Day 17: The no-good, awful, boring day

I was traveling through the land run by the Canadian Forces Base Suffield. My guidebook had warned me to call ahead, to make sure they are not conducting live-fire exercises when I plan to pass through. These live-fire exercises must be quite the thing. My map shows a target 30 miles wide. But the river goes through this land and so must I.

The number in my guidebook was old, or wrong, and so I was unable to call ahead. But when they are conducting exercises, a "water sentry" is posted to make sure nobody just wanders into the area to get shot. How interesting that would be! Not getting shot -- meeting the sentry! I would be just going by in my canoe when the water-sentry will come arauond in his gunboat. "Whew," he'll sigh, "I almost missed you. You almost got yourself into a lot of trouble, mister!"
And then he would take me back to his sentry shack to pass the time until the end of the exercises. We'd play chess, smoke cigars and make philosophical conversation deep into the night. And when it was time for me to go, he'd salute me, saying "Well, soldier, it's been a pleasure serving with you."

But the pleasure would be mine. Instead, as I passed the sentry shack there were no motorboats on the water, no soldier staring through field glasses at the river. I used mine to look up, down, left and right, and interpreted the three green diamonds beside the shack to mean, "safe to proceed". How boring, how dull, and ordinary.

And proceed I did. I was making rather good time - the current was strong, and I paddled to the next expectead obstacle - the "Rapid Narrows" according to my map. These are by no means high-class rapids, but my guidebook warned of "meter-high" standing waves during high water. Well, if anything were high water this must be.

I couldn't wait - I wondered what meter high waves would be like. I imagined it would be like a taste of the wild, untamed Mississippi -- something to convince myself that my boat and I could truly handle the big challenges ahead. I came around the corner, paddled into the rapids -- but the waves weren't even half a meter. Once again I was disappointed.

It started to seem so boring. Just floating down the water, with no challenges, no other people around, and no wildlife, really, in most of this entire stretch. I'd do better on the "Lazy River" at Six Flags. If this is how hopelessly dull the trip was going to be, I needed to find a way out.
I passed up a perfect stopping point, with a sandy beach, rocks, and even pelicans! But I continued on, thinking it was too early to stop. I needed to make distance. Why? I don't know, maybe to get this boring trip over with sooner. Or maybe because I hadn't gotten anything else interesting out of the day, and distance would make some consolation.

Canada tried to relieve my boredom the only way she knows how. She got out her creature creator kit and sent some presents my way - gnats that continually swarmed about my head, and flies with black-barred wings that bite through my skin to drink my blood. Unlike mosquitoes, these new terrors are not afraid to fly out over the water, and not greatly affected by bug repellent.

But even these gifts of Canada did not help my malaise.

As I wrote in my journal that night, I tried to deny the truth that I simply would not be able to handle that kind of tedium over the long haul. But I did not even realize that the boredom was largely my own fault, born of my expectations and unwillingness to grab the opportunities that did arise. The little bay of pelicans may have been early, but that does not matter. I always have something that needs fixing, something that needs writing, and something that needs cleaning, and I can only do these things in a nice, clean, comfortable location, like that bay. By passing up those opportunities I am not actually gaining any time on the trip, just gaining time putting up with more and more things unfixed, unwritten, and unclean.

Day 17 ended: 50*38.660N, 110*11.195W

Day 16: My curmudgeon

I do not know how I would do on my trip if left to my own devices, but I am fortunate to have an old curmudgeon along, courtesy of my friend Ed. This curmudgeon, Cliff Jacobson, knows everything about canoeing and camping, and deigns to tell me some of it, all the while being ashamed at the silly mistakes that I make along the way. Fortunately there is a paperback cover between me and his wagging finger, which makes the criticism easier to take. For all I have of Cliff Jacobson is his book, Canoeing and Camping.

Curmudgeons usually become curmudgeons, because they have lived a long time. They have lived long enough to make a lot of mistakes, but have done things right enough to last.
I had several times to this point, after finding myself in some basic error, referred to this book to find out what had gone wrong. And surely if things had ever gone wrong, they had the previous night, much of which was spent shivering in my underwear, watching my tent roll away. So I picked up the book, and reviewed his chapter "Weathering the Storm".

The next night the sky looked clear, but I thought it best to rig up my tent as securely as possible, just for practice. I set it up on high ground. There were no trees around but I set it close to the cliff face for lightning protection. I set up pegs everywhere I could, and weighed them down with rocks. I found that guy lines on the ends of the tent weren't as effective as on the sides, where the panels are larger. Tighten everything out, and it is taut as a drum.

I went to bed in my over-secure tent, believing no storm would come that night. And yet, I began to hear a rat-tat-tat of rain on my roof, and then wind came up, and then flashes of lightning. But the tent holds.

Day 16 ended: 50*19.858N, 110*36.950W

Day 15: What are you going to do about... Storms?

It was long in coming.

I spent the morning blissfully repairing everything that had gone wrong so far with my canoe. There were inwhales to screw in place, ends to be patched, bicycle hardware to be replaced, and so on. In Medicine Hat I was sure to stop at a hardware store to pick up everything I could to make the repairs I would need. Now my canoe seat was higher, my bicycle well tuned, and everything cleaned and reorganied.

It was sure to come.

I saw a dragonfly just beginning to emerge from its nymph state on the beach. These amazingly large, bright green insects have been little friends of mine on the journey so far. And all the more so knowing that they hunt my enemies, mosquitoes, in water and in air. For the nymphs of the dragonfly live underwater, feeding on insect larva and other small things, and then with no pupal state they simply crawl onto land and emerge as dragonflies - air out their wings, expand their tails, and then fly off to chase what insects they missed in the water. These nymph shells are common on the river, but I rarely get to see the dragonflies make the actual transition.

But I didn't think it would come.

"We don't get real storms here," I told Marty at the Police Point Park interpretive center just the day before. "Not like in St. Louis." Several times that day in Medicine Hat I had assured people that storms were no issue. And they hadn't been - not on any camping trip I have ever taken, nor on my journey so far. One mentioned the storm of the previous night - but that was nothing where I was. Half an hour of weak rain, a flash of light, and then a bright double rainbow to finish things off. At no point did I even think shelter was necessary.

After fixing up all my stuff and staring at the dragonfly, I took my time getting to a large island that wasn't much further on my map. There was no great place for my canoe, but I trudged over a ditch of mud and rocks, and a field with more mud, to find a sandy patch to plunk down my tent. The sky wasa bit busy so I took a step back to read it out.

"There is a thunderhead there, but it is incomplete -- probably too cool for anything serious. There's no visible rain anywhere. It doesn't look like much to worry about, but I'll go ahead and peg out the tent, put up the rain fly, just to be safe." Having done so, I retired inside to strip for the night and read.

It was strange. One whole side of the tent just lifted itself up and then sat back down. And the wind picked up. The corners had ripped out their pegs and were flapping about, as the top of the tent wanted to lie down on top of me. I had to get out to try to get my tent standing up again, properly. So I crawled out, and that's when I saw the lightning. Big in the sky.

There being no shelter in my tent, I ran over to the ditch and laid down in it. But I kept looking up and noticed that my tent was slowly walking across the hill. So I got up,ran over, and dropped some large rocks on it to try to keep it still. I alternated between lying down in the ditch to protect myself from the lightning and dropping rocks in my tent to stop it from flying away. Once I noticed the rocks were successfully holding down my Thermarest mattress while the tent was letting it go so it could fly off. I put the heaviest rock I could carry inside the tent and zipped it closed, and then ran back to my ditch.

Now, I was sure glad this storm only had wind and lightning, and there was no rain to go along with it. But there I was lying nearly naked in a ditch as the wind went howling over me, stealing heat off my back as the muddy stones I was lying on took heat from my front. I didn't know how safe I would be from lightning in my tent, but hypothermia was a sure thing lying in this ditch.
So I ran back to the tent, and arranged the rocks at the inside corners which seemed to stand it up properly. I closed my -12 mummy bag tightly around me to warm up, as I huddled near the middle of the tent in fear of lightning.

It was a real storm, and I did not sleep until it had passed.

Day 15 ended: 50*11.241N, 110*34.317W

[LIVE 46] Fort Qu'Appelle!

Here I am in the Fort Qu'Appelle Library, uploading posts! Although this is day 46, I only have up to day 28 ready to upload. Sorry about that. They'll be appearing over the next couple of weeks. I probably won't have another chance to post until Brandon, Manitoba.

I am starting to think of my blog as a very early draft for perhaps a book, assuming everything ends well and interesting. A very early draft, I say. A book should probably be less confusing in grammar, tense, and quality. It might not be organized into days like the blog is.

If you are just joining, the first post is http://kevinfloat.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-1-off-without-hitch.html Just keep clicking Next to proceed.

I have photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinsaff

I hope you all enjoy the blog!

End of Moose Jaw posts

I had hoped to be able to publish more posts before this message appears, either at Lumsden or Fort Qu'Appelle, but I guess things were taking longer than I hoped! Hang on, more is on the way...

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 13: What were they thinking?

As I came into Medicine Hat, I saw the Transcanada Highway cross over the river, and I saw some towering smokestacks to my right. Then I felt the wind change, grow bolder and colder. The waves picked up and my canoe was driven in any direction the wind chose, as the trees on shore bowed to the power of the wind. Using just my paddle and will, I was able to reach a shoreline and hold onto the vegetation there until it was safe to proceed.

It is strange in these windstorms, that they make the water feel much warmer than the land, because it does not draw away your body heat so quickly.

I parked the boat under the Transcanada in a region of pathways that was apparently closed for the summer. I rode into town on my folding bicycle, and ran my errands. The library, for internet. The bank, to pay my student fees and health premium. The grocery store, for food, and the hardware store to get supplies to make a few repairs to my equipment.

I also made many phone calls to friends and family.

When the day was done, I felt like I hadn't really seen the city. I would probably never see the town again, and here I had only done my errands and ridden around in places I could have seen in any city of that size.

So I decided to stop somewhere, so I could see the local attractions the next day. This presented some difficulties. If you are driving across the country, you have several different options as to where to stay. You can visit hotels of varying qualities, stay at a campground, or if you are really cheap, find some Walmart or other bigbox store and sleep in the parking lot.

When traveling by canoe your options are more limited. I had spent most of the day away from the boat and did not enjoy the feeling that nearly all my resources could disappear without a warning. So I wanted to sleep somewhere near the canoe. There is a campground in Medicine Hat, but they do not have riverside camping.

I also needed a place to stay so that in the morning I could float downstream to some point where I could still get into the city. My loaded wilderness canoe does not very much like trying to go upstream. So I would effectively need some place to camp inside of the city.

There are a few parks, but I'm not sure about the legal status of camping in city parks. I suppose, if I could have found a phone at this time, I could have called the police and asked them if they had any ideas.

I stopped to have dinner at a nice takeout point by a park apparently owned by the Lion's Club. It is at this point that a motorboat went by, back and forth on the river a few times. Now maybe they were just fishermen or something, but I imagined that I had caught their eye somehow, that they had suspicions I was up to no good or something. They parked the boat down the river, just the right distance where they might not be conspicuous, but could still keep their eyes on me.

I figured I couldn't stay in Lion's Park, so I took to the water and headed downstream, wondering where I would stay, and what this boat was up to. As I approached, they started the motor, and went upstream, again stopping in a place just within sight.

At this point, taking it personally, I became really frustrated. If they had a problem with me, why didn't they just come over to me and talk about it? I started thrashing at the water, paddling as hard as I could to try to get to them. But it was no use; the river current was too strong and I succeeded only in treading water, staying in one place.

Now, my eyes are no good at distance, so I got out my weak binoculars to try to look over this boat that seemed so threatening to me. And little sooner than I did, but the boat pulled away, up river, leaving me alone. I wonder if I had it wrong all along, if they weree the ones up to no good, hiding from me!

It began to rain and I still had no campsite. There was a very small island, but it was no good - pure mud and shrubs. A little further there was a little piece of land jutting out from underneath one of the cliffs. It was thoroughly inaccessible from land, may even be considered navigable waterway under the 'usual high water line" rule. i checked it out. There was a game trail running around the base, and just enough space on top of some weeds to pitch a tent. The sun came out, a rainbow appeared, and I saw two or three fishermen sitting in Police Point Park, directly across from me.

My location was probably one of the least conspicuous in the city. Bends in the river protected me from view of buildings both upstream and down, and my canoe and tent would be relatively small and hidden on this island of weeds but for those people across from me. I decided it didn't matter. I unpacked my stuff, set up my tent, and with a bow and tip of the hat to the people across the river, went in to bed.

But all night I wondered what they were thinking, and imagined I could just barely make out their voices, coming to me over the wind...

"...I know why he camped there..."

"...he looked at us!..."

"...I wonder what he's up to..."

"...he's on the run from the law..."

"...but the real question is..."

"...what is he thinking about us!"

Day 13 ended: 50*02.337N, 110*38.226W