His First and Possibly Last Canoe Trip.

This is my second post of the day. On the first attempt I spent a half hour writing the post, finding and uploading a photo and at the moment I went to publish my system crashed and everything was gone when I rebooted. I have a love hate relationship with computer systems.

Today's photo is from another canoe trip from last summer. On this trip my son and I took a friend of his on his first wilderness canoe trip. I am certain that this photo was taken on the return leg of the trip because it's not raining and the lens isn't wet.

So now on with the story. My son's friend is the same age, 13 years, but he is a bigger boy almost six inches taller. He's a nice boy and has since come to spend the weekend with us so that the boys could go to the indoor skateboard rink. When my son asked if he could bring a friend I asked if he had been in a canoe before, could he swim and was he the kind of boy who would be comfortable in the wilderness for a week. It was reported back that he had never been in a canoe but he could swim and had a similar personality to my son and would be fine on a wilderness trip. I asked my ex to discuss this with his parents since she knows them and has been on a few trips herself so she knows what to expect. The boys parents agreed and also volunteered to locate a life jacket for him. Great it's settled then.

When I picked up the two boys they had way too much gear. We have a fourteen foot canoe not an ocean liner so the first task was to sort though their gear and eliminate what we could. I could see that my son was being influenced a bit by the other lad since he is very familiar with what happens on canoe trips. He and I have gone on group trips since he was seven years old and last year we went alone. They weren't too happy about leaving some of the stuff behind but all in all the mood was pretty good went we finally headed north.

When we reached Canoe Lake which is our entry point into Algonquin it was just starting to rain. The boys put on their rain jackets and life jackets and we loaded up and set off. Canoe lake is pretty big at more than a mile long and half mile wide. I have had three people in a 14 foot canoe before but that was when my son was a bit smaller. I put the other boy in the bow but we were loaded down with both boys and all their gear to the point that we only had about six inches on clearance to the waterline. The rain didn't let up and waves grew in size and I could see that this boy was a bit uncomfortable. He hadn't been in a canoe before and he was trying his best to learn to paddle.

It took quite a bit longer than usual to cross the lake and then we portaged to the next smaller lake. The boys did okay at the portage but with the never ending rain they were getting wet. We crossed through the Joe lake and did a long portage to the much smaller Little Joe lake. At the end of that lake there is a stream which runs through for a while before you begin another portage. When we hit this stream I could tell the boys were getting tired and hungry and fed up with the rain. The water in the stream is shallow and the current is swift at times and half way through this stream there was a narrow which only has one area deep enough for the canoe to pass.

As we approached this narrows I asked the boy in the bow to paddle on his left to move the canoe bow to the right. He did the reverse and paddled on the right which pushed the canoe into area which was too shallow and we went aground. I rocked the canoe free and back paddled to take another run at the narrows. This time I explained where we had to go and we began again. For the second time the boy changed sides at the last moment and we went aground again. Then both he and my son insisted that there wasn't enough water and we would have to portage around this shallow area. Though I was sure we could make it through I agreed and we went to shore and unloaded the canoe.

I admit that I was wet and I wasn't looking forward to another extra portage so I maybe didn't take the care I would normally when we reloaded the canoe. The next portage was only a few hundred yards ahead on the opposite side of the stream. I put the canoe in and had the boys climb in and preceeded to reload the canoe quickly. I then got ready to push off. I climbed into the stream and as I stepped into the canoe with my right foot I pushed off with my left. The bottom of the stream at that point was made up of slippery grey clay and as I pushed with my left foot it slipped. Instinctively I grapped the sides of the and as a consequence I rolled over the canoe and dumped both boys and all the gear into the stream. I managed to pull the boys out but then I had to quickly paddle downstream and rescue all the gear which was floating away.

That was the first and hopefully the only occasion when I have turned over a canoe on a flat water trip though I have done it quite a few times on white water. The boys were soaked tired and hungry. We did get everything back together and we did make it to the next portage and feed them before we did the last leg on the trip into Burnt Island lake. We set up camp in the rain and built a fire and dried out most of their gear before they turned in for the night.

The rest of the week went pretty well and they seemed to enjoy themselves. We got them home with no fingers chopped off. During the week the boys built fires and learned to cook on an open fire. I have a few "keep the kids happy routines" which helps to ensure that things aren't too rough. I have built a camp oven a few years ago so that they get brownies and pizza and I also lug along a bottle of oil but to do up a batch of french fries.

My son told me though a few weeks after we got home that his friend had told him he never wants to go on a canoe trip again. Maybe the negative memories will pass and he will still have a few good ones.