I'm sorry to say, we did not take a single picture on our last day of the expedition. However we certainly had an adventure. During the night the wind had turned and was now blowing directly down the North-East arm with a consistent F3-F4 speed. I had made the decision without getting out of the hammock that this morning was not going to be an early start. I told myself that the conditions would improve and rolled over and went back to sleep. I awoke again at around 8:45am and it was obvious that the conditions were, sadly, not going to improve. We hastily broke camp leaving the tarp to last, allowing us to enjoy breakfast in the relative shelter.
Today was going to be a slog. 12km of paddling directly into
a headwind with little shelter provided by the bank and a few extremely exposed
stretches. Ray and I decided that it
would be good to experience some foul Canadian weather as up until now, the
only reason to wear a cag was to keep the midges at bay. We pushed off at
around 9:30am and the first few kilometres went by relatively quickly, as it was
possible to hop between small islands. After 3km we turned around a small
headland and became very exposed to the full force of the wind. Even when the
wind died off slightly, due to the huge expanse of water, the fetch was still
daunting. For the first time in the expedition I felt scared and it felt good.
Despite never being more than 50m from the bank for the next 4km I felt
completely exposed and vulnerable. It was a case of getting our heads down and
paddling hard. I was motivated by the flex of the paddle in each stroke. It
felt good to be working hard and sustaining a good tempo. After 2 hours, the
exposed bay had been safely navigated. The combination of strong wind and
horizontal rain insured that the water penetrated deep, but Ray and I both had
big smiles on our faces.
All that was left now was a final stretch of around 5km
navigating between large islands and narrow channels in relative shelter from
the wind. About an hour from the end I informed Ray that we were on the final 10
minute push. A phrase I regretted saying as Ray insisted on repeating it back
to me at every opportunity. The first sign of the finish was seeing an 18
Wheeler raw past on the highway. 5 minutes later we were back in Temagami. The end was a slightly anti-climactic moment.
We hugged because that seemed to be the done thing after a long expedition, but
to be honest it didn’t bother me in the slightest that we had finished. My
brain naturally began to think to the logistics of the next phase of the
expedition. After 30 minutes we were picked up and transported back to
Smoothwater Lodge. There we spent the afternoon enjoying a shower and taking
stock of our equipment.
In the afternoon I was incredibly lucky to spend a couple of
hours talking boat design with John from Smoothwater. John has built lots of
cedar canvas canoes over the years, many of which are used by the outfitters.
One of these canoes was used by Ray Mears in a series of short movies that
released at the beginning of the year. John very kindly introduced me to the
traditional method of carrying an open canoe using a set of paddles and a
tumpline instead of a yoke. I must say the end result is not only comfier and
easier, but also considerably more adaptable for portaging up and down hill
with the set up allowing for trim to be changed simply by adjusting the
position of the paddles. This is a very similar set up to the methods used by both Sherpas and Africans. It allows great weight to be carried it relative comfort.
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| Johns own handmade 17ft wood canvas Prospector. |
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| Looking at the tumpline. |
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| Fitting the line. |
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| The set up. |
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| Securing the paddles. |
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| Testing it out. |
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| Testing it out. |
One of the biggest challenges was working out how we were
going to survive in Ontario for the next 6 days with only $150 to our name. The
first choice was to reschedule the flights, however Air Transat has a very
strict no changing policy so that was a bust. My next idea was to get us some
work! Having worked seasons
before I knew that around this time of year the summer camps would be starting
their pre-season maintenance. A few polite emails were quickly sent and in less
than half an hour, I received a reply from Camp Temagami that simply read:
“Hi
Nathan,
We just arrived on the lake and have plenty of work on the island after
a long winter. We will be in Temagami town tomorrow after lunch around 12:30.
Do you want to meet us at the petro-can gas station?
Cheers,
Nick”
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