Triplogs / Triplog#2 / Days 3&4
Canoe Lake (IN) - Tom Thomson L - Little Doe L - Burnt Island L - Joe L - Canoe Lake(OUT)
Days 3 - Little Doe L to Burnt Island L
The next day we headed over to Burnt Island Lake via the 1140m portage.
We loaded up the canoe, and in 5 min. we came upon the portage.
I don't remember much about this portage, however there are 3 things that stand out in my mind.
1. The trail was pretty smooth and wide.
2. The skeeters in the morning humidity were relentless
3. I felt great carrying the canoe
It was a 60 lbs canoe and I carried it along the portage like it was a feather. My back was feeling fine.
The year before I couldn't even carry a 43 lbs canoe on my own, my back was so screwed up.
We made the portage in one pass, and were sweating like crazy and loaded up the canoe as fast as we could, to escape the skeeters. Launching onto Burnt Island was a breeze(complete with a wooden beamed landing) and it was nice to finally be away from the bugs. We paddled thru the bay and past the island, and came upon the expanse of the lake. burnt Island Lake is a big lake, filled with islands and bays galore. As we paddled down the lake, the wind pick up quite a bit at our backs. I told the girls to stop paddling if they wanted and I leaned back and steered. As we cruised past the first big island on our left a regatta of canoes came towards us, heading to the chain of Joe Lakes(from one of the children's camps) I figured, possibly back to Canoe Lake. We counted 30 canoes! All of them looked at us with envy, as they passed us by, We glided by them, as they struggled against an ever increasing wind. We stopped on an island to take a break, though there was no campsite on the island, there was a outhouse, go figure.
We continued on, and we passed Caroline Island, here I started to scout for the site I had in mind. As I looked for the site, the wind became gusty and the girls became worried, it was starting to get choppy out. Finally I spotted the site, we were past it and had to turn around, back into the wind, this proved almost disastrous, as the canoe was now being buffeted by choppy waves, and our craft started to tip a little. With 3 people in the canoe, I was feeling not so secure anymore. Watching the waves, we timed our turn a second time, and made good on our maneuver. We headed back towards Caroline Island. We we were about half the distance to the island, we turned around again, and glided into our new home for 2 nites. The site is the one located on the map on a point below the letter "a" in the word "Lake" of "Burnt Island Lake". It is an awesome site to say the least. It goes back quite aways into the bush. It has a nice low rock self landing..depending on water levels I guess...water levels were quite low that year. complete with grass. There was a very large log, that had been set up as a diving board by someone, complete with boulders to anchor it down.
JP hanging the laundry, Mark in the background: lounging as usual
The swimming here was excellent again, though i did spot some leeches, and there was a wasp nest in the ground among the grass landing, which I accidentally stepped in, but got away from in a hurry, once I realized my predicament. The firepit area was very nice, although useless under the circumstances. Exploring the site, we discovered alot of garbage. I mean ALOT of garbage on the site, especially where it went back quite aways. Most of the garbage was plastic from prepackaged meats. Although spoons, socks, underwear, and even a spatula were found, it was the seemingly endless supply of plastic everywhere. The wind increased as the day wore on, and by late afternoon, a party of 6 people/ 3 canoes showed up.
Looking at Caroline island, amid choppy waters
They asked permission stay on our site for the night, as 2 of the group were soaking wet. They had dumped in the waves(which were getting bigger by the minute), about 50m from our site. They told me their paddle from the portage from Little Otterslide Lake had been a battle all afternoon long. They were tired, wet, and a little fed up. How could I deny them. We welcomed them onto our site. However when they settled down to make dinner, they started to make a fire. I told them straight out that there was a fireban in effect, and while on MY site, they were not to break THAT rule. The cook seemed disappointed, but obeyed my stance, and broke out his stove, and proceeded to make dinner for his companions. What was weird was One of the guys was telling me that they had camped with some firefighters the a night or two earlier, knowing full well that there was a fireban, yet these firefighters had a fire anyways. tsk tsk. The other thing that struck me odd was, that this group of people seemed to be staying at other people's sites quite a bit, first a bunch of firefighters, and now us. This I thought was not how you spend your time in the park. Either they were incompetent trippers or they just seemed to have back luck, although their willingness to ignore a fireban tend to led me to believe the former was true. Still they were a cheery bunch once they had food in them. The strength of the wind made the skeeters that night non-existent. I was able to stay up quite late, and watch the stars by the water unmolested by the little devils. The sky was bright with stars, and as I watched them I saw the constant flash of lightning from a distant storm, so far away that no thunder was heard. A beautiful night.
Day 4
Another hot & sun filled August day greeted us, as we bid farewell to our guests. We didn't do much this day, except swim and swim some more. This day seemed to be the hottest yet, and not a drop of wind either. The 'diving board' proved to be an excellent addition to our site, as I spent most of the afternoon diving into the water over and over again.
By late afternoon, it sky became blue-black towards the west end of the lake, and as a canoe paddled past our site, I watched them paddle towards it, occasionally the sky was lit up with bright fork lightning. At one point although the sky was clear east of our site, A lightning strike stuck unexpectedly close to us. "That's it, into the tent!", I called out to the girls. We sat sat there crouched for about 20 minutes. No more lightning strikes came nor did the storm in the west hit us. The only thing that did happen was the heat increased. Yet it didn't rain on us. That evening, we put Citronella candles in the firepit, and stared into the tiny little flames, pretending we had a fire. It didn't work to well, for the skeeters soon came out, reveling in the stifling heat.
Our guests preparing to leave
Michelle noticed the site across from us(across from Caroline island), had a campfire going. Not only was there a fireban, but there really was no need for a fire, it was just too hot.
Michelle grew concerned than angry. Finally she walked down to shore, and started yelling, "put out that fire!". Michelle was ignored, and she continued to yell her protest. Minutes later, 2 more voices from the site around the bend from us, added theirs to my sister's.
I joined in, soon JP followed, now we had quite the roar going on. Eventually the fire was doused, and everybody settled down. Hey we helped put out a fire, we thought, a potentially dangerous one fer sure. If I thought the site at Tom Thomson was dry, with the windstorm yesterday on our site on Burnt Island Lake, I thought the site hadn't seen rain in years it was so dusty there. The skeeters didn't allow us to stay out to long and we made an early night of it.
The guests leaving under a hazy humid sky.
Note the diving log in the foreground
Sunset on Burnt Island Lake