an interesting canoe trip
Back in August, we had our annual canoe trip. It was a canoe trip in the sense that it was a trip, and there were canoes, but I don't think I would call this a typical canoe trip by any definition!
This would be the second time that Keelan and I were taking John and Kelvin, and the first time for Hussain. We already had one guy drop out. But no matter, they're all strong and have done trips before! We'll just get Kelvin into a solo boat! No problem.
We were headed to the Temagami region, and it was going to be my first time there. In fact, it'd be everyone's first time there, except Keelan's. All I'd heard from him was that the lakes were big and the wind could be even bigger. Meanwhile, after my extremely windy trip on the French River last year, I was thinking, could it be worse than a constant funnel?
Well, it wasn't. For me, anyway.
Let me set the stage for you. Keelan and I rolled up to the outfitter, and the guys had already arrived and were sorting out their canoes. Keelan went in to help out, and I walked Koharu around.
Only later did I learn that the outfitter had rented them a boat where both the bulkheads were cracked. As in, the boat would no longer float if you got too much water in it. And the outfitter also told them to not open up the bailing buckets, otherwise it would be an extra repacking charge upon their return.
...yeah. No one's been set up for success here.
Anyway, the day was absolutely gorgeous, so we'd probably be fine. Every lake we passed on our drive up and to the put-in looked like lovely paddling! But you know how hindsight is 20-20? It's only in uploading photos for this post that I could see just how windy things were. Hint: take a look at the flag in the photo above.
We eventually got to the put-in and, after a series of creative car maneuvers, we got the cars parked, the canoes off the canoe trailer, and all of our stuff down to the lake. Except the lake... was not looking as calm as I was expecting.
It's hard to tell from this photo, but the wind was pretty strong. I think when we looked at the weather report, it was 20km/h winds and gusts up to 40km/h. Now, I'm standing there thinking, “this is less windy than the French River! I don't like it, but it's fine.”
And I wasn't wrong. For me.
Keelan asked the group if we wanted to try going further or if we wanted to camp at the put-in, seeing as it was already around 3 or 4 PM, but the guys all said to go for it. Well, they're the decision makers here, I'm just here to canoe.
So we set off!
And you know what? Keelan and I were doing fine. It wasn't the worst wind we'd paddled in, and we weren't doing terribly. About 2km into the lake, however, I heard a splash behind me. John and Hussain had caught a wave the wrong way and their boat (which doesn't float, let me remind you) was upside-down in the water.
In addition to that, John doesn't have his lifejacket on. At this moment, I'm just thinking, “oh my god, I can't believe I have to tell our boss that I lost John.” (we work together – and when I told this story to our boss, including my above thought, she said, “and you would've had to tell his pregnant wife!!”). After some yelling by both me and Hussain, he finally put on his damn lifejacket.
John, meanwhile, said to Keelan, “this is actually the first time I've capsized!” – because Keelan made fun of him for capsizing when we took him camping the first time, but John said it was only falling into the water.
The guys in the water are trying to keep their sinking boat afloat, and I'm holding onto all their gear that luckily floats. I almost lost John's cell phones though, since they were in a black bag, but luckily Keelan noticed them.
At some point, Keelan had to do a canoe-over-canoe to get their boat upright again, so it would stop sinking. By then, we had decided that Kelvin, who had been off on a completely different part of the lake thanks to fighting the wind but managed to canoe over when he noticed we had a problem, would tie their canoe packs to his boat and paddle them back. We'd take the canoe with us. The guys could float back on their own – it was warm out and only 2km away!
Luckily for them, though, there was a little sailboat with some counselors from the camp located on the lake, and they were nice enough to pull them to shore. They were even nice enough to offer to bring them some towels.
So yeah. We camped on a site near the put-in. We managed to retrieve everything except their sunglasses. But when they unpacked their gear, we saw that all of Hussain's camera gear got soaked. It was in a dry-sack but we're not sure what happened – there was water ingress and it was painful to see.
And on the food side, it was so windy that we couldn't get a good fire for our steaks so they were charcoal on the outside and raw on the inside, but at least the roast vegetables were tasty haha.
We'd discussed that we would see how the wind looked the next day, especially since it tends to be calmest in the morning, so we all shuffled off to bed and tried to get a good night's rest.
But “try” is the key word.
The wind only grew stronger through the night and none of us slept well at all. When we woke up, the waves were even bigger than they were in the afternoon when the guys capsized.
All we could really do was wait it out, and the weather forecast did say that the wind would shift over the course of the day.
Keelan took the photos below, but you can see the whitecaps and just how big the waves were. There was no way we'd get into that water if we had a choice!
We made it through the day, with some shenanigans to try and reduce our wind exposure. Keelan hooked up some of John's 4(!) tarps to protect us a bit more than Kelvin's tree branch-based windbreak, and luckily he did. Right as we finished eating dinner, it started pouring.
After the rain let up a little, and we rearranged things to be better protected, but it wasn't ideal. We only stayed outside for a bit longer – enough to do chores like pack things away and hang the bear bag. Then we shuffled off to the tents and hoped, once again, for a better day tomorrow.
Unfortunately, hope only goes so far. Keelan pulled the weather report and it was scheduled to rain all day – lightly at least. The wind had shifted so the lake looked calm, but we also saw that the winds were still as high as yesterday, but we were now sheltered. And when I watched some groups canoeing past, you could see the exact point where they exited the sheltered part of the lake.
We let the guys decide if they wanted to continue on, stay for another day in the same spot, or if we wanted to pack up and call it. Keelan and I would've been fine if we continued on, but I didn't really want to sit there haha – I forgot to bring a book! There was some waffling, but eventually they decided to head back. It was a good call for them because they had one part of their ground sheet exposed last night and water had entered the bottom of their tent!
So we returned to the outfitter and dropped the rentals off and then drove down to the farm. It was a bit of a disappointing canoe trip, but we got them an outdoor experience at the farm. They got to drive a lawn tractor, cut down a tree, and split some wood.
It's now the second time where I've taken John camping and he's come back with some sort of crazy story (the first involved the most bugs he'd ever seen in his life). I'm afraid that people are never going to go camping with me ever again, if his experiences are what people hear about first.
Side story: we have a colleague at work with a cottage in Temagami, and he'd jokingly said to me before we left, “if you run into any problems, just go to my cottage! My parents are there!” And it was a pretty close thing to calling him up and asking if we could bother his parents hahaha.