Day 7: Sandy Point to The North-East Arm

A full day on one big lake. I was worried that today would bring inclement weather as the conditions over the last couple of days had been changeable with threatening rain and strong winds. The worries were quickly quashed when we awoke to perfect clear skies and a slight north-westerly wind. The perfect direction to allow for minimal effort. Today was the day we were to become tourists.

The view from camp just before setting off.

It would be rude to talk about today’s leg without first providing a little bit of a background to the area that we navigated. Lake Temagami is rather unusual… Despite being ‘only’ just over 30 miles long, it somehow manages to squeeze an impressive 1600 islands into this small area! Due to its large number of islands it also has a coastline of over 2000km! That’s enough to give the country of Wales a good run for its money. There is one large island on the lake that is home a small community of 50 – 250 first nationers (these figures vary so much because every person I have spoken to has given me a different answer.) This community’s ancestry can be dated back hundreds of years. Surviving on the island through some of the harshest winters imaginable. To protect the land from the development it is forbidden to build property on the main shoreline of the lake. This seems a little contrived as it was, up until recently, perfectly acceptable to build on the Lakes many islands.

The day began pleasantly hopping from island to island, the route was decided upon as we went. Despite the vastness of the lake, the number of islands ensured that we were never to exposed and the largest open water crossing required was around about 1200m. The map had marked “Historical Friday’s Hotel ruins” as a point of interest and so with time to kill we pulled up on the beach to explore. Unfortunately what the map failed to mentioned was that Friday’s Hotel was constructed completely of wooden logs and had burnt down back in the 70’s. This meant that are “ruins” were limited to two very small cement pillars. Rather bemused we hopped back in the canoe and continued on with the day. We had hoped to stop at Bear island as Ray wanted to meet the first nationers (and visit the chippy) however the prevailing wind meant that this would probably be a little too much effort. After all this expedition is all about looking lazy… 

Completely relaxed.

Island Hopping.

The norther shore of Bear Island.

The hotel ruins. Seriously, that's it...

Watching the fish.

Time to plan the next leg.

Ray did not get my joke...

5 minutes later... He understands.

We skirted around the northern tip of Bear Island and instead landed on the much larger Temagami Island. Originally the site of a mine, the island is now home to a fishing “resort.” We stopped to explore the trails around the island but before we could get to far on land we were accosted by some Canadian tourist… We were invited in for coffee and spent the next hour putting the world to rights with a group of 6 men from Lake Superior who had come to Temagami to drink beer, get a tan and maybe, just maybe… do some fishing.

Exploring Temagami Island.

Invited in for coffee.

The call of the stomach forced us to leave our new friends and go in search for food. The boat was nicely moored up and I’m pretty sure for the first time in the expedition we ate lunch on land. I was starving and could not resist doubling up on my lunch. We all need to treat ourselves sometimes… After a leisurely lunch, and in the company of a red squirrel, we departed Temagami Island and began to navigate towards the north east arm of the lake. 

Preparing lunch.

We soon came upon camp at around 3:00pm, 4km up the arm leaving us with only 12km left to the finish tomorrow. It would have been very easy to finish that night and I humoured the thought myself for a couple of seconds. However the expedition was never about a race, seeing how fast we could complete our route. In fact the plan was very much to be the opposite. We wanted to spend the expedition being lazy and looking damn good whilst doing it. Turning up to camp and having an afternoon nap before tea definitely fit those criteria. Ray sat down by the water’s edge and spent awhile alone with himself. He must have hated it… I have the luxury of getting away from Ray when I need to, he is stuck with himself. I can’t imagine anything worse.

Completing my Journal.

My Favorite set up of the Expedition.

So the day began to wind down and the thoughts turned to what would happen post expedition. Put simply, we were broke, plans fell through and we would have to find a way to come home early or support ourselves in Canada for 6 days with only $150 between us (about £80.) Now that would be a whole different adventure… We didn’t dwell on the issue too long and pretty soon we were back to talking about anything and everything. A lot of people say time passes slowly whilst camping but for me those six hours between 3 and 9 flashed by in a matter of moments. I would have given anything for that evening to last just a little bit longer.