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 23: Homeless

I have reached Lake Diefenbaker. There is no longer any current and the speed and direction I go depends solely on the wind and my paddling. And I have paddled hard all day, stirred on by a wind which tries to pin me to the lefthand shore. I reach Saskatchewan Provincial Park's beach about three hours to sunset.

I wondered about abit before realizing that the park was too big for me to get anywhere by walking. So, it was back to the boat to pull out my bicycle. I ride down to the registration office, and ask for a spot on the lake, so I can be by my canoe. The girl in the office is quite accomodating, and says I could set up my tent near the beach where I am already parked, or on in the Lakeside campground quite aways down. I take the latter option, thinking that would get me a head start when I wanted to go.

She then asked the standard questions when paying for a campsite: what is your address and telephone number? And the truth is, I have neither. I don't tell her that, I just give her my old address and old telephone number, knowing that this information isn't really used for anything anyway.

But it does hit home. I am officially homeless. At this point, I have been on the river more than three weeks and my face is shaggy with an unkempt beard. My face, which has not been washed for more than a week, has been attracting gnats and flies. All of my clothes are covered with dirt and mud.

At this point I am worn out from a day of paddling, and slow of speech from hardly talking to anyone for three weeks. The counter girl hands me a packet of something, and I try to figure out what it is. Instead of asking her, I just stare at it until she tells me, "It's Off. Bug repellent." Homeless people are rude.

A singular event comes to mind regarding an interation I once had with a beggar. I was in Boston, visiting my brother. We are going to get some bagels after some church service. I was not actually going to be paying for any of the bagels, mind you; I was just standing in line to give an order so my dad could pay.

A guy comes off the street and singles me out. He asks me to give him money for a bottledd water, with a sense of entitlement. Feeling threatened and put upon, I refuse. He becomes so angry that he storms up to the cashier, where he gets a free cup of tap water. So there!
I was completely befuddled. He got his revenge on me for not paying for his bottled water by... just getting free water? And why is he begging for water when it is free all around us, anyway? This is North America.

I think I can begin to understand part of his attitude, now. A bottle of water is not such a great cost to me, so why shouldn't he have it? And he is so used to being lied to, and treated as scum beneath contempt, that he does not know what to do when I refuse. Anything, in a blind search for dignity.

During this trip I have a couple of times, outside of the canoeing context, received the "scum" treatment. A person has a way of saying you don't matter, you are beneath me. If you are talking to scum it is okay to lie, because you can only "lie" to a person, and scum hasn't quite risen to that level.

And what can you do? You walk away, thinking of all the clever things you could have said or done to throw it back in the person's face. Anything, really.

Day 23 ended: 50*41.278N, 107*55.400W

Day 22: Prickly Feet

My maps, or my GPS, or possibly my eyes did not make any sense. There were supposed to be islands here, big islands, longer than a mile. But I was lost at sea -- the beginning of Lake Diefenbaker. There was one last chance. I saw a little patch of vegetation near that shore that looked a little closer than the land around it. Coming closer, it was indeed an island, although a small one.

I expertly maneuvered my canoe in close and got out to see if there was enough space for a tent on it. In bare feet, of course. I like to feel the earth beneath me.
About ten feet up I was at the top, and couldn't see any place for a tent here, although there was possibly room on the other side. So I began to - ow! a dozen spikes pierced my foot. I had just stepped on a cactus.

Somehow I had missed them on the way up, but going down I saw them everywhere. All kinds of cactus. Small ones, big ones. Well, I do not know their names. But I had at least two kinds of spikes in my foot as I was trying to make my way down this sandy hill covered in cacti.
After several painful minutes I got back to my canoe and plucked the spikes out with my pliers. I zipped out of my "parking spot", and came around to the other side of the island.

I had to laugh. Every plant I saw had thorns, spikes, and bristles. Even a caterpillar was covered with a thorny layer of protection. But there was a clear sandy spot justbig enough for my tent, so I had found my campsite for the day.

It was kind of funny. The night before had been the island of mosquitoes. Huge clouds of the things humming and buzzing about me. I guess the deer and coyotes I saw there weren't enough for them. It was like I was living a Super Mario Bros game. One night I am on the mosquito world, and having defeated it, I move on to the dersert world. I wondered what the next level was going to be like.

Day 22 ended: 50*51.032N, 108*27.749W

Day 21: Dash away, dash away all!

Much of the experience of floating down the river is taking in the myriad ways the animals react to your presence. On these larger rivers, you often come around a corner and see the many creatures going about their business, and subconsciously are able to guess how close you will get before each species takes off, or how much noise from your paddle is necessary to scare them off. Pelicans take a few long, slow strokes with their wings, and frequently glide out over the water as if to use as little energy as possible. Gulls are less afraid of boats, but when they do leave, what a racket they make! Mammals are often only detectable by rustling in the grass. Not being able to fly away, they must be very careful about being seen.

On the other hand, some birds try to attract your attention. Shorebirds that nest on the ground are very vulnerable to predation, so the mother has an act she picked up from the theatre. She will pretend to have a broken wing, and flop about on the groud to distract the predator from her nest. Some deserve academy awards for their performances.

But now I must speak of one of the most common creatures on the river. It is the fault of many books on animal identification that they simply leave out the animals you are most likely to see. It is all well and good for a book on tracking to inform me that a bison track resembles cattle tracks, but how am I to rightly ascertain the differences if the book is unwilling to show me, in the same artist's hand, the tracks of both bison and cattle? And likewise, why leave out domestic cats and dogs and horses and the other common tracks you are most likely to see? Perhaps they expect the buyers of such books to have these so ingrained that there is no need to describe them.

I, however, for your benefit, will attempt to describe how these most common mammals, cattle, run away. I was surprised that they run away at all, being so used to humans, and in fact when riding my bicycle past grazing land their only reaction is to stop what they were doing, and stare at me as I go past. I am not sure if their expression is closer to blame or curiosity.

But here on the river, perhaps because I am so much slower and in view for so long, the reaction is different. They begin with the staring. Soon one or more break into low mooing, as if to rouse the others. After some time more join in, but rousing cattle must be an involved process. A few cows begin to walk away from the river. The rest of the crowd follows, and just as I am nearly around the next bend and out of site, the last cow leaves her patch of grass, and follows the crowd slowly, mooing her complaint that she didn't see anything worth leaving over.

Day 21 ended: 50*57.715N, 108*30.208W

Day 20: "You're fired", or "Rudd'er, I don't even know her!", or "Dem bones, dem bones, dem cold, cold bones"

It rained during the night.

There is something about rain that makes it harder to start fires the following day. I do not know what it is, but will continue to research this issue. I did finally manage to start one, but it took a mess of fuel and toilet paper, and ruining my lighter with the sand. The eggs rotted in my mind. My potato yearnings overgrew with vines.

It may not have helped that it was also extremely windy. And since this is Saskatchewan, the wind never stops, but chooses some random direction in the morning, and builds all day, until by evening you cannot stand against it, the trees bow before, and all the land gets swept flat.
This is why there are no mountains in Saskatchewan. None have been able to stand up against the wind.

But in any case I alternated between fighting the wind, and walking about on sandbanks wondering what to do about it. I drew a free-body diagram which finally explained why the wind tries to turn my boat sideways. It is because considering the water as still relative to the wind, the greatest drag is at the center of the boat, and so either end facing the wind is only in a metastable position.

I thought I could attach a small sail to the front of the canoe, which might help keep me righted in a tailwind. In a headwind, the motive force of the paddle helps considerably. I got so far as to screw in a board just below the bow deck and was looking for something to use as a mast when the went laid off a bit so I could move on.

Back on the water it was clear what I really wanted was a rudder! Move the drag to the back when traveling cross to the water current, but nearly no drag when proceeding straight. And clearly I had often used my paddle to rudder the boat to keep it straight, in allkinds of winds, it would be extremely useful.

But a rudder is a thing which is very hard to build with such limited tools and materials as I had. I had considered adding a rudder back home, but thought it too much work to design and build one before my departure. Now I think it would have made better time if I had gone ahead and built it. And not only for wind - I imagined having a lot more time to read and write even on a clear river current if I did not have to worry so much about keeping the boat straight.

The next beach the wind and rain forced me to stop at was littered with bones from some long-dead bovine. I imagined that a vertebra could act as a kind of fulcrum through which I could put my favorite paddle, my ottertail, as a rudder. I'd have to saw off the paddle grip, and secure the rudder through means of, I don't know, some mess of rope and bungee I'd figure out later.

I also imagined writing a short story about finding this beast's scattered skeleton in the wind. I'd find all the pieces, and put them together with some mess of rope and bungee, and then sprinkle some magic ingreient on top, like dillweed or sweet'n'sour sauce. The bones would stand up, alive and at my service. "Master," the creature would say, "you ought to have given me a skin to wrap myself in. This wind, it cuts cold, sir, it cuts cold."

And I'd tell it (and this is true) that when the wind blows this hard the water feels warmer, because it doesn't pull away the heat so quickly. And the creature would lumber down into the water with my canoe's bow line in its jaws, to pull me along.

When finally it would be time to stop, I'd give three yanks on the rope and the skeleton would crawl back onto land. "The fish", it'd say, "tell me you have been traveling this way for quite some time."

"That's true," I'd say. And then curious, "What kind of fish were they? Do you suppose they'd taste good cooked over an open fire?"

"I cannot say. They are different kinds from when I last walked."

And then I don't know what would happen, because I never developed an actual plot for the story.

So at the end of the day, all I had for a sail, a rudder, and a short story were a board and three cow vertebrae. And it took a mess of fuel and toilet paper to get my fire started, again.

Day 20 ended: 50*58.160N, 109*33.631W

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 18: Meandering

While some industries might prefer rivers to be stuck in a rut, rivers, like people, prefer the freedom to explore their opportunities. Chief among the methods a river employs is the "meander" which works like this.

A river acquires somewhere some slight bend or crook. Now as water goes through the turn the faster water is not so easily swayed from its purpose as is the slower water, water tends to be faster towards the outside of the turn. Faster water erodes the earth faster than the slow water, so it tends to cut towards the outside of the turn. Contrarly, slow water is more likely to drop the sediment it is carrying, on the inside of the turn. So the turn gets more and more exaggerated, pushing into a loop towards the outside.

Eventually, the river gets so twisted in on itself that it cuts through the loop entirely, leaving an oxbow lake.

I was still feeling crummy from the previous day, and decided to race into Saskatchewan, zooming in on my GPS as the border got closer and closer. To no purpose, of course, I could see from my map that the river here forms a huge meander, looping into Saskatchewan for a few miles, before looping back into Alberta, and then finally returning once and for all to Saskatchewan.

I did not keenly monitor my progress back into Alberta.

The wind picked up and the river got choppy. I pulled aside onto an island to wait it out. The island was gorgeous, I thought, probably tended. It was the most perfect island to have the property of existing on that portion of the river. I looked over and saw a motorboat moored by a home a mile away. I imagined the wife of the house packing the boat with gardening supplies every weekend and straightening out the island so she could maintain the perfect view from her bay window.

Now, don't get me wrong, these were wild, native plants on the island, just very tastefully arranged.

I cooked up a meal from one of my cans and sat down to eat it as the wind sandblasted my face. I remembered that I hadn't cooked up any hot meals at all, yesterday. I felt a bit better.
The wind died down a bit and I decided not to stay on that family's picture island. But it was not long after setting out that the water got choppy again. But it was almost fun, fighting against wind and wave. Sometimes I had the upper hand, making slow progress downriver. And sometimes it did, battering me against the logs on shore. But yesterday there was no wind at all, and not even a storm at night to relieve my boredom.

I crossed into Saskatchewan for the final time and spent awhile trying to scope out a good campsite, on a place my map named Ebenau Island. The channel that used to separate the island from the right shore has silted up, however, and so it is an island no more. Finally I found where the pelicans were hiding out, on a rocky sandy beach. As the pelicans reluctantly moved on to their second best spot, a great double rainbow filled the sky.

It did storm that night, but I was securely tucked away in my tent under some good old trees, finally feeling happy about my trip again.

Day 18 ended: 50*54.326N, 109*58.362W