Getting under way..
Today is May 30th. 2002. Overcast with little sun, and cold,
+4 Celsius. I had a real good night sleep and woke up late, 8: A.M. After making
breakfast of bacon and eggs, I stowed the luggage and the rest of the gear into
the canoe and took the tent down and put it away where it was very handy. I now
have my compass and a map to help guide my way. By noon, I had found the head of
the Mattawa River, after taking a wrong detour that took me to a dead end and I
had to double back a little ways and entered a narrow channel that opened up to
the river proper. What a beautiful vista opened up in front of me. I would have
enjoyed it more, if it were not so cold! I paddled through a deep valley that
blocked what little sun and warmth was at hand. I arrived to a lake that had
many islands scattered about. I picked one that had a good open spot, not
heavily wooded so that what sun shone through, I would get the full benefit of
its warmth. I decided to make camp because it sure was cold today. I set up the
tent in no time at all, and had everything stowed away. I made some coffee, more
to warm up the tent, but the coffee felt good as my cup warmed up my hands. I
have no gloves with me. I had somehow left them behind back at the apartment in
Toronto. I had no idea that it was going to be this cold. The temperature is
still only +4 Celsius. I stayed in my sleeping bag for most of the rest of the
day.
May 31st: 2004 turned out to be such a nice day with a high
of +9 degree Celsius. I decided to stay in camp to soak up some heat. I spread
myself on the rocks and let the sun do its job. By 4 P.M. I decided to go and
explore the other Islands that were about the lake. I took with me my map case,
paddles and the life jacket as a cushion for my knees. I explored a few Islands
that were more wooded than the one I was on. As I started to make my way back to
my Island, the wind started and it began to feel cold once again. I only had a
shirt, pants and my boots on. When I got halfway back, a sudden strong gust of
wind blew that had come from the deep valley and lifted the bow of my canoe high
up into the air as if a giant invisible hand had grabbed the bow and promptly
flipped the canoe end over end. In the next second, I found myself in the water.
I began to swim after my life jacket, but it skidded down the lake as if it had
sails on it. Then I was going after the paddles, but something deep inside me
told me to go after the canoe. I got to the canoe and made my way into it and
tried to bail some water out. But that did not work because the canoe just sank
from under me. I then tried to slosh out some water by rocking the hull side to
side and then tried to slip in, but the canoe kept sinking from under me. These
built-in buoyancy tanks that were built as part of the seats were totally
useless. So after wasting all that precious time, I finally grabbed the bow rope
and clenched it between my teeth and back stroked to the nearest land mass. When
I finally had reached it, and climbed a steep rock face, I tied the canoe to a
stunted tree and made my way up to the top of the hill. I was by now so tired
and cold that I could hardly walk because I was shaking so hard. I stripped down
everything I had on and laid on the moss covered rock to get whatever warmth it
had to offer. It felt so good but it was not stopping my shaking one bit. I then
got up and wrung out my wet clothes as best I could and put these back on, along
with my wet socks and boots. I saw that I was still quite a ways from my Island,
and by now the sun had sunk behind the high hills that surrounded me and it felt
like it could snow in this freezing weather. I knew that I had better get back
to the Island and into my sleeping bag and get some hot coffee down inside me
before I die from hyperthermia. I clambered down the steep rock face and managed
to haul up the canoe and tip it over to drain the water out. Then I climbed back
up that rock face to find some thick stick that I could use as a paddle. Found
one and made my way back to the canoe. I paddled low in the canoe, least it flip
up over again, and made my way back to the Island. I completely beached the
canoe up on high ground and then stripped my wet clothes off and got into the
sleeping bag, all the while shaking like I never have done before. I managed to
pump up the little single burner camp stove, for the main camp stove had no fule
in it, and somehow got it lighted and set a pot of water on it. I tried to spoon
some instant coffee into my cup, but I was shaking so much that it would not
stay on the spoon. I finally gave up and just shook some coffee from the jar. I
was not able to get much sugar into the cup, most of it went on the floor. After
two cups of coffee, and some cold meat I had left over from lunch, I was still
shaking like mad. I had kept the stove going all the while. It was quite some
time later when the severe shaking had quieted down somewhat. I decided to just
sleep it off. When I awoke sometime during the night, I would just get the
shudder in little sperts but they were not as severe as before. I lighted a
candle and made some more coffee to heat the tent and myself. I listen to the
radio and it said it was -2 degree Celsius. I reflected how warm the days, and
even the nights were back in Toronto that it was very hard to fantom how it
could be so cold now. After a couple of hours, I went back to sleep.
June 1st: I awoke about 10: A.M. feeling quite warm now. I
get into some dry clothes and put on another pair of boots. Made some breakfast
of pancakes and sausage along with some coffee and a cigarette to top it off.
Thinking back, I was glad that I was a good swimmer and that I had kept my cool.
By two o'clock, I heard some voices that seemed to be coming from a long way
off. I looked around but I could not see where the sound was coming from. So I
got out my binoculars and scanned about in the direction I had heard where the
voices had come from. My 50 power binoculars picked out a houseboat on one of
the far Islands ahead of me. I decided to go over there and have a look. I dug
into one of my luggage and found a mirror with a stout plastic frame on it that
was shaped like a paddle and I taped the handle onto my stick with duck tape and
that made a proper paddle. Then I got the canoe into the water and paddled over
to that houseboat I had seen by a distant Island. When I got there, I asked the
man if he had a spare map of this area on hand. I explained how I had come to
loose my map case. When the man realized that I had paddled to his houseboat
from my Island with that makeshift paddle, he promptly gave me a spare map and a
canoe paddle. I wanted to pay for these, but he would have none of that. I
thanked the people, whom I just can't remember their names, but I will always
remember their kindness. After a while, I departed to return to my Island. The
man's wife had given me some homemade chocolate fudge. I paddled back to my
Island with the new red paddle. I made a hearty supper as I watched that
houseboat making its way back to Trout Lake. I waved back to them with the red
paddle.