October 10, 2008: I have troubles

I have troubles describing the music that ails me.  That music!  That music!  Won't someone make that music stop!  You all know that music I mean.  That music at night, that's what I'm talking about.  The only problem is I don't know what what what - what what - what what I'm talking about.  It's that music at night that could be trance or rap but is probably just top 40 played all distorted like from a nasty sound-system distorted by the wind as it whips over the tallgrass prairie.  Everyone has had this experience.

So you're biking along in southern Manitoba and you see some kid drive by on an ATV.  He is not the one dragging a sound system, but some other kid musta been -- this is what you figure later.  There's not much to do except set up your tent in the prairie.  This place is called the "Tolstoi Tallgrass Prairie Preserve" and must be named after Leo Tolstoy because there are some decrepit pre-Soviet buildings in the area.  So you're happily pretending your little edition of Hemingway stories is Tolstoy and you're sleeping and you're walking out under the distant stars when the distant booming starts.

It's nasty, pudding on the floor music.  Nobody knows what genre it is so we call it ugly boom-boom mu'sic.

When this happens, you have to put on some pants.  That means you have to find your pants.  And that usually involves several minutes of frantic searching for fresh batteries for your flashlight.  And that usually results in discovering that you're already wearing pants.  Then you put your flashlight in your mouth and crawl through the itchy grasses.  Remember, there's ugly boom-boom mu'sic in the distance and you're itching all over because you didn't put on a shirt and you're crawling through grass, which wasn't very wise, so you're really frustrated and trying to imagine what you would do when you find the kids playing the music.  These are the options usually considered:

#1: Jump up in the middle of their frenzied dance circle, surprising them so that they cry out and the kid who had a joint hanging from his lip loses it in the grass which catches fire.  Everyone starts running from the towering inferno which only amplifies the ugly boom-boom mu'sic in the folds of its flames as it angrily casts evergreens at your naked torso.  Whenever you have struggles in the future you will remember how you nearly overcame them on this day.

#2: You will just stand there off to the side, slowly shaking your head back in forth in disgust.  One by one the kids will see you and shame-facedly walk to their ATVs and drive away silently -- not crying yet, but some day soon they will examine their lives, stop listening to ugly boom-boom mu'sic and apply themselves at school.  They will do well enough to go to university; they will study and become lawyers.  When you meet one of them, years later, you will wonder if this trade-off was worth it, but for now, you slowly fade down the music in the middle of the prairie and pack out their garbage, still slowly shaking your head.

#3: Not ever be able to find them, and realize you are cold, itchy, and don't actually want to be wearing pants anyway.  You'll walk back to your tent and pray for rain.  In only a few minutes the first drop will flick your rain fly, then another until the music fades into the static of the night.  You won't even be able to hear the ATVs drive away, nor pity their drivers.  The rain will put you to sleep, and in your dreams, there is no ugly boom-boom mu'sic.

Every situation calls for its own judgment; in this case, I went for #3.  The rain did its job efficiently; there was just enough to drive away the party but by the morning it had all dried out.

Day 111 ended: Tolstoi Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.

[Note: my GPS froze and lost its recorded data sometime later on the Mississippi River.  Since it had been some time since I had copied the data into my notebook, there are no precise GPS waypoints available after day 110.  I may later go back and determine approximate locations, but this would have to wait for a book version of this blog.]

October 6, 2008: An afternoon of purple prose

[editor's note: the storm alluded to in the previous post kept me holed up in my tent most of the next day.  I spent the afternoon describing the immediate area in my notebook; in the absence of more immediate interest, this is reproduced in all its excess below.]

Above, the sky is grey, but as I look down across the river it gradually takes on the texture of dark cotton, and then a thin blue reasserting itself to the horizon.  This blue is broken by the naked crowns of trees which have stripped themselves for the winter, contrary to human fashion.  About them are others,  These nude trees extend above others, clothed in yellow, for the trees do not shed their garments so as to freeze in winter, but so that the thin chemistry of life retreats within its shield of bark, a thin layer of death to separate it from the encroaching atmosphere of death outside.

Many of these trees remain green for the moment; they are upstarts, risking their lifeblood for another inch of growth before winter's reign, and thus to have some slight advantage over their neighbors on catching the light of spring.

The but bulk of this woods is two thumbs' width high, as measured by outstretched arm; the bare boughs extend another pinky above this.

The bank slopes down two pinkies to the water; the first half of this is populated by brush and weeds lit by some otherworldly sun; for the sky has no brightness, but the plants glow green atop and cast red shadows, unlike any earthly light, but outstripp but now that I look carefully with my tired eyes I see bright stripes of yellow in the weeds, and it is perhaps from the glow of these plants that the others take their color.

The remainder of the shore is a staircase of sick chocolate mud -- roughly seven steps of uncertain height.  Here and there it has been colonized by the red-green herbs treading slowly down to the river.

The water is smooth now, trickling lef to my left, where earlier it had been invigorated by shouting winds and whispering rains to such strengths as to make my muscles ache anew.  The waves had so terrified me in the morning and throughout the day that I had not endeavored to pack or embark my canoe lying diagonally on the near shore.

This shore surely mirrors the other. in generalities, but its proximity brings certain particulars to light.  The mud steps here average one foot high by three feet long, and are broken by a cascade of white rock a few feet wide, flowing down to the water.  It was this that attracted my attention to the area last night.

On this rocky way lies a log, rotten on one end and cut on the other, which might have been placed there for viewing or fishing the waters except for its accidental angle.  Instead of fishing tackle box, a cardboard carton of eggs sits on it, six eggs occupying the center, and six cups on either side of these filling & degrading from rainwater.  Beside the log sites a small stove sheathed in a metal windshield, a bottle of fuel & a blue mesh bags of other cooking supplies abandoned after my breakfast this afternoon.

The white rocks lead up to a deer trail, ten feet connecting to a mowed kind of driveway above, consisting of grass mowed some two or three weeks ago.  Despite this proof of the site's importance to the human animal, the only clear tracks between the rocks and this mowed circle were deer.

To the right of the mowed circle is a naked tree 50 foot high, branching like the passages of a lung.  It is alone here but for a yellow offspring cowering out from its left, half as tall, but still clothed.

These trees became unacceptable for toilet when I became aware of the secret building watching from behind their blinds of trees.  The lonely tree mother tree sat too high, exposed around, so I tramped through tall grass on one side to relieve myself at the trunk at the margin of this clearing, and hid my s--t under bark at its base.

Then I returned to my tent where I have waited out the day.  It was pitched on the fourth (or 5th) mud step, wider than the others, and covered with a dead yellow moss that proved insignificant insufficient to shield the floor from the moistness beneath.  The base of the tent is soaked through with opaque waters, cold with thick bubbles, much of which has collected at the lower edge and corner.  A battery swimming in this muck, in uncorroded only for already having been drained.  There is little to do but hope for clear skies in the morning to dry everything off, and still airs in late morning to permit my passage around the bend.
-----
PL*.  Finished Titus Groan today.  Prayer for Owen Meany is feared dead before reading.
-----
PPL.  A rainbow forms across the river.  Behind, the air turns gold, pink, fading to blue above.

The (two) lonely trees are joined at the trunk?

The deer path is populated by poison ivy, just tinged with red, brown cockleburrs and a weed of deep lavender, its seeds arranged in decreasing clusters from its base to its peak.
-----
PPPL.  One an of rainbow on farm with two sheds & 5 silos.

[* - PL is short for "post line" indicating a comment added after the horizontal line which generally marks the end of a notebook entry.]

Day 107 ended: 49*30.677N, 097*13.478W

Day 80: The birth of sand

I saw a snapping turtle sitting high on some island bar, and unlike the turtles I had been seeing on the river he didn't flee at my approach - didn't jump into the water and trade precious solar heat for increased safety.

I supposed he was dead, like the motionless beaver I had photographed on the Qu'Appelle. Out of perhaps a morbid curiousity I paddled over to take a closer look at him.

He had an enormous shell, larger around than my pith helmet, and extending from it were those fearsome, armored, bear-like claws. His tail had plates sticking up like a stegosaurus, and his little yellow eyes were motionless over the monstrous beak.

I reached in front of him with my paddle, luring him to snap, but got nothing. When I tapped the top of his shell the head retracted an inch and the tail flinched. He was fearless. His armor had gotten him through so many years, it would be a worthwhile surprise to him if there was any predator capable of finishing him off.

He was sitting high on a patch of sand a couple feet triangular. It was the first sand I'd seen on the Assiniboine since that misleading initial island at the Qu'Appelle confluence.

Not much further the river cut out into a sandstone bank, a nearly vertical cliff sixty feet high. Atop the cliff were spruce, a pleasant change from the still green deciduous trees dominating the river. Of course, most of the spruce were green as well, but one in twenty were grey, corpses standing among the living before being laid out over the river.

I was becoming an island snob. I dismissed many nice gravel islands for the usual trivial reasons: it's too early, too small, too noisy, too grassy. The sun made a blessed appearance, early, giving a warmth that lasted the day. The sun draped itself in clouds as it fell towards the horizon, reminding me it would not light my night as well.

That is when the islands gave out. I thought it was going to be another "Casey-at-the-canoe" story, where I'd reject several decent sites only to end up camping on mud. I saw a bank that looked gravelly, but the approach was predictably shallow and muddy. I would have needed to drag the canoe through twenty feet of mud to get to the cramped dirty shore. I relieved myself and moved on.

The wind temporarily with me, I let it push me backwards over the water. I looked up from my book and saw a long gravel bar. I had to paddle hard against the wind, against the current to get back to it. The filling between the gravel rocks was brown. I dreaded the thought of another of these muddy gravel campsites. It may be better than pure mud, but it disappoints when I was expecting gravel's cleanliness.

I dug my paddle into it and it was sand. I stepped my foot out and it was real sand. Real real, real sand.

Day 80 ended: 49*36.824N, 099*22.492W (?)

Day 49: Pasture goggles

It was morning because I was wet and alone. The wetness came from setting up just my mesh tent on the hooved pasture, and a fog rose over all the waters in the night. My bag was soaked, and my clothes were cold. The loneliness came from being out on the river for almost two months. Most of the time I am okay, but a couple days after passing through any town the loneliness strikes, and there is nothing that can be done about it. There are no phones on the river and its only other inhabitants make poor conversation.

Moo's about it. I can sometimes hear it as warning or longing but if there is any subtlety to the calls it is lost on me. I may one day break that code. Certainly at first the cattle all looked the same to me, but now their individual characteristics were clear.

There is the shoulder of some bull proud in youth, there is the wise face of grandma cow, her sagging teats feeding her last calf. An aged bull seems somehow forgiving and kind. The supple skin of a young heifer carries a universal sensual appeal. There she is, glistening black with freckled sides, so beautiful it was disturbing.

I shook my tired head; this is too much. I spent too much time in park, in town, writing, thinking, and not enough calling people, meeting people. I told myself, next town I really need to hit the bars, have some drinks, make some friends for the night.

The next town of any decent size on the river, where I could spend the night, was Brandon. I didn't realize it was about a month away.

Day 49 ended: 50*32.936N, 103*19.264W

Day 29: Little boy lost

"We don't have any designated sites on the lake," she said, emphasizing the word "designated".

I guess I can't take a hint and pressed the issue. "So, free-camping then?"

"Just don't get caught!" came a voice from the back of the registration booth, and I promised to find some secretive hiding space to spend the night.

But before that, I decided to enjoy the park: Douglas Provincial Park, embracing the Qu'Appelle arm of the lake. I had a cheeseburger and a shake from the concession stand, and bought some groceries from a woman I overheard saying the lake was as high as she's ever seen it. "It's terrible," she said.

But looking out over the broken down boat launch, the washed away beach, and the undercut lakesde walkway, I was quite pleased at hearing this. My mapbooks had warned that the Qu'Appelle was frequently too low to navigate, and best traveled during the spring melt-off. But if you look on a map, you will see that the Qu'Appelle cuts almost directly east to Winnipeg, whereas the Saskatchewan River first goes into the north before you can take the long lake Winnipeg back down. High water means the Qu'Appelle is runnable, which means I can get east quicker.

I visited the interpretive center, which like all the ones I've seen in Saskatchewan Provincial Parks exuded a feeling of abandon. I went in and briefly scanned the taxidermy, then decided to check out the trails that begin here. The trail runs to an area of active dunes, which sounded like an interesting thing to check out until I had biked for an hour in the hot, humid summer air to get near there.

I had no water, and the bike would not run on the mile of sandy path before the dunes. I decided to come back on the other side of the loop. I proceeded to get lost on those cactus-riddled trails, and wandered over game trails, led by my GPS, to get back to the center, where I quickly downed a liter of water.

Back in the canoe and down the shore I found a spot that seemed as secretive as any I was likely to find there, primarily by virtue of being further down the lake than most other boats would spend time to go.

It could not wait until morning, I had to go check out the portage over to the Qu'Appelle. I figured I might as well walk along the shore, since the evening was young and I didn't think my bike could handle it, anyway.

I climbed up to the top of the bank, and walked along a closed road until I found a path back down to the beach. I follow it. It becomes increasingly entangles in trees, and I am alternating between wading beside the trees and bushwacking along old game trails towards the dam. Finally, I reach it, and pull myself up the large boulders supporting it. At the top, I look east, and see no water. If the river's there, it's hiding down in the trees. So I climb down the far side of the dam, on the left side, where my map indicates the channel picks up. I see no water.

I look down at my feet. The Qu'Appelle is a drainage ditch, and empty.

I knew this was a possibility, but I honestly didn't think it would come to this. Back at my tent, I went over the alternative routes available to me.

First, I could put the canoe on the trailer, and bike down to the Missouri River, taking up the original plan I had. But after spoending a week on a dammed lake, the series of huge lakes that comprised the modern, modified Missouri didn't seem like fun.

Another option was to bike the canoe east until I found enough water to put in again. There are certainly lakes on the Qu'Appelle, which wouldn't be empty, and perhaps I would eventually reach one that the authorities were letting drain into the river, to be nevigable. But how far would that be?

The final possibility would be to turn around, take the northern arm of Lake Diefenbaker, and take the Saskatchewan/Winnipeg route. It would probably be quite interesting and scenic. I just didn't think it would give me enough time after Winnipeg to start heading south.

I constantly shifted between the different possibilities all night, becoming sure of one, and then losing assurance and moving on to the next. I figured there was no reason to worry, no reason to leave my site until I made a decision I could be happy with, even if it took a couple of days.

Day 29 ended: 51*00.083N, 106*26.715W

Day 28: Serendipity

Lake Diefenbaker is formed by the damming of two rivers: the South Saskatchewan and the Qu'Appelle. As such, it looks like a twisted 'T' on the map, the left and right ends of the 'T' being the two dams. The inside left bend forms a sharp corner, called the "elbow", which I was approaching while wondering where I was going to stay for the night. If I pushed, I could probably reach Douglas Provincial Park before nightfall, but not with enough leeway to continue on if they had no spaces available.

My map coordinates were indicating I was at least half a mile on shore. But my eyes said, no, I am clearly still on the water, or at least the sailboats all around me would seem to indicate!
I pull over to decide what to do. I hadn't seen any wonderful sites on this side ofthe lake, and since I was soon approaching the branch of the 'T' I would soon need to make a crossing anyway. But neither side of the Qu'Appelle branch looked too appealing. If only there was some nice beach right here!

I looked over at the shore I had parked at. There were old footprints in the sand, leading up to an established firepit, and behind that, a flat sandy patch under a tree where many a tent had been pitched over the years.

It seemed like a nice spot. I spent the remaining hours of the day reading, writing, and working on my math problem, while wondering if anyone with a greater claim would come along to wrest this perfect site from me.

No one did. I used the half-burnt logs in the fire pit to make my cooking fire, and went to bed in my secluded site.

Day 28 ended: 51*04.789N, 106*41.270W

Day 27: Rookery

On the wide South Saskatchewan, when the current and wind were slow I would often save distance by cutting across from one side of the river to the other through its meanders, under the understanding that the shortest line between two points is the straighter one. Thus as the river turns this way and that I run straight lines between the inside curves. And so far, I used this technique on Lake Diefenbaker, which reaches two miles wide.

By the time I set out in the morning, the wind was already sweeping down the plain, opposed to my direction of travel. My experience with the Saskatchewan wind is if it's going in the morning, it will be going all day, so I had some decisions to make. I was already packed and on the water, so returning to my old campsite seemed a waste. So the question came down to whether to stay on the windward side of the lake, where the waves are roughestand try to pin you against the shore, or cross over to leeward, where the waves haven't had the opportunity to build up yet.
But this was a challenge! I looked straight into the wind and knew I could beat it. Once on the other shore I would be more protected and closer to the insides of the curves ahead.

Now a lake crossing is one of the most dangerous things you can do in a canoe. If the wind picks up while you're in the middle of the water, the waves could easily swamp or capsize your boat, and then you better hope the water isn't so cold that you can't swim back to shore.

I steadily chopped my ottertail paddle through the waves at they went past, and watched the shore behind me very slowly recede. There were times when I wasn't making any visual progress, and so I checked my GPS to make sure that, yes, I was proceeding at one or two miles per hour in the positive direction. Aiming for that point there I should make it in an hour. Forty five minutes. Twenty. It was difficult and I used all the strength I had -- if any waves I've seen were a meter high, these were. As I bobbed up and down like a rubber ducky in a bathtub, a couple of motorboats stopped by to make sure I was okay.

Okay? I was having a great time!

The next crossing was accidental. I was used to the small cable ferries that cross the smaller sections of river. So when I saw the ferry that crossed here, I was very careful to avoid it. Too careful, I guess. The waves got larger and larger but I didn't seem to be getting any closer to the ferry. I finally saw it unload, and many cars came out of the beast, when I expected only one. So it's that kind of ferry.

Suddenly I realized that, getting the scale of the boat all out of whack has meant that I'm back in the middle of the lake. It's another long, slow paddle back to shore, and something popped in my shoulder just as I reached it. I would have to stop for the day at the next available site.
Fortunately, the beach is all sandy in this area giving several options to choose from. At the first beach I relieved my hunger and bladder, both complaining during the second crossing. But this beach seemed to close to the ferry for much privacy. There must be better places ahead.

So, slowly scooting forward, I came around the corner to see a large island. It looked to me like one of those mathematical models, a cylinder sticking out of the water, with the top chopped off at an angle to show the cross-section is an ellipse.

Islands are always interesting, and I decided to visit this one even if it meant limping onan injured shoulder. As I got closer, I noticed the dark silouettes of many birds above the island. Closer still, pelicans at the base! I was overjoyed. Soon I noticed a flock of seagulls here as well.
And then the shadows on the crown of the island began to move. They were cormorants. These are the shadows of birds, pure black and silent in flight. As I came around to see the ellipse of the island, I noticed it was covered in bird shadows, some sitting up high on nests built of twigs.

I had encountered a few isolated cormorants before, and no doubt many passed me, invisible to my eye, but this was like finding the cormorant homeworld. Cormorants and pelicans choose islands which are too far away from shore to be reached by mammalian predators. Cormorants themselves have acidic excrement, which leaves their islands barren, and otherworldly. This has actually been a cause of some concern. It seems that climate change is allowing cormorants to expand their sphere of influence, and as they do their excrement is stripping more and more islands of their vegetation, making them all resemble this miniature Yellowtone.

So what can conservationists do? There is talk of culling cormorants to preserve isolated, forested islands in their current state. But that seems like an unnatural solution to the problem. One thing seems likely, and one reason I am glad I don't have to make this decision, is that whatever choice is made now will be the object of scorn in fifty years time. We stopped forest fires for a time, but then learned many trees need a cycle of fire to reproduce. We cut down trees that harbored a certain parasite, and then learned the relationship was far more symbiotic than we had imagined.

I had already disturbed the peace of the rookery enough, and clearly couldn't sleep there. But I could sleep at the beach across from it, to the raucus sounds of these flocks of strange birds.

Day 27 ended: 50*56.078N, 106*53.630W

Day 25: The pelicans are never wrong

I have been paddling, making good progress all day on the lake, but evening and the next storm are closing in.

Now my aim was to make it to at least the regional park in this area. I don't know exactly what distinguishes these from their more grandiose brethren, provincial and national parks, but on my maps they are very small and I can't imagine them being much more than a nice, paid parking lots for campers. So while I stop at every provincial park that I can, I generally bypass these, figuring that I am not missing much by free camping on the shore instead.

Now the sun is setting, and now I have big storm clouds on three sides of me. On my left, which keeps me to shore, on my right, which wants me to stay on the lake, and behind me, pushing me onward.

Some motorboats put in at the regional park, making good fishing out of the time and the weather. But I push on. I see what look to be two large outcrops of shore ahead of me, which could indicate bays. According to my map, there is a very deep bay poorly serviced by roads, which ought to mean good camping. But there are also a number of very shallow ones, where I will be exposed to the lake.

I stare at my map and try to compare the features I see there to the ones before me. But it is hard, my Saskatchewan mapbook is an older version than my Alberta one and it does not include the topographic data which greatly aid this. My naked eyes suggest that the large bay is behind the second outcropping of land.

I turn on my GPS to try to pinpoint my position, and then find those coordinates on my map. This again suggests the better bay is further on ahead. But the wind is getting rough, and I might not make it there. I may as well peek into the first one which I must pass anyway.

And as I do, I see a flock of pelicans sitting at the far end. Pelicans are my harbingers of good camping. They sit in nice, clean locations which are relatively undisturbed by large animals, other than me. I immediately wheel into the bay and land on the soft, rocky shore. There is here a hill of mud, weathered like the badlands and bearing at least a ton of quartz, if the fragments I could see poking out were in indication. There is a beautiful, flat secluded spot in the bay and I set up my tent there as the storm nears. The wind is getting quite fierce but my place provides a little protection and I cook my dinner for the evening, and take photos of the sunset torn apart by the storm.

The next morning I pass by the next outcropping of land. There is nothing there, no deep bay, no flat spot for a tent. I do not know which is wrong, but the GPS coordinates given by my unit increasingly disagree with those given by the map in this area. But fortunately, the pelicans are never wrong.

Day 25 ended: 50*41.322N, 107*21.034W

Day 24: Three showers and a bath

"I won't recognize you the next time I see you."

So said the lady at the privately owned camp store. It is prophesy, but not a supernatural one: she is remarking on the collection of bathing supplies I have brought to the counter.

It has been 24 days on the river; 24 days without a shower; 24 days surrounded by mud and dirt, and nothing cleaner than sand that finds its way under fingernails and into creases of skin I was unaware of.

I first carefully scrape off my vagrant's beard. This process takes awhile because a few hairs overwhelm my razor, and then I must rinse the razor and reapply a spot of shaving cream to get the next few out. When this is done, I have a bald chin and lip, but still a dirty face.

So it is off to the showers. These require you to push a button for each minute of water. I don't know how many times I hit that button, but I do know that I took three consecutive showers. Each time shampooing and rinsing my hair, carefully washing my face, and down through the shoulders, the knees and the toes and everything in between. Places that ordinarily don't require much attention are luxuriously washed and rinsed under the shower, and I hit that button again and again, as I undergo the entire shower ritual three times, until I feel clean. I change into my freshly washed clothes, and I am for two hours a clean man, who does indeed go unrecognized by the camp store lady, the next time I am around.

I proceed to get lost on the hiking trails in a brief sprinkle, and my aura of cleanliness lost a portion of its luster.

But coming back to the campsite that evening, I see that the waves came up during the storm, and carried my boat away from where I had left it -- not too far, fortunately! It was tied up, at least. But the canoe is swamped and everything in it has become drenched. My little boat has had a mudbath while I was out, and there is nothing to do but wash everything out. I am fortunate that nothing was lost or broken. My method of securing my items must be sufficient.
A hard wind comes up to help dry off my articles, and lights splash around in the sky. A girl from a neighboring site warns me there is a tornado watch in effect in our area. This storm is no worse than the others I have weathered so far, so I continue cleaning out my boat while the sky goes crazy.

Day 24 ended: 50*41.278N, 107*55.400W

Day 19: Man make fire

The South Saskatchewan River changes character considerably after joining with the Red Deer. I have always wondered about how names are chosen for rivers, and am almost glad that the process seems to be almost entirely arbitrary. The entire stretch of the South Saskatchewan and Bow Rivers was apparently once known as the Bad River, before becoming the Bow,and finally being broken up into the current design, where the Bow and Oldman rivers join forces to become the South Saskatchewan, which eventually joins the North Saskatchewan to become, simply, the Saskatchewan River. This situation seems like a mess to me, but I doubt mapmakers will agree with my naming ideas, so there is stands.

In any case, the Red Deer has a greater force of will, although not water, than the South Saskatchewan, so its personality overshadows the other when they merge. The river becomes a braid of channels running about sandy islands which flicker in and out of existence as the latest philosophy dictates. I spent a good portion of the day wandering around in these channels, but finally found a long long sandbar which seemed a good place to stop.

There was driftwood here, entire trees of driftwood. I realized one thing I had not done yet on this trip was build a fire. Here, any wood I claimed for my small cooking fire is not going to have a profound ecological impact, and the beach here is so large that even with the prairie wind continuing into the evening, there is no danger of starting a forest fire.

I collected branches and twigs and windblown dry mats of grasses, arranged it all into an imitation bird's nest with extra material on hand, in case of need. Stuck my lighter to it, and it went up fast. Easiest fire I ever started.

I cooked my meal on it and nearly wept at the new culinary possibilities. Eggs every morning! Baked potatoes! Well, I suppose my desires did not go far. But I resolved myself to build a fire anytime the opportunity arose.

There is something very fulfilling about a fire. About building one, cooking at one, sitting at one, staring at one. I suppose you are suddenly in touch with thousands of years of human history that your little alcohol stove had shielded you from until now.

Day 19 ended: 50*56.493N, 109*45.173W

Day 14: A place where buzzing ever happens

I had not been impressed with my first day in Medicine Hat. It did not seem like a good place for cycling, for living. And I had felt like an enemy of the place most of the day, as they were either going to steal my boat or cuff me and confiscate my boat.

So it was with much enmity towards the town that I went in the next day. I proceeded to get thoroughly lost, and ended up at Medalta Potteries*. I took the $10 tour there, saw some ceramic factory buildings in a romantic state of disrepair, and was almost disappointed when told they planned to renovate it all to working condition. They also had many examples of the pieces that were made there; all, in the words of our guide, were "pretty cool".

I found the bike trail out of there and my heart softened a bit. It ran by a pleasant creek, was relatively well connected, and had an interesting conversation.

"You better look out," the man said, "there's some big snakes around here."

"Oh snakes," I said, "big ones?"

"Little ones."

And then I was off. I saw the Saamis teepee, which was somehow not as impressive as I hoped, and what was, according to the map, a "giant chessboard", which was also somewhat disappointing. But overall, seeing the town through the eyes of a tourist out looking for fun rather than a guy running errands, I began to see why people might want to live in the town. This is the only city where I have literally helped a little old lady cross the street. I didn't know that ever happened outside of films.

That night I found an unbelievable camping location. Plenty of sand to lay on and pull my boat up on. Gravel for cooking, with larger rocks to hold my tent pegs if necessary. An elevated, smooth location between trees perfect for a tent. I looked around and saw no signs of human existence other than a few staggered posts high on one of the cliffs, as if smoeone had started to build a fence but quickly gave up. And all I heard at first was a lonely moo, which I couldn't place.

But that night things were not so quiet. Any time I think of the river as isolated I see some great powerline crossing the river, connecting what towns only its engineers may know. And all along the river are great pumps to irrigate fields, to fill ponds, and I guess to service homes as well. They reach down into the water with great tubes or even miniature waterwheels, have rambunctious motors that feed the water way up, up over the cliff to its dry destination. And here, in what ought to have been my private heaven, I heard the rumble of these machines all through the night, sounding impossibly close for a location where none could be seen.

Day 14 ended: 50*08.773N, 110*38.852W

* - Medalta is short for "Medicine Hat, Alberta". I often see Alberta abbreviated this way, as alta. I guess people are just trying to take the brr out of Alberta.

Day 11: One laptop per camper

I liked the gravel bar location so much I decided to spend all day there, alternately rereading Steinbeck's "Travels with Charlie" and typing up blog posts. I do record a brief summmary of each day in my journal, but these entries often have as much to do with worries about weather, or fears that some farmer will come tell me I have to move. Generally these worries are unfounded and uninteresting, so I find it best to wait a few days before trying to write about what happened in detail. This gives me a little time to forget all the unimportant stuff, and mythologize the memorable things.

To type up my blogs, I use a computer called the "OLPC XO-1". OLPC stands for "One laptop per child". They are an organization which hopes to put one of these little computers in the hands of each child in a developing country. The idea being, I guess, that education brings freedom. The XO doesn't stand, but does look a little like a kid if you look at it sideways.

Since these computers were made for people in rough conditions with limited access to electricity, they are almost ideal for the camper as well. The small form factor packs well, the ruggedized housing is handy, and the keyboard is even covered with a rubber membrane to take spills and light rain. There is even a built-in camera and microphone, so it would be possible to make videos with this machine.

The power input is optimized for 12VDC, the same as a car battery, but it can handle a range of voltages. I have with me a 20W solar cell, which is mounted in the bow of my canoe. Its output is about 18V, but the computer charges quite well off of it. The panel is powerful enough to charge the computer in reasonable time despite not being rotatable to the optimal angle with the sun. Apparently because of the high voltage, the computer buzzes when charging off the solar panel. By moving my hand over the solar panel, I can get the pitch to change, and play the computer like a poor musical instrument.

Unfortunately, the OLPC takes a nonstandard sized plug and so it is a bit of a trick to get a cord going from the panel to the computer. I was able to find a Radio Shack size "M" plug that was the correct diameter on the outside, but too wide on the inside. Fortunately, this plug uses little pins for the inside connection, and using a needle I was able to push these pins in to get a good fit. Unfortunately again, I neglected to completely solder and seal this plug to the wire at home, and I have had some trouble keeping a good connection in the corrosive environment of the river. It seems like every time I want to recharge the computer I first need to repair the plug.

Overall, I'd say the computer hardware is spot on. One of my favorite features is the special screen that is both reflective and transmissive LCD, so you can turn the backlight completely off, saving considerable power, and still read the screen in most lighting conditions.

The software, on the other hand, has some issues. A pet peeve is that the browser seems to have a bug which disables keyboard input after a random period of time, making typical browsing tasks like google and email impossible. More generally, they were going for an ambitious redesign of the operating system in general, which is a mixed success. The graphic design is quite nice. Instead of programs you have "activities", and instead of saving and restoring files you are supposed to stop and resume activities. But this couples the concepts of files and programs too much. It seems, like many before them, they deemed the file system to be too complicated and were looking for a way out of it. But the result is that programs instead have to interact through a complicated cut and paste system, and it is hard to talk to computers in the more traditional ways. So even though there is a "Write Activity" for the OLPC, I tend to use the vi text-mode editor to write all my blogs, just so I know where and in what format my files are so I can easily transfer them to a USB stick.

Day 11 ended: 50*03.087N, 111*15.466W

Day 10: What are you going to do about... clothes

All my clothes are made out of fast drying material, like wool or polyester pile and other synthetics. I don't know if I can give a full rundown of all that I have, because the truth is, I have too much. Three underwear is reasonable, as is two pairs of pants, but I also have a pair of shorts and swimming trunks which seem almost useless. I have three t-shirts, which is probably one too many. A couple of jackets, which is reasonable, but then I don't need the two long-sleeved undershirts I brought. I have two pairs of long underwear, but almost certainly only need one. I had two sets of gloves, but lost one. Then, there is my full suit of gore-tex raingear. I am probably forgetting something.

Oh, yes. Four pairs of socks, of which I've only ever used one. Then there is the quick-drying button-down shirt I got to try to look more when I go into town. But the truth is with all of me so dirty, disheveled, and smelly that doesn't really help much. It's better for me to wear some obvious piece of sports equipment, such as my bicycle helmet or life jacket, and then people categorize me as cyclist or canoeist, instead of homeless, regardless of how much I smell.

I came to this gravel bar fairly early in the afternoon. I don't know why, but the pelicans tend to frequent the kinds of places I like. When I have visited the ocean, I always thought of pelicans as solitary birds, but here they almost always come in groups of three. They seem to spend most of the day doing nothing, and unlike most creatures, are relatively unperturbed by my canoe until I get very close. Then they reluctantly spread their enormous wings, flap them a few times, and glide in ground effect until they are a sufficient distance away.

The pelicans were especially reluctant to leave this gravel bar so I gathered it must be especially good. The last set of clothes I wore were packed somewhere, dirty, so I thrashed them around in this cleaner water, and being bereft of a clothesline, laid them out on the gravel to dry. The air in Alberta is so dry this does not take long, even on the ground.

I at first thought there were no structures in sight, but with my weak binoculars I was able to make out some vaguely industrial-looking building on the top of one of the bluffs. "Oh well," I thought, "if I need binoculars to make out just the building they probably won't care what I'm up to." And with that I took off and washed my shirt, then my pants, and underwear, and then finally splash! All of myself. And I laid back as all my clothes and body dried together in the long summer evening.

Day 10 ended: 50*03.087N, 111*15.466W

Day 7: What are you going to do about... Shelter?

I quit the day early because I was fed up by the wind. After about eight hours out on the water, I had only gone 12 miles (20 km) or so, constantly being whirred around one side or the other while I tried to keep the boat's bow generally downstream. I would have understood, and perhaps been able to adjust better, if the wind simply flipped me backwards. But it seemed the wind was intent on turning me to a right angle in relation to it, which is a situation I still don't understand, physically, so I was unsure what to do about it. The next day seemed to be improved by adjusting the loading on the boat.

The wind at this point had been an occasional enemy for several days, seemingly always in opposition to my goal. I turn left, it would turn left to keep going against me. I turn right, it turns right. My guess is this wind was generally about 20-25 mph (30-40 km/h), based on the wind scale index I found in one of my books. At least once, while I was trying to set up my tent before a storm, the wind reached such speeds as to nearly knock me off my feet. I should write a letter to the tent manufacturer asking if they have a wind-tunnel in which to try erecting their tents in gale-force winds.

In any case, since not much exciting happened this day I will take some time to discuss shelter and how I select a campsite.

My tent is an MSR "Hubba-Hubba", a dome structure intended for two people. This means that I can easily fit myself and all the stuff I want inside during the night, and I cannot imagine being comfortable in a one-person structure for this length of time. This kind of tent can be set up multiple ways - you can set up just the bug mesh, just the rainfly, both, or, I suppose, neither. This two layer construction is almost essential for keeping dew and condensation off of me.

In Canada, generally river islands and land below the "usual high-water mark" are "Crown lands", similar to the American concept of public property (which also applies in similar situations). So legally, one should try to keep to these areas as much as possible. However, other factors often come into play when selecting a campsite. I have come to the conclusion that generally, if an area is not posted; has no signs of human usage such as fences, buildings, or livestock; and is difficult to access from any nearby roads, it's reasonable to camp there even if it is unclear whether you are below the mythical high-water line. With these considerations, no one will know you are there, and if you are tidy, no one will even know you _were_ there, nor care, since the land is unused. However, it is especially important to keep a clean campsite if you are uncertain about the land's legal status, so as not to disturb the property owner, and keep the area open for later travellers.

Take all of that with a grain of salt; I am neither judge nor property-owner so cannot predict how either will react toyou camping in a certain place. So far, all of my campsites have been in apparently unused areas -- either islands, clearly legal, or in thin strips of land between the river and the bluffs, probably legal, depending on how the high-water line is defined.

At this stage of my journey, I do not ask much of a campsite. The less mud I have to deal with, the better. Anything else, like a flat place to lay out my tent, trees to dry clothes from or tie my canoe to, or a nice angle for the sun to wake me at the correct hour, are pure extras.

End day 7: 50*18.098N, 112*09.994W