It was as if nature knew I need a break :-). The weather was sooo perfect this past long week-end, Civic Holiday in Canada. As soon as Cecilia, my wife and I started to settle down on our on-shore campsite, the rain that had been with us on and off, since we started from Toronto, stopped. The car was quite clean as if coming off from a car-wash. It was 1 AM last Thursday when our friend from Ottawa, C. called to basically cancel our other plan to go canoeing with him and J. from Ottawa since he was preparing to fight a legal battle with his landlord and may not be able to paddle properly :-). "Enjoy your canoeing on Grundy Lake," said C. at the end of our conversation the next morning to confirm our plan cancellation. "I will," and I knew I meant it when I answered and said goodbye to him.
Indeed we had an enjoyable canoe day trips on the lakes at Grundy Park. A young family friend from Toronto with their two little daughters who were'made' in Indonesia but are fully Canadian by now :-) joined us this time. They had the fortune actually to learn some basic canoeing from C., J., and S. the master pancake maker on their very first canoeing trip. The two girls couldn't wait to start paddling and canoeing on the first morning. The canoe rental outfit has generously provided two small extra paddles, kid's size.
Oops, story need to be rewinded a bit. On the first night, being nostalgic from her last 'nature planetarium' experience at Collin's Inlet with the same Ottawa gang, Cecilia invited all of us for another 'performances' by the real Master creator, in simple words, to watch the night sky. We had the fortune to see meteorites or shooting stars whizzing by among the billion of stars being displayed, free of charge for our enjoyment. The almost half moon on the south-western sky impeded the brilliance of the stars a bit but nevertheless, the splendour of our Creator's creation are still fully visible.
Fast forward one bit. After pairing or to be exact tripling each canoe with two adults and one kid, we circled around Grundy Lake for about half an hour paddling to get some warm-up and paddling feeling back for T. and A.'s family. We headed toward the Nisbet Creek that turned out to be a bit shallow so that we had to do some hauling, not quite portaging, so that we could go forward. It's nice to be a kid because they didn't have to get off :-). We continued along the creek and on toward a smaller lake, Gut Lake. I couldn't help thinking about the downside of my life these days. A person without gut to challenge me person-to-person, dare to criticize me personally in public regarding a 'wake up call' letter I wrote related to the pogrom in Indonesia. Indeed I criticized a bunch of so called "Christian brother and sisterhood" in this nice city called Toronto, who were doing nothing but watching the 'ugly scene' in Indonesia and hid behind a statement 'we cannot get involved in politics' :-(.
Off with politics that indeed could be ugly and let's get back to canoeing story. Gut Lake doesn't connect to Gurd Lake, in other words, there is a need of what's called portaging, i.e. to haul the canoe on our head or shoulder. Like a fool, Cecilia and I followed a canoe heading toward a cove without looking for the portage sign. Like a fool, I followed the guy and gal who ventured and left their canoe to find the portage route. "It's impossible," I screamed from the top of the cliff to my party down below. "This couldn't be the portage route, even walking was difficult, moreover to carry canoe." We returned and found another cove not too far, this time with what could be the happiest sight of the day for a canoeist :-), the portage sign. Since it was already a bit late, we decided to enjoy our sandwich lunches by the portage entrance. It was a good decision as aluminium canoe is always heavy especially a rented one :-). Portaging of couple hundred meters was a piece of cake, thanks to the sandwich without the cake :-).
The sandwich luncheon courtesy of T.'s family was quite delicious but the best of all was the Lindt Swiss chocolate dessert courtesy of 'use-knee', the chocolate lover :-). With the energy being resupplied, as I said yesterday, the portaging was too easy. The water lilies at the start of Gurd Lake were still there with the same nice smell. Unfortunately, there were no jumping turtles performing show for us this time. However, loons serenaded our paddling during the whole week-end from time to time. Couldn't be better, as no human devices would ever be able to imitate the sound of the loons.
We circled Gurd Lake around a small island. As the Canadian $ going down the drain to its lowest level in history, on a daily basis, there were so many people even on that tiny island. They couldn't afford a vacation in the USA, they couldn't afford staying in a hotel. There were no skinny dippers on the beach, too bad :-), but we saw some nice figures :-). Don't get me wrong, I am always amazed at the Creator of those figures while looking at :-). You can call it a feeling of awe even though I didn't say 'wow' or any other word less Cecilia's paddle landed on my head.
Enough of the scenic wonders, we went back quickly so that we could go to Mass :-) at Britt, a small town about 20 minutes drive from Grundy Lake. The timing was perfect. We had enough time to paddle leisurely back to our campsite, put the canoe by the shore, and took a well deserved showers. I already warned T. and A. about this type of showers at Grundy. Yes, I remember how M. and her entourage from Toronto who went camping first time to Algonquin's Lake of Two Rivers, had some fun with the sensor type showers. A few went out almost naked when the water stopped and they couldn't figure out how to restart the shower :-). I was sure A. wouldn't do that, but just in case, you never know how people would react when in panic.
The highlight of the Mass for me was the Scottish accent of the priest who did a very short homily, very kind and considerate of him :-). It was still too early for dinner and the hard work during the day caused our stomachs to be a bit cranky. So with a bit of a cue :-), T. and A. treated us "kids" for a nice ice cream at an 'ice cream parlour' not too far from Grundy Park. Best ice cream for the month I am sure, because on the next day, their kids were whining for another ones :-).
With ice cream as a new source of energy, we put back the canoes on the water and paddled again for couple hours or so, letting the kids use Cecilia's fishing rod. While kids were fishing, we the adults did enough gossiping for at least one month of my gossiping quota if not one year because normally I would rather read books than talk about 'bad guys' :-). If there was any disappointing thing in this trip, I only managed to finish two books out of the five or so that we brought along for the trip :-).
Campfire time came by and the kids were having fun again. Yes, if you have been missing fun lately in your life, it's about time to go back and pretend that you are little children. Just starting fire was a lot of fun for them. I helped make some kindling and chips from the woods so it will be easier for them, taught them the basic thing to start a fire and then let them made their own discovery and mistake. Don't we wish life's learning could be as simple as that? That no grave consequence would result from our mistake? There were lots of reflections came by me looking at the campfire but those will be in a different essay, not this one :-). I would let you now do your own evening-dreaming and campfire re-reflection, if you ever had one in your life. You can take a break from reading this story now ...
So how was your dream? I hope nice and sweet. You probably wouldn't believe me if I said, lately, I am having bad dreams with scenes in Jakarta. Yes, I had a plan to go back there and visit my folks, no definite time now. So, it should be of no surprise actually if in those dreams, I had nightmares. I had rough experiences in my dreams and felt happy as well as sad when I woke up. I guess that is my 'karma' these days for being an Indonesian :-(.
As was planned earlier, we did another canoe day trip on Sunday to 'uncharted territory'. I am not kidding. There was no route no nothing in the map provided by Grundy Park. It just showed an arrow from Grundy Lake with words 'Bucke Lake'. Cecilia and I did a small survey prior to and we thought we could find the lake :-). The channel between the two lakes was indeed very scenic. But then, what was supposed to be the start of the lake, had become an outgrown field. There was a small creek along the side of what must be once a big lake but its water was quite shallow. I taught T. and A. the trick to move on this type of water. Lift your bum together at the same time and jerk the canoe forward. They learned it in no time and it was fun watching them, counting to 3 in Indonesian and moved slowly, bum by bum :-).
I remembered our last trip to Collins Inlet where I had to do almost the same thing with C. my buddy. This time we were luckier because the grass was not a 'man eater' like the one we had at Collins Inlet :-). After about half an hour 'paddling' in this type of shallow water, we came upon a beaver dam. We had to get out from the canoe and I managed to see one canoeist about couple hundred meters in front of us, the real 'pioneer', who had to abandon his canoe and started walking along the 'meadow'. Bad news. If that's the case, it wouldn't be fun portaging along the wet meadow and who knows where would the lake be. It was already lunch time and we might be in trouble in terms of timing. So we decided to retreat and perhaps do it at other time. We found a real nice place to have lunch by the creek and with some wide opening in the water. After another delicious luncheon where this time the kids served us our lunch. :-) "Like the way we did with J.," so they said. Cecilia ran a short canoe clinic for both of them. She paddled with one of them each turn and let them be either the stern or the bow paddler. M. was so excited to be able to do the steering and learned J-stroke but R. gave up because it was not fun for her. Too much work I guessed since it was quite windy when her turned for learning some steering came. Their most fun was when they were able to do the paddling just by the two of them. Mama and Papa of course didn't forget to put the scene into pictures and for sure those will come into .jpg files so that you will see that I was not lying :-).
Knowing that we will make campfire again, we didn't want to miss the chance to haul some dead pine woods into our canoe. It turned out to be another best decision of the day. The pine woods lasted a long time and the smell from pine fire is always unique and refreshing. The kids didn't 'last' too long this time as they were indeed too tired. On our way back from Bucke Lake, Cecilia and I let M. steer our canoe and sat at the stern. We knew she would never ever forget this experience in her life. She paddled enthusiastically and almost never stopped. She will become a strong woman as S., one of her mentors :-), hopefully physically as well as spiritually too :-). Well, we will skip the gossiping part by the campfire, but in summary, it was a session of healing for some 'hurting people', THP :-) if you remember my essays on hurting people. Indeed, canoe camping is very good for not only hurting people but also for another type of THP, the happy people, especially if you happen to live in canoe paradise country called Canada. So long my friends, nature lovers and human lovers, take care, God Bless, adieu.
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