Back!

Days Gone: 4
Mileage Claimed: ~50km
Bear Encountered: 0
Moose Encountered: 1
Bug Bites: Stopped counting after the first one
Scary Storms: 1

I'm back. Rest your weary, little hearts, we made it safely back out the bush. Although for the rest of this post you will think of me as Lumpy T instead of the usual as I'm covered in bug bites, scrapes and bruises. More later.

We were gone for 4 days, and as stated above the round trip was roughly 50km worth of rowing and portaging. There was a lot of rowing; my arms and shoulders are sore but I held my own. Sometimes it felt like all we did was stroke... stroke... stroke... but we actually moved at pretty good clips. I've learned to look far off to where we were going, not in front of me, especially if we were rowing across the current coz then it gets trippy. Like we were travelling diagonally, or sideways which, when it was super windy was definitely the case. There was also the fear that we might tip over. Back country canoeing/backpacking is quite different from being in the familiar. We couldn't just whip out cell phones to call for help if anything bad were to occur. If something happens to you out there you're pretty much fucked. Ain't nobody gonna come rescue you coz how would you call them and how would they know where you are anyway? Since our packs were 30-50lb they'd be dead weight and sink so fast we wouldn't even see where they hit the water. All the gear and food would be gone in an instant, thus severely handicapping us. I was super vigilant in my quest to keep the canoe upright.

We were careful not attract any bears to our campsites. I'm pretty happy that we came out having never met each other, although according to park statistics it actually is very rare to see one of these creatures. Park rangers are lucky if they see one or two a year. Good odds for me.

On the second day we stayed on a small island littered with moose poo, actually moose poo dots the entire park. They're not very picky about where they go... think also of roughly two dozen chocolate Timbits in one pile. At about 4pm, while we were hanging out in our campsite which is located in the clearing at one end of the island Mr. Stinky and I heard branches snapping and something walking in the bush. We looked up and saw a huge brown shape walking through the trees, its footsteps thumping the ground so heavily that we felt them. The camera came out and we waited. The shape turned into a very impressive bull moose taller than Mr. Stinky's height of 6' and came as close as about 6 feet away from where we pitched our tent. We were very excited due to our proximity, plus they usually don't come out in the middle of the day. It got spooked and jumped into the lake to swim back to the mainland. We stood and watched the whole time while it grunted and huffed the water out of its nose. Absolutely awesome.

I don't like using bug spray so I endured the bites. I find that the first bite is the worst; after that they all sort of cancel each other out so although I tried to swat them away, kill them or do the Mosquito Dance I did get bit but only had to use the spray once.

The last night of our trip it stormed. You could hear God noisily inhaling from somewhere down in Alabama before blowing it across the land... winds in the city cannot compare in terms of strength and noise. The lake was choppy and it rained. I had visions of us trying to make our way back come morning with lashing winds and pouring rain, and me screaming at Mr. Stinky "I HAAAATE youuuuu!! You did this to meeeeee!", not unlike how I imagine it might sound in the delivery room. Luckily for us it cleared up in the early morning and we got out without any incident.

After days of eating trail mix and dehydrated foods we headed to Kelsey's for our celebratory gorge. Tossing aside the skimpy lunch menus we devoured the entrees of choice and several hours later stuffed ourselves silly again. Heaven.