"Voyageurs in my veins"

I was curious whether I'm the only one in living memory to have canoed the Qu'Appelle River, and it turns out I am not. I found this article "Voyageurs in my veins" by Jean-Philippe Bourgeois. He describes how in 1996 he and Alain Bourbeau canoed the estimated 3700 miles from Calgary to Montreal, taking the southern route. Alain had never slept in a tent before this trip.

This is a great, well-written article, and I enjoyed comparing their experiences with mine. For instance, the discovery of the Qu'Appelle:

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.

-- K.C.Saff, from Little boy lost.

Atlases differed because of the dam which backs water up, the South-Saskatchewan either joined up with the Qu'Appelle or it didn't, leaving a huge gap. An earth dyke separates the two systems.

Alain, through a deviant lack of shared information from my part, did not share my anxiety. We paddled from Calgary to Winnipeg using the "Canadian Tire Road Guide to North-America". Page 112 failed to reveal where the anticipated link with the Qu'Appelle was.

Standing on top of the dyke, we peered into the horizon and saw nothing but a few cows, ankle deep in a mud puddle, the only water in sight.

--Jean-Philippe Bourgeois, from Voyageurs in my veins.

Their Qu'Appelle met this disappointing first impression more than mine did. For the first five days, they had to pull the canoe over the muddy river bottom, in water never exceeding four inches. Their photo of the Qu'Appelle is horrifying. I was so lucky to do this in a high water year.

The entire article is worth reading. Their experience in Ontario, which I never got to, sounded surprisingly similar to mine on the Mississippi.

Day 59: Good... or evil?

The Qu'Appelle River. Good... or evil? Is it a good river suffering from human indifference, or is it primarily an evil river bent to seduce the unwary? Shall we spend time and money to save the river, or is it best put down? I don't know. Let's talk about herons.
Good... or evil? Undeniably good. Even a lousy day float can be saved by a heron sighting, because they are shy, graceful birds rarely seen outside the river. I have seen a number of great blue heron on the lower Qu'Appelle. Their territory does not have much overlap with pelicans, or strangely enough, great horned owls. They are only blue in flight. Standing on the bank they are thin and grey, like a large stick.
Unlike pelicans, it is unusual to see more than one heron at a time. I suppose they areas shy around others as they are around humans. It seems to be motion that sets them flying more than anything else. They don't seem to actually hear my approach before I round the bend. I have made some sad conclusions from this, which I hope prove to be false. Birds don't have visible ears; surely their hearing is not as good as ours. If the heron doesn't hear me what else might birds not hear? I have a terrible fear that the rich melodies of songbirds are not fully appreciated by their mates, but only by us.
If it's motion that scares them, I imagine that staying still I must resemble a log floating through the river. If you think that's silly, maybe you haven't spent enough time on the river. Certain ducks will lay low and still to mask themselves as logs. I thought this was silly at first -- clearly, it's a duck. However, I have now seen actual, bona fide logs that look like that. I have seen logs that look like muskrats, stereos, dishwashers, fishermen, and canoes. Trees grow queerly and water gnarls them until any shape can be obtained. Now anything floating slowly in the water, or sitting motionless on the bank, is at considerable suspicion of being a log.
I once thought I saw a heron standing on the bank. However, the object made no motion, and I was paddling, so I knew it must be a log. A surprisingly heron-shaped log, but a log nonetheless. I continued paddling toward the next bend. The log bent down, ate a fish, unpacked two huge wings, and flew around the corner.
When I came around the corner there were two herons standing there, and my log still in flight over them. The herons were spooked by my appearance, and they launched into the sky as well. I had never seen three herons at once before, and I don't think they knew how to act in such large company, either. A couple of them settled into the tops of trees, and it is very funny to watch these large birds perch on the high branches. The tree bows considerably under the weight. I suppose herons are too large to fit onto the lower branches.
There, friends, is my case that herons are good. Make of it what you will, and ask yourself, is a river more than the sum of its birds and twists?
Day 59 ended: 50*28.947N, 101*47.859W

Day 58: Crossings and fences

I cooled down significantly by the day after the private causeway. The truth is, most of the people in this area were very respectful of paddlers. Many fences were just a single electric wire, high enough on one side to underpass without ducking.

Other farmers had solved the problem of crossing the river by piling up boulders for equipment to roll over. They put up signs saying "CROSSING" on either side to warn of this kind of structure. I am not sure a sign is really necessary, but it shows they were thinking of me, and helped explain the mystery that I had thought of as man-made weirs. The purpose is not in stopping the water, but in crossing it.

I don't mind these kinds of crossings. They are usually fun to paddle over, or at least easy to push the canoe through, and I imagine the fish have a better time navigating them, too.

And the river after Round Lake is often beautiful, well-treed, well-moosed. The water is clearer and there are frequent shale banks to stop on.

While happy in these thoughts I came across one of the worst fences I had seen. Three barbed wires straight across with frequent posts. I was fortunate to be just able to squeeze the canoe under on the side, while ducking through the fence on shore.

Maybe it is a good river, worth saving in places, and where else but the section after Round Lake? It's too bad that just a couple inconsiderate people can ruin so much of the river.

Day 58 ended: 50*31.395N, 101*55.356W

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 42: Labyrinths

It is like a labyrinth, I thought, the only thing it tests is your patience.

I was sitting in a boat in a ditch winding through a pasture. The banks were high enough to prevent seeing anything to my sides, but occasionally the opening before me was long enough that I could see out to the valley beyond. At the time I saw a house. A house I had already seen several times in the last couple hours, and sometimes from angles more advanced from that one.

The Qu'Appelle at times makes me despair of ever getting anywhere, and then I start plotting my campsites on my map just to prove that, yes, yes, I am making four or five miles a day, as the crow flies.

Distance, though, doesn't seem to be the right measure for the Qu'Appelle. The river sits in a valley carved by an ancient, powerful current fed by glacier runoff at the end of the last ice age. The tiny Qu'Appelle winds about in a space-filling curve to fill this wide valley, and so I start thinking about how many acres I have travelled, how many square miles I have left.

A cathedral labyrinth is designed to have no branches, only an area of twists and turns. The kneeling or crawling supplicant must lose sense of the distance travelled, as I do, and continue on in just the assurance that the trial must, eventually, end.

I don't know how many square miles I travelled before I came to a weir. A pelican and cormorant, illegally fishing in the turbulent waters below, fled at my approach. There was a good two or three feet drop on this weir, but plenty of current over it. I consulted my curmudgeon, who told me that waterfalls are usually quite safe if the flow is sufficient, but dams are often far more dangerous than they appear. I scouted alongside the river, and even though there was no great portage route with my wheels, decided that was the safest way to go. The dam did not look so bad itself, but there was a woodplank walkway going over it, which I would have to duck. Then, blind and powerless, my canoe would have to continue in a straight enough course to avoid hitting the sides of the chute, which would surely upend the boat if struck. The physics said it should work, there was a big pool below where I could retrieve anything that got dumped, but there just wasn't room for my head.

Past the weir, I looked at my map in shock. It actually showed two channels for the Qu'Appelle here, and by the map I had taken the wrong one. Is this a labyrinth or a maze? Did I miss a fork somewhere? Was the arduous portage around the weir so unnecessary? I imagined the southern channel a paradise of sandy beaches populated by nubile women hand-feeding pelicans, until I came to it. It was not wide enough for a canoe, and the mapmakers had misinterpreted a small creek.

It did get me thinking about the real fork at Lake Diefenbaker. There were two routes from there to Winnipeg, either the Qu'Appelle, or the South Saskatchewan. I had estimated the South Saskatchewan route to take two months, and the Qu'Appelle at one month, given what I knew about my rate of travel. But the Qu'Appelle turned out to be a muddy, twisting little devil, and I knew the Saskatchewan had sandbanks, islands, pelicans, and no doubt some lovely ladies as well. Did I go the wrong way? This path was going to take longer than I had hoped.

Day 42 ended: 50*48.994N, 104*29.879W

Day 40: Dear Rubber Ducky

Dear Rubber Ducky,

Who knew that the day we met would be the day we parted? I was floating down the river, evading fallen trees in my dashing Tilley hat. You were lost among the river trash of Lumsden, waiting for someone who would take you from that place. You, with your yellow plumage and rubber skin.

Things proceeded quickly. You showed me the tattoo on your bottom, "CM 2008". I took a photo of my new mascot, happy to show the world.

You did not want me to see Lumsden. You said the library is closed on Thursdays, there would be nowhere to leave a boat to bike to Regina. I still wanted to look around and was shocked by your insistence.

I climbed up that steep bank and after looking for some time, did find the library, and was amused by its sign "The Library". Along the way I had seen ads for a drugstore. These ads were ducklike characters, but I thought nothing of it.

I then hiked along the tops of the steep river banks looking for a place to park a canoe. It was odd, having trails along that channelized section of river, as if to form a kind of amphitheatre. I noticed a painting of a duck on the road, labeled "21st, September 1, 2008". I still did not unerstand.

But when I went to get groceries, there was a rack of shirts. Most of these shirts bore embroidery or printing that said "Lumsden 20th annual duck derby, 2007." And that is when I understood. You knew if I went into town I'd find out that in exactly a month, there would be hundreds, thousands of rubber ducks floating down the river. And maybe then you wouldn't be special. Maybe you wouldn't be the one.

I took three trips to carry the groceries back down to the canoe, and then got out my pliers to remove the leaches from my feet. Neither of us said anything. You were afraid I'd dump you there, but I was merely saddened by your lack of confidence and candor.

The river became high and slow. Approaching a fork, with no current to guide me, and not enough detail on my map, I was lost. But you helped, you really did, you said "Follow the arrows, they'll show you where to go." I looked and I saw bright orange arrows posted on either side of the right channel. Having no other clues, what could I do but follow?

We continued on until another fork, again with one channel marked with arrows. I did not want to follow this time. My map clearly showed that the left one went to Last Mountain Lake, whereas the right went to the dam, and beyond that, back to the flowing river. You were insistent, "Just follow, don't say no!"

But I was going to portage the dam. The banks were steep, so I had to take everything out of my canoe, and there was a lot of stuff. I don't remember how many loads I had taken when I returned to find my canoe missing. You were trying to run off with my boat! I saw you making your way out on the orange barriers before the dam. Fortunately I had my life vest, and doggy paddled out to the boat, recovering it.

I had too much stuff and could not bear the thought of more portages like this one. I had to get rid of anything unnecessary, superfluous.

I'm sorry, Rubber Ducky. You made bath time lots of fun, but I'm awfuly through with you.

Doop doop dee doo,
K.C.

Day 40 ended: 50*42.402N, 104*47.987W

Day 38: Five hundred meters over the sea

I had a monologue worked out in my head about there being no rapids or even obstacles on any of the river I had yet traveled. If you fell asleep on the river the worst that would happen is you'd wake up beached somewhere further on.

I am happy to report that this is not true. Let me start in the middle, scoping out a rapid dropping two feet over fifteen. This is not especially large, but it was a significant change from what I was used to. Until the previous day I had seen only the barest hint of riffles, and no trees since early on the Bow. But now there were many trees that had been undercut by the current, now nearly blocking the river, but always leaving some three foot gap for me to dodge through. Some brief rapids flowed over stones, and these are wonderful because they are preceded by gravel banks that make for good landings.

Some of the stone rapids, like this one, look like they are kept up by human hands. There are gravel roads to either side, and boulders there which I suppose are rolled into place as the need arises. A higher, slower river provides water for irrigation and a natural boundary for the cattle.

Even the beavers have gotten into the act. They want to maintain a water level so their lodge doors are only accessible underwater.

Fortunately, there is enough flow in the river that I can go through or over all of these obstacles. However, I hadn't yet done anything quite as large as this rapid, so I was a bit concerned. Walking alongside and beneath it, I saw a rockfree channel of sufficient flow; all I would need to do was keep the canoe straight as I passed through.

I considered the principle of least regret. Would I be more likely to regret running, or not running the rapid? If I ran it, I could imagine myself capsizing, which would be a fair disaster. It would at least take time to clean out my stuff. But these rapids had injected interest into the trip. If I bypassed the rapid, I would miss out on the rush of excitement, and who could say if I would come across another one like this?

I decided to limit my risk. I had never lined a canoe down a rapid before, and this would make a good exercise for this procedure. Then, I at least learned something. I moved the boat over to the channel I had seen, and grabbed the rope attached to the bow. I slowly unreeled the rope, allowing the canoe to slide down the rapid under my control. The deed done, I was then on my way, and didn't feel bad about my decision, just about losing my third and last pair of sunglasses while examining the situation.

It's appropriate that on this day of such visible change in elevation, I fell to 500 meters over sea level. To put that in perspective, here are the day numbers for every 100 meters of elevation:

1000m: 1
900m: 3
800m: 5
700m: 9
600m: 17
500m: 38

If the progression continues, I might reach sea level in about eight years.

Day 38 ended: 50*36.791N, 105*02.588W

Day 37: Julyflies

I thought of them as mayflies, even though that's one thing I'm sure they're not. My sister, after my crude description of them, thought they might be craneflies, so I'll call them that. They looked something like mosquitoes, without the bloodsucking mouthparts that earn those insects a place on the enemies list.

I seemed to watch the entire life-cycle of these craneflies over the course of a week. At first, they were only an irritating buzzing. A couple of days later I actually saw them; vast clouds of insects that filled the sky. Their buzzing was not rhythmic, but did follow a certain dynamics, perhaps diminishing at a gust of wind, and then crescendoing to one of many climaxes during the night. There were billions of them. The population of earth became flies buzzing over Buffalo Pound Lake.

When I returned from Moose Jaw they were no longer omnipresent, but formed distinct vortices, tornadoes of activity in the sky.

My last day on the lake, I woke up to a constellation of craneflies on the tent fly. Outside, their carcases were dissolving on the water, their purpose complete. The wind was going my way, and I knew it was my time to go.

I threw my stuff into the canoe. Nothing was dry enough to pack correctly, and I had to portage the dam at the end of the lake.

It was a difficult portage.

But the next section of the Qu'Appelle was beautiful. Gone were the mud steps that had been so frustrating on the upper Qu'Appelle, and in their place were trees desperately holding the bank against the river. There were great horned owls, coyotes, mule deer, kingfishers, turtles, blue heron, and, well, mallards. A thunderstorm came up and so I pulled over to stop. I found a great place, well sheltered by trees, and assembled my tent there.

When the rain stopped, I decided to spend the day. My computer needed fixing. I had heard that some OLPC's had developed a malady known as "sticky keys", and now mine had, too. First it would add an "A" every time I hit the shift key. Then, after almost every letter. I hit erase so often, the erase key started sticking, too.

The computer is held together by tiny, phillips-headed screws. They are too small for my leatherman tool to unscrew, but I had a bike multitool whose screwdriver just fit. I took apart the entire keyboard section, saw little that seemed wrong to me. There was some sand in the neck between the keyboard and the monitor, but that was all. I just brushed off the back of the keypad and reassembled the computer, without most of the screws. The parts mostly snap together, anyway, and besides, I had lost some of the screws already under the trees.

That fixed the problem for the time being, but I have continuing problems with sticky keys and so my cute little computer is sadly, often in pieces.

Day 37 ended: 50*35.732N, 105*14.350W

Day 33: It just wouldn't work

"We can get you this spot here. It's only two minutes from the boat launch."

Two minutes is clearly a driving time and only proves to me that the registration girls here don't have a clue what I am asking for. I just want a site on Buffalo Pound Lake where I can set up a camp for just my canoe and my tent. Is that too much to ask?

I told them "I'll think about it," and walked out of the registration building. I came to a conclusion. It's nice stopping in these provincial parks to get showers and laundry, but it would be too much of a pain to haul my stuff up from the water to some a camp site. There's nothing across the lake, so I figure if they can't find a spot for me, I can just cross to the other shore and camp right with my canoe.

So I re-entered and tried to explain this to them. I said I understood that they had no designated spot on the water, but I don't need much room, just for my tent, really, and that I would like to use their facilities and that I would like to give them money. The three of them briefly consulted and then I got the conclusion, "I'm sorry, it just wouldn't work."

You're right, it wouldn't work, Saskatchewan Provincial Parks. The relationship that started out with memorable showers, had continued into winks and illicit activity on the grounds, had now come to this. There was no place, anywhere, for me in their lives. But that's okay, Saskatchewan, I've been looking forward to Manitoba for some time now. Of course, I'd still use the washroom and showers here. I still hd physical needs, even if I had been emotionally rejected.

I was frustrated, maybe largely because I knew what perfect campsites there were up the lake, that I had passed up to get there. I'll admit, perhaps if I had come some other day, or people with mor eknowledge and authority had been manning the desk that day, things might have come out differently. I just hadn't been ready for this response.

My bike and I coasted down the hill, back to where my canoe was parked. This was "seasonal camping", and it was inhabited primarily by these rather large camper units. For a long time I couldn't understand the appeal of these things. They all have names like, "Wilderness Tripper", but clearly they don't have anything to do with wilderness. But Steinbeck's book "Travels with Charley" has at times made me lust after one of these units and the luxuries it must contain. A real bed every night! A kitchenette, a bathroom and no doubt showers too!

They may be worthless for wilderness adventure, but they seem pretty good for travel, and the inhabitants I've met seem to agree. Drive about your little home on wheels and then you can pay to park it for a night on a green lawn with little planted trees, everything the suburbanites inside can't bring with them. Then they spread out their lawn ornaments, erect a little shed, and even build fences or hang big black tarps around their site so they can have a little bit of Privacy. Apparently Privacy is a big deal to your modern camper driver, because at the registration desk the girl trying to find me a spot ranked all the sites in terms of this Privacy, a term that has utterly no meaning to a person who has essentially been living on the river, alone for a month. I much prefer Neighborliness to Privacy.

So, I had gotten it into my head that campers are for travel. But this lot was for "seasonal camping", whatever that was, and there was a huge mowed field, room for two soccer games that I'm sure never took place, between this lot and the lake. I wandered around for a bit hoping to ask permission from someone lakeside to set up a tent in their lot for a couple nights, but the place seemed almost entirely abandoned. I supposed "seasonal camping" meant people lived in their nice suburban homes most of the week, with their big lawns and televisions, and then commuted out to the park weekends to stay in their metallic homes with big lawns and televisions. The whole park just seemed so fake to me at that point: the mowed lawns, the raked beaches, this parking lot that people thought of as wilderness adventure.

I decided I wouldn't take up residence on these absent folks' lawn away from lawn. But I wouldn't erase myself completely from view. I set my tent on a nice beach on the opposite shore, where absolutely anyone would see me, if they just turned their heads away from the television for a minute.

Day 33 ended: 50*36.515N, 105*25.142W

Day 31: Who calls?

The Qu'Appelle changes her face every day. Although she is often channelized and weired, or tyrannically windy through the pastures, she can charm you when she wants.

Most of the day was spent going through beautiful forested banks, where there was an inundation of birds I did not have the right names for. So I have been forced to invent temporary names for them until I once again have a bird book available. My journal records sightings of such as the "bowtie", "fearless", "red-eye duck", "non-Canadian goose", "big owl", the "fearlesser" aka "kentucky fearless", and "yellow-bellied grayback". These owls have enormous wingspans and are active in the evening well before sundown. I have seen them going after mallard ducklings, and being driven from trees by very little brown birds.

Part of the day was spent in a puzzle over a bridge. The river here is very small, and it seems that every creek that joins it must nearly double its flow. So most of the bridges are just small arches. Some are too low to go under sitting up. I remember from Eddy Harris's book "Mississippi Solo" how at the beginning of his journey he had to lean way back and let the current take him under a bridge on the baby Mississippi, so I Eddy Harrised these small bridges in his honor.

But this bridge was too low to Eddy Harris. I thought maybe I can get out of the boat and let it go under alone, but the bridge was too low for the canoe to easily slide under. It seemed like a real puzzle to figure out. I was only missing about an inch and a half of clearance, though, so I hoped I would be able to take it under rather than portage.

My first thought was to get out and swim alongside the canoe, pulling it along under the bridge. But the water was cold enough that it took away my breath when I jumped in, and I realized that in the water I was too bouyant to be able to pull the canoe down much, anyway.

The second plan was to tie my new polyethylene rope to the boat. This floats, so I could let the current carry the rope under the bridge, ram the front of the canoe under the bridge, and then pull the boat through. This was also a failure, of course, I could not exertenough force on the rope to pull it under.

I considered taking some boulders from the bank to weigh down the canoe, but decided not to mess with the landscaping. Then I considered intentionally swamping the boat to get it under, but that seemed too risky, and mostly, too messy.

So in the end I put the thing up on its wheels and hauled it around.

Day 31 ended: 50*52.897N, 106*04.024W

Day 30: Rivers burn, and then run backwards

I heard voices. A father, and two young children, perhaps. I am found, caught. When the voices pass I quietly begin packing my things. All of my tent and bedding collapses down into two 20L, waterproof bags, while a smaller bag carries my maps and reading material. As I pack the canoe the father casually walks over. "Hello," I offer first, but he either doesn't hear, or isn't ready to talk yet.

As it turns out, the man is Tim, the dierctor of educational assessmentin Saskatchewan, if I remember the title correctly. He has come with his daughter and her friend to this place where he himself has camped many times before. The girls are now catching the descendants of frogs he caught in the nearby pond, when he was a child. The beaver lodge has been there thirty years. He names some of the stones he has found.

When the water is this high, it erodes the shore. When they will recede again, the erosion will reveal all manner of Indian artifacts on the beach. There are teepee rings on the hills, and in one of the woods up there, a flock of feral goats. But he has never seen a boat here before.

"I was thinking of going that way," I said, "but I guess I'm heading north instead."

"You could take the Qu'Appelle river just over that dam," he says. "It will take you past Last Mountain Lake, Regina..."

"That's the way I want to go. I looked last night, but there was nothing there."

"Oh, there's definitely a river system over there," he insisted, "that's the pumphouse over there." I promised I would ride over to the dam again to check it out before heading out.

When I reached the top of the dam again, I looked down, and once again saw nothing. But perhaps my line was wrong. I went over to the pumphouse, and saw nothing under it, either.

Look up, Kevin, look up.

Looking a little higher I see patches of blue just barely revealed through the greenery. The river is thin, its banks are steep, and you can only view it from the correct angles.

The portage was difficult. My wheels work very well on a slow, paved incline, but this was sand and they just wanted to dig in. I emptied half the boat, dragging the stuff over to the road that goes down to the river's source, and continue shioving and yanking the boat up over the sand, and through the brush to the road. The roadis grassy and it is relatively slow progress to push the canoe over it, even when well-balanced on its wheels. But I am finally able to let the thing slide into the water just after the portal of rushing water that is the modern source of the Qu'Appelle.

The Qu'Appelle here is very small, and on the first day it seems that every little creek that joins it doubles its size. There is a weir with several feet of drop, water at its base violently rerising and thashing about to find its right way forward. I have to portage around it, dragging the boat over rocks, yanking it up on its wheels, pulling it over to the pool, sliding it down off the wheels in.

The river became channelized, a straight line between two banks of curious cattle, and the wind pumped up from the wrong direction. It was so strong I had to fight with all my strength just to maintain forward progress, my bones screaming out against the abuse they had already taken all day. I had to pull over several times to rest. I almost cried.

I have complained much here and elsewhere, but the hatred I had for the wind that day was very real. If any of my curses have any effect then you can be sure hell is a drafty place. There I was, on the Qu'Appelle River. I should have been celebrating to be on this river I wasn't sure would be there for me, indeed believed could not even exist the night before. But instead the wind threw up foot high waves against me in the channel. There ould be no rest or victory, the river was running backwards.

Day 30 ended: 50*58.392N, 106*21.446W

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