October 8, 2008: All too helpful

The first boat ramp after Winnipeg is at Morris, almost two thirds of the way to the border.  After that, there are a couple more, at St Jean Baptiste and Letellier, before the border town of Emerson.  So much my map could tell me.  But it could not indicate the conditions or slopes of these ramps, which was increasingly important to me as I struggled upstream on the Red.  I wanted to get off the river and onto the road, if possible.

Early in the day I encountered the ramp at Morris.  It was clearly built for a higher river than what was present, a nice gradient down to to a point some three feet above the water, and then as an afterthought, an ad hoc thirty degree slab of concrete leaning into the water below.  It was unclear how this lower ramp was supported, since I could see a gap underneath; furthermore the precarious thing was covered with a foot or two of mud.

There were more ramps further on.  As I passed, a fisherman with outstretched arms was telling his girlfriend a story, and then shouted at me, "Whoah! You came out of nowhere!"  Fighting the current I had second thoughts.  This man seemed friendly enough, he may know what the later ramps would be like.

I parked the canoe and walked over to ask him.  He said, "I'm as new to this area as you are!" which was clearly untrue, since he knew something about the ramp at St Jean Baptiste: it extended down at a forty-five degree angle and he was clueless how anyone launched any boats at the thing.  I decided to make the attempt here.

As I struggled to drag my canoe up the muddy slope, having no firm hold on anything but my rope anchored forty feet away, the fisherman turned his rod away from me and locked his Bronco as a precaution against my continuing presence.  A procession of trucks had stopped at the top of the hill as I did this, their occupants staring or sleeping, until finally one old curmudgeon stepped out of his blue truck and demanded to help me.

I felt there was little he could do.  I already had the boat past the mud, the slope from then on was comparably gentle or dry, but he insisted to tow the canoe up, and then haul my baggage.  I was powerless to resist, and besides that thought it would be too proud of me to refuse to allow this man to help me.

He was 85 years old.  "Nice," I said, thinking that he did not look the octogenarian.

"Yeah," he said, " all of my friends are dead!"

"I hate canoes!" he said as I unloaded my things from his truck, which successfully carted them all of forty feet.  "They're just things the Indians used to drown themselves in!"

"I just had to tell you my opinion," he said.

I told him that I planned to haul the canoe about 200 miles to Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, or perhaps find someone to drive me there.  He said he'd drive me himself if I could get him the gas money, "about $500".  I thought that was a bit steep, especially since the gas would be a bit cheaper in Minnesota and I figured his truck made more than five miles to the gallon.  But on calculation, it was doubtful if I could pay for the gas given my currently available funds.  I had spent so much money in Winnipeg on bags, clothes, and board, I was down to about $150.  My American funds were all tied up until I could reach a Bank of America.

He left as I tried various configurations for hauling the canoe.  I could put the wheels far back on the boat and bungee the front down to the bike rack, but it was hardly possible to keep this stable enough in turns; the boat wanted to jump out of its cradle.  Balancing the load over centered wheels seemed to be most stable for the canoe.  After all, this is how I got it down from my house to the river in the first place.  But this was alwaysa bit tricky in the joint to the bicycle.  The boat wanted to heave up or down as I started and stopped, or escape to the right or left on turns.  When the bike went down bungees would come undone and need to be reconstructed to continue.

A smooth-faced man came by, his construction vest brightly visible over his four-wheeler.  He seemed quite impressed with my trip thus far, and thought he might be able to find something that would work as a hitch at his workplace.  He would certainly come back and check on my progress in any case.  "See you!" he said before driving off.

"See you later!" I said.

I found a forked branch on the ground and thought I might be able to screw it into the deck of the canoe, and secure bungees or ropes across the fork to secure it to the seatpost.  My screws weren't long enough and the thing tore out of the deck with little applied force.

Some kids came by on mopeds, driving around the park in circles.  I thought this was just their version of staring at strangers, learned from their grandfathers in the trucks on the hill, so I ignored them.

The curmudgeon came back and was not impressed by what I was doing.  He started throwing things out of his truck that he was sure would help me.  A huge rusty C-clamp, a giant vise-grip, heavy metal bolts, a fence post, a 1x6 board.  As he dropped things into and beside the canoe I could just imagine this thing growing massive without bound, until its inertia prevented me from getting started on even the flattest ground.

He noticed the kids, and yelled "Get off the grass!"  He got out his camera to take photo evidence of their transgressions of the park.  They eventually left after an interval timed to indicate that the curmudgeon was not their boss.

He was a blacksmith, but all his tools were 12 miles away, he said, so there was nothing he could do to build a proper hitch for me.  He measured the fence post on the board, and declared it "not long enough", though for no purpose clear to me.  He was partly deaf, and in particular deaf to my hints that he might not actually be helping me much.

Finally it was time for him to go home for the night.  He was leaving for BC in the morning, to celebrate the Thanksgiving weekend.  All day it had been growing overcast and bitterly cold.  "Winter is coming, young man!"

He offered his final judgment on my plans, after playing at help all day.  "If you ask me, it's a s----y outfit.  It's too small!"  And then he drove away.

I set up camp in the cold, dark "Scratching River Campground."  It was a waste of another day.

Day 109 ended: 49*21.138N, 097*21.053W

October 7, 2008: Not at night

Oh, to paddle south by the half-full moon as a front chases the sun down over the horizon.

It was an experiment I had kept in mind for several days.  In the time I spent in Winnipeg the days had already grown quite short, and by the time I started I usually only had six or seven hours before the sun fell in the southwest -- resting until late in the morning had become for me an adaptation to the cold weather.  But, the moon had been a waxing sliver when I first saw it a couple days before, and so I watched day by day as it grew to something perhaps bright enough to paddle by.

This concept had been thwarted by overcast skies and aching muscles, but as I turned around one of the last bends towards the town of Morris it was as though the sky turned clear all at once.  A man in rubber boots cast his line into the glass-like river; meanwhile I sat in my boat consulting my GPS, which knows such things, to locate the moon as it walked out from behind the wood.  Everything had fallen into place: the sky, the moon, the air, the water; all laid bright and still for the night of my paddling experiment.

It is amusing how people have grand over-arching principles that can be applied to every situation, yet contradict each other.  Famously, the cliches "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "actions speak louder than words"; "take risks" but "better safe than sorry."

Once again I had determined to make south as quickly as possible; the further south I could get, the more hours of light and heat in a day, and the closer to St Louis I thought I could be by Thanksgiving.

And, as usual, just as I had determined to paddle through the night, temptation came into sight.  It was a rocky bar, a thin layer of mud seeping through the stones, but only enough to dirty my toes.  There were boulders too, the size of fishermen or canoeists wrapped up tightly, arms around legs.  The usual layer of clam shells and broken glass decorated the place, litter from feathered and flanneled guests gone by.

A planet appeared by the moon, and the only waves on the river were the ridges of the rock-bar.  I remembered an old conclusion of mine that it didn't matter how far I got as long as I had a good time, and this permitted me to indulge my instinct to stay.

That didn't mean time wasn't running out.

I wouldn't paddle at night for weeks later, under far worse circumstances.

Day 108 ended: 49*22.102N, 097*19.987W

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

October 5, 2008: Upstream

After the Ste Agathe bridge was a rapid.  It was by no means huge or powerful -- on any other river I would have been through without thinking about it.  But the Red River was different for me, because for the first time on my trip I was working my way upstream.

It wasn't so bad.  The current, in most places, was slow enough I didn't have to put all my strength into every stroke.  But I did have to paddle all day -- gone were the times I could sit in my canoe reading a book and offer a correcting steering stroke from time to time.  This was work.

I had nearly forced my boat through the water when a gust of wind stopped my forward progress in an instant and pushed me straight backwards.  I laughed as I tried again and again until the wind pinned me to a rock, and I had to get out and wade.  This started a pattern.  On most rivers, one side or the other will be so slow that going upstream is little harder than lake paddling.  But in a sharp S-bend, the slow section crosses from one side to the other, and I had to face that strong cross-current, resorting to wading through the narrows pulling my canoe -- it was a rare fast section I could just power through.

In the end that wasn't what did me in for the day.  The river straightened out towards the source of the wind, blowing so furiously that every foot of progress was a major victory.  Clouds were beginning to roll in, and although there were more houses around than I had liked, I had no choice but to find a place to camp for the night, utterly exhausted.

Day 106 ended: 49*30.677N, 097*13.478W

October 4, 2008; part 2: Prophecy

I couldn't sleep.  My existence was tight like a thin memory -- the walls of the tent were like a vague gauze.  My hand passed through it as though it wasn't there; I shook off my sleeping bag into a heap of goose down on the spongy floor.  I stood and what was left of my tent flew off like ribbons into the gray night.  The trees were ill streaks blotting the faint spirals that had been stars.  The mud was hard, but there were other strange things.

A 5 liter, red dry bag was solid rubber, one of the few things with a connection to the future.  I dumped its contents to the ground -- a couple of XD cards for my old/new waterproof camera; a couple black moleskine notebooks, a torn-up map of western Canada from an old National Geographic, and the book of prophecy from the (fictional) used book seller in Winnipeg.

In that hissing light which was neither wake nor dream, I picked it up, and saw for the first time my name on the cover, and the date "April 2013" in my unmistakable scrawl.  The present/future was inside:

^1 WEAK, SICK, FROZEN, BROKE WILL YOU REACH THE CITIES ^2 WHERE YOU WILL STAY INDEFINITELY ^3 GETTING AND LOSING JOBS, FRIENDS, CATS ^4 AND BUY A HOUSE ^5 ONLY YEARS LATER RETURNING TO THESE FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY AND ^6 WONDER WHO YOU WERE GOING TO BE ^7 WHERE YOU WERE GOING ^8 AND WHO YOU WILL BE ^9 IN THESE STRANGE MEMORIES ^10 YOU WONT FINISH RECORDING UNTIL YOU DONT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS

There was nothing strange about the Red River of the North; it was just another river, the water flowing through it until it reached some other place.

Day 105 ended: 49*37.512N, 097*07.258W

October 4, 2008; part 1: Static

--.*^. th .-_ first -*00 Red River.  *--==....,,,,, passing the lock, - I =====,.//////?
talked to a man about river conditions on a meander . ((%%....  a day reduced to thin
outline.... //-+++++++ ...... ^CARET bald eagles! --

---.,( Oh, but c
o
n
t
i
n
u
i
n
g

warmth!  8***** waxing moon ----,,,<<< And despite it. ---==== ++
fogotten ----. and as sun set
I decided to camp on a
rocky
patch.

****&%^----------+

All lost, a scrawl in a notebook filled with scrawls, lazily entered the next morning, but
the day is gone.

Day 105 continues.

October 3, 2008: Purchase of consumables

I eat books.

I also eat food.  If you're going on a multi-month canoe trip, you don't want to be short of either.  Since the portion of these consumables headed toward my stomach consisted of cans and EasyMac, I had to pay especial attention to that portion intended to stave off boredom.  To feed the brain.  To exercise the noggin.  To see myself, constantly, not as a lone individual sitting in a little boat in the middle of nowhere, but as a human being, connected to the world.

So even though it was already afternoon and I'd decided I could not burn another day in Winnipeg, I found some used bookstore listed in the phonebook, and asked, as politely as any American could, for directions.  You may imagine here that the books in this store were piled up, one on top of the other from floor to ceiling, in stacks that leaned over so dangerously they seemed to defy gravity; that the shopkeeper, sitting near the entrance was invisible behind a calamity of literature that so covered his desk that the only proof of his existence was a hand that flicked clandestinely through the cracks to fetch customer's cash -- never credit, never counted, and no change given; it was for the appearance of the thing, that customers pick up books and deposit money in a pantomime of the ancient traditions.  In short, that the bookstore was exactly like Derby Square Bookstore in Salem, Massachusetts.

If you can imagine that, please continue to do so.  Will it help if I mention I first bought the Gormenghast trilogy at that place?  I will inject just a parenthetical (the shop was actually not like that at all, but rather tidy in its Winnipegian order) and then complete my tale in accelerating fiction: that that ancient (fictional) store owner extended his grave (fictional) hand after accepting my (all too real) money, and returned to me a cardboard-bound (fictional) pamphlet.  This pamphlet could not exist, it was written in my unmistakable scrawl and dated over four years in the future.

When the mind is fed books it becomes rational enough to ignore things that cannot exist, so I added it to my pile of books.  I left the bookstore; I left Winnipeg.  I had spent $40 on food and $50 on books.

Day 104 ended: 49*46.397N, 097*09.213W