had tied it, by the time we got out (no spoiler alert needed, I'm writing this blog, so I obviously survived, LOL) the life jacket had unzipped itself in the roiling water.  The flimsy tie was the only thing holding it on.  

Gatineau River

According to the map above the six-point star is where we launched and the four point star is where we capsized.

We were in the middle of the river and the chef suggested we flip the canoe over so he could climb into it and sit, possibly being able steer it better.  That didn't work.  He climbed back out again. We were not flowing closer to the shore we wanted to go to, we were being dragged along the main flow, which was closer to the east bank.  

We seriously thought we would hit the west shore near the five point star in the picture and we missed it.  I was getting discouraged.  Strangely enough the parts of my body in the water felt warmer than the parts out of the water. When I would raise an arm outside of the water, it was very, very cold.  We did not kick off shoes or take off any clothes to lighten our load, we pushed on.  

He was starting to flag a bit, discouraged we did not hit the shore where we expected.  I was able to talk him back, I said it wasn't that bad, we were making progress.  I could not abandon him with the canoe to make his own way, which is probably what I should have done in the first place if I had been thinking only of saving myself. 

Unbeknownst to us, there was an elderly gentleman that had seen us go into the water from his home at the end of the road where we had launched from. He left his home and walked along the shore watching our progress.

And thank god he did.  We pushed on and finally made it to shore right back where we started.  Now that I look at the map, I realize we should have just walked home from there.  But this gentleman, Mr. Eaton, was at the shore to meet us and he offered to help us.

As we got to the shore and I stepped on land I nearly passed out.  I guess it was blood flow.  I'm not a fainter.  I've only come close once or twice before. But I felt excruciating pain in both feet as I stood on the packed sand beach and my stomach threatened to come up my throat.  The chef was valiantly pulling the canoe onto the shore to ensure that the current did not pick it up and take it out again.

We walked back with Mr. Eaton to his home, it was about a quarter of a mile. I'm sure we were both in a daze. He said to us that he hoped it wasn't a problem but that the chef and I would have to share the tub to warm up.  As soon as the bathroom door was closed and it was only the two of us in the room, the chef lost all ability to function.  He started shaking and I had to undress him and help him into the tub of warm water I was running for us.

We made a few mistakes that day and they kept happening.  We had hot water in the tub, it should have been cooler to ease our bodies back to their normal temperature. I would be reminded of this for many, many months to come.

Mr. Eaton provided us with some of his dry clothing to wear as he drove us home shortly after our warm bath. We had on well worn corduroy pants with comfy wool sweaters. The chef had stopped shaking by then.

The following Tuesday a canoeist had disappeared in the Ottawa River near the Champlain Bridge.  Search and Rescue had looked and looked for him with no luck.  On the news SAR said "a canoeist would not last longer than 5 minutes in that water, it is so cold."

Five minutes?  We had been over twenty minutes in that cold water and we were okay.  Although I was suffering the strangest sensation.  Actually it was the lack of sensation.  Everywhere under my skin where there was fat or muscle, I had no nerve sensation.  It was like there were slabs of foreign material under my skin.  It took almost a year for the nerve endings to grow back.  I'm guessing they were nerve endings.  We never went to the doctor after our frozen dunking.

We did not think the whole time that we were in the water that we were going to die, but there were times when one of us was despondent that we were in a situation that we knew we weren't in control of and the other one talked us through it.  It was very frightening to think about how much danger we were in.

As a result of this experience I know I can't go white water rafting.  My body will take over and have some horrible reaction to prevent me from doing it. Fear can certainly cause a physical reaction to a situation.

However, I did get back in that aluminum canoe with the chef, although in warmer weather.  I did go canoeing in that same river, although when the river was not as full nor running as quickly.

I have had to work on my fear by doing some things that can be frightening for me.  The first trip in May, 2014 was scary for me.  Climbing into a canoe, going up Grand Lake into waves that were lifting the front of the canoe and dropping it, not a great deal, but enough to make my heart beat faster.  The water was cold, it had been the official ice-out date just a week and a half before.

LT is familiar with my story, I've told it to him a few times.  He, himself, has been dumped into the Ottawa River in March in full military gear for training, so he knows how it feels. I tell him that he has to wear a life jacket not for himself, but for me.  As obviously I will not abandon him if we capsize and if he's going to die because he's not wearing one, I will probably die with him.   Okay, I'm being a bit dramatic here.  But I'm very aware I could have died in that canoe incident. i don't ever, ever, ever want to be that close again. Neither do I want anyone else to be hurt either.  So wear your life jackets, please!

The spot we went in on the right by the stone

The picture above is a current one of the Gatineau River from the covered bridge facing the spot where we capsized.  However this was taken in late May and does not truly reflect the spring runoff.

Salvavida! (Life jacket)

A little something about me - I speak Spanish.  I didn't learn it as my mother tongue.  No one else in my family speaks it.  And I didn't learn it in school.  I acquired it on a 4-year sojourn where I decided to live in a Spanish-speaking country.  I speak a cross between baby talk and beach slang, but I can usually make myself understood.  It's come in handy visiting Mexico, Cuba, and even Miami! 

Technically 'salvavida' is the floating ring you'd see at pools or on ships and translates directly to 'life saver' (mmmm cherry lifesavers) but the word is also used as a short version for 'life jacket'.  It's one of those words that is fun to say for an object that usually isn't associated as being the fun part of boating.

As we rented canoes for the first couple of years we were trekking, we always had rental life jackets (aka PFDs).  Not fun and not overly comfortable.  But absolutely essential.  I've mentioned a couple of times about having been involved in a canoeing incident where I was very glad I had my life jacket.  I wear it and I make my paddling partner wear theirs as well.  Accidents happen and you don't want to pay with your life.

On one of our trips last year we rented from Trailhead Paddleshack in Ottawa. Now their life jackets are super comfy!  Finally, a jacket you could get excited about!  Their design takes a lot of bulk away from around your arms, which you use a lot while canoeing, and integrates a net pocket on the front.  For our last trip of 2014, I decided to buy us a set of life jackets at Trailhead.  

The model is the Salus Trailhead PFD.  You can check it out here: http://trailheadpaddleshack.ca/store/salus-trailhead-pfd-%28tango%29/dp/16793

Here I am modeling the brandy-new life jacket:

Yes, I am an ad for Columbia!

This picture was taken at Cedar Lake.  I need to mention that because that lake behind me is looking like glass - I don't think Cedar calms down all that much, it's a rare moment!

A little more about me, I'm an avid cyclist - I've got a lot more experience cycling than canoeing.  In the picture I'm wearing bike gloves and my emergency rain jacket (really just plastic with a velcro closure).  So don't go looking for those nifty accessories in the camping section of MEC - look in cycling.

We usually hang the life jackets up on a tree branch at the campsite or tuck them under the canoe - depends on whether we're expecting rain.  

His 'n Hers - Mine has more dangling stuff

And LT is a full foot taller than me so he can hang his jacket higher.

The life jackets are easy to put on, they have two bands, one clips at the waist, the other a bit higher.  Both clips are on the right side of the body.  I feel very comfortable and safe in this jacket.  There is a considerable comfort on longer paddles when the life jacket doesn't rub against your arms.

I would highly recommend this jacket for usability, comfort and price.  And as with all my gear reviews - this post is NOT sponsored (ha, like I have to actually say that!).