Lake of Two
Islands—Canoeing weekend
Near Haliburton Ontario
(A training exercise for a real wilderness adventure)
Link
here to the plan, as set down by Amy as part of her Queen’s
Venturer Award qualification
JOURNAL
We started off earlier Aug 20, 2004, than expected within 30 minutes of
our planned leave time. We made it all the way to A&P in 5
minutes to do some last minute shopping, while Karen’s mom made a Tim’s
run for us. Part of the visit to the grocery store included
lessons on what to purchase. Food needed to be appropriate for canoeing
and since this was mock trip, stuff that was light weight, compact,
slow to spoil and easy to pack. These included:
After getting our coffees we set out on the road. We drove to
Minden, to make our second stop of the night, again at Tim’s for food
and coffee (B can’t go long without coffee). After a quick stop
we set back onto the road we drove up to Haliburton, and to the cabin,
when we pulled up we saw a three legged deer, well no one saw how many
legs it had, but it could have had only three, probably at least three
or it couldn’t have run away, which it did. But that is a whole
different topic which doesn’t have anything do with this camp, so I’ll
continue on, where was I?
Ah yes we got into the cabin, brought everything inside, except the
arrows. After getting inside and choosing bunks, we laid out all
of the food. Decisions had to be make as to which items would be used
for each meal, then packed into separate bags for each meal. Shortly
after, everyone pretty much went to bed. That’s not to say that
everyone went to sleep. Billy (Sean) and Sam stayed up to catch
the mouse that was running around and eating the chips and Tylenol.
This morning we got up rather early for any day, people shouldn’t get
up before 9am, even on a school day. Everyone finished packing up,
although they did miss some things, like propane and water. Keith went
out to open up the boat house, which was a lot harder than he would
have thought. They got out a couple of canoes (Amy hulked it…i.e. was
mad strong), and a couple of kayaks.
Once the group set out, B and Keith got changed and set out in the
kayaks, which turned out is harder than it looks as they kept spinning
in circles. It took more time than expected to paddle over to the
other side of the lake to tell Sam, Billy, and Chris that they had to
stay with the other canoe. Once they where back together and
decided on a site, Brian and Keith ditched the kayaks, and walked over
to the Venturer site which was a long beastly 5min walk. They
stood around waiting for the Venturers to discover that they left the
propane behind. The Venturers decided to cook over an open fire
since their lunch was hot dogs anyway. Unfortunately most of the
wood that they were trying to use was wet. Before they started
cooking, Brian and Keith left to made their own meal of soup back at
Cheeman cabin.
We got out the bows and arrows for a while for something to do, but
since the others didn’t come around we packed it up and Brian went for
a snooze.
Alright so back to the fire issue at the Venturer campsite. Yes, the
wood was a bit, well…incredibly wet but it did manage to make an
excellent cooking fire. We all sat down and enjoyed some nice hot
dogs cooked over the fire, in my opinion that is the best way to cook
then anyways.
After lunch, Billy and Sean made an excellent sail. It was made out of
a garbage bag and branches, and although it looked like garbage (no pun
intended) it worked extremely well. Sam and Billy sailed around
the lake. After they got back Karen and Amy decided to go on a
reconnaissance Mission. Chris and Sam decided to join in so there
were four of us in the sail canoe. Billy was, at the same time,
two campsites down using lumber left by other Scouts to make a
raft. We failed in our mission but were by that time close enough
to the cabins so we decided to stop in for a visit. Billy
meanwhile had rafted a bit into the lake where the raft sunk, leaving
him to swim back to shore, then he walked back to the cabins.
Since Billy was now with us there were five of us in the canoe going
back to our campsite. It was dinner time when we got back to the
campsite so Sam and Billy made us some spaghetti. Although it
didn’t look very good, it actually was quite
good!
Keith and Brian made caribou stew back at the cabin. The meat came from
Kevin of the North last summer when the Yukoners visited on their
exchange to Whitby.
After dinner, Amy and company built a better raft from a pallet and
soccer balls they found in the forest. Amy then paddled to naked
island, but did not land for fear there was a bear waiting for her.
Selena and Amy constructed a map of the territory, identifying their
travel route and major points of interest. At the campsite, the others
found more appropriate dry wood for the fire and finally mounted an old
hollowed out stump on the fire to produce a consistent heat. As
night fell, Selena got out some kielbasa, old cheese and crackers to
snack on. The sky cleared up so with a new moon, the stars were
spectacular. This also meant the night was quite cool (about 7C
overnight). The youth took their food packs to a remote location to tie
it out of the path of raccoons and potential bears. Billy fell from the
tree they were tying into and nearly became a unique when he landed on
a branch with a protruding branch stub. Everything calmed down from
there as night came on.
After a late start in the morning, the youth prepared instant oatmeal,
cleaned up their campsite and packed up the gear in preparation of a
return trip to the main dock.
Lunch was made at Cheeman cabin. Brian and Keith had rice and bacon
wrapped filet, the youth at chicken noodle soup, left over caribou
stew, coffee, milk, juice, apples and left over trail mix. Camp
concluded at 3 o’clock in preparation of a 2.5 hour drive home.
Return to 1st
Whitby Venturers
Contact Brian Wick
Written by Keith McGinty, Amy
Caldwell and Brian Wick, c.2004