| Journal for
the Rivers of Algonquin # 4 from August 10-16
Day 1
The clients spent most of the day driving. Aaron and I met them at Esprit
and had a fast lunch then took off for the put in on Lake Traverse. We
put in at 5:30 pm and paddled about 2 km to an island campsite near the
end of the lake. We had grilled cheese and soup for diner. Did policy
talks on: cleaning, sex, LNT, shitting. Played some small mind games.
At first the clients weren't that interested but they soon joined in and
tried to figure them out. Cat the lone girl went to bed early but the
guys stayed up until 11:00. Some tried to sleep outside but they all gave
up because of the bugs.
Day 2
We had planned for an 8am wake up, but Cyril, and Chris were up much sooner
and woke us up at 7:30. We tried to have a French toast breakie, but I
spilled the eggs, saved some but not much, we still had 2 very meagre
portions, pulled out some spread for those still hungry. We had session
on the strokes in front of the site. Once this was done, we played "sink
the swiss". We paddled and floated, then sailed to the first set
of rapids, Big Thompson, where we did a hydrology and scouting talk. We
ran the set, albeit a bit bony, no casualties or lost articles. Came across
the YMCA from Ottawa at little Thompson, had to line down that set because
of the shallowness of them. Had a floating GORP lunch. We paddled down
to above the shoots, the second to last take out, and were forced to camp
there because there was a group at the better site above the shoots. Came
across our 2 smokers, Stephen and Evan having a session with Steve, Silus,
and Jake. I had a small conversation about trust and repeating the smoking
policy with them, and warned them that I did not want to reprimand them
but I would if they did it again. The next morning Aaron and myself had
a conversation with all five about smoking. Had a lazy Ps diner which
went over quite well. We sat around and chatted until 10:00pm when everyone
went to bed.
Day 3
We got to sleep in 15 minutes more than yesterday, this time Cyril was
the only one awake. Chris was on the small beach asleep. Woke up others
and had a decent take down, then an oaters breakie. We ran down to just
above the shoots and portaged around them, and ran the bottom. Aaron ran
down to the middle and directed the top part and I directed the bottom
part from the bottom. The YMCA came down the shoots, lots of carnage,
held us up about 20 min. we decided to do lunch at the cottage site on
the lake at the bottom, then paddled on to Rollaway rapids, which we ran.
VERY bony. Aaron somehow managed to get pined in the middle. We got Cyril
to pull from shore and Aaron and I used brute force, it still took about
10 min to get it unwedged. On our last try before we were to pull out
some mech. Advantage we got it. Once at the bottom we regrouped and paddled
on to the Natch, lined the top part with the YMCA breathing down our necks.
We wanted to stay below the natch but all was taken. We ended having to
paddle all the way to the middle of Five-Mile Rapids and camped there.
There are about 3 sites between the bottom of the Natch and Five-Mile,
not one was suitable for us. The clients did a very fast set-up and I
made some killer fried-rice. By the time everything was done it was 11:00,
everyone went to bed.
Day 4 DUFF DAY
We were going to wake up at 10am but we were up at 9, kids can't sleep
in at all. We had a huge amount of muffins for breakie, yet people were
still hungry, we gave em granola bars and lots of hot choc. We decided
to hike to the top of Five-Mile and swim down. Steve was no where to found
when it was time to leave, he was lying down in his tent. The others took
off with Aaron and I used a little reverse psychology on Steve, he then
decided he wanted to go, so we took off too. It turned out to be a nasty
little swim in which everyone got bruised. Jake, Evan, Silas and Stephen
went for a hike, we made sure they had a whistle before they left. Had
a soup at around 4:30 which turned into an appetizer for diner. Then played
some capture the flag, and had a mac. and tom. Sauce for diner. We sat
and chatted around the fire bowl until bed at 10:00.
Day 5
Everyone was awake and working on taking down the site by 8:00. Once this
was done we had a granola and milk breakie, and loaded the boats and took
off for our next site. We paddled down the rest of five-mile rapids, across
a very windy Lake Whitson and then lunched on Lake Smith a very small
tree filled site. We had as sugar lunch followed by some caramels, which
were somewhat squashed, but still good. After lunch half the group decided
to swim across the lake, maybe 150m. It was during this swim that we waved
goodbye to the YMCA group who were going to take out that night. Because
no sites on Whitson and Smith were adequate to our needs we had to paddle
on to Lake Mcmanus. Luckily the first site was quite nice and we stayed
there. During a rather relaxing afternoon the Jake, Evan, Silus, Chris
and Stephen went out soloing in the canoes. Then that same group, minus
Chris, plus Steve went for a hike in the woods. The rest of us got diner
going. At around 6:20 a mean front came over the horizon, we got a tarp
up pretty quickly, and then it started to rain. It did not stop until
sometime in the morning. Diner turned out to be fairly tasty, as it was
fusili and a cheese sauce. The bugs were quite aggressive under our little
tarp, so people started moving towards their tents as soon as diner was
finished. By 9 everyone was in the tents.
Day 6
Woke everyone up at 8:30 and had a slow take down followed by an even
slower breakie of chocolate pancakes. Squabbles were erupting every two
seconds between Steve and Stephen. Once breakie was done we gave the option
of swimming to the next site to the group. Evan, Jake and Cyril decided
to go for it. Evan gave up after a mere 20 feet of swimming. Jake and
Cyril swam the whole way there, all 700 metres. Our sit for the night
was a great sandy peninsula. We played in and around the water for the
better part of the afternoon. Steve tried to go fishing with his knife,
which we stopped. I made a pretty sweet quesadillas meal which everyone
enjoyed, Cat even took seconds. After diner we had a small closing ceremony,
everyone got to say a bit about the trip and we told some jokes. Chris
and Steve then went to bed while the rest of us went to the point to hear
some scary stories. Then we went to bed.
Day 7
We were planning to wake up at 8:30, but most of the kids were up at 7:30,
so we got moving then. We had a slow take down, separated all personal
gear from PaddleFoot gear, and made sure everything was ready to be loaded.
Because we had woken up early we quite literally had hours to kill, so
we played sink the swiss. Everyone was having a good time so we played
for two hours, then we had to load the boats and take off to the take
out. From about 200 metres out we were going to paddle off together in
silence. As fate would have it, after 40 metres a rather large "boom"
occurred fairly close to us, so I gave the order for all ahead full. I
had agreed upon a 12:00pm pick up with DVG, but the van did not come until
2, so we lounged for a bit, then I thought about playing some lawn bowling
with rocks in the parking lot. Only Evan and Aaron seemed enthused about
this, so we started playing, after 5 minutes everyone was playing, then
the van arrived, and the trip was finished.
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