In 1978, the Explorer Post (360) booked a 5-day canoeing and camping trip starting near the old mining town of Bissett Manitoba. Part of the adventure was driving to and from Bisset, in caravan.
I had purchased my first car, a Mazda RX-2, the preceding November. Phil led in his Chevy Blazer, there was a white car driven by another scout, and I brought up the rear in my Mazda. I liked to drive exactly the speed limit, but Phil drove somewhat faster. I remember spending a lot of time driving in the left lane, passing other cars to catch up with the rest of the caravan. We stayed on 2-lane roads, mostly.
An educational part of the adventure was to visit the state houses in states that we crossed on the way. Our first night, we stayed in a county park south of Pierre SD. That place was memorable because the park was just north of a shooting range. There were lots of reports from guns being fired well into the evening, and I learned to tell by ear the difference between a rifle shot and a shotgun shot.
I think we must have visited the state house the first day, because we stopped for breakfast near I-90 in Bismarck ND. That stop was memorable because I ordered a chocolate waffle for breakfast. The waffle showed up at the table unadorned, while in the menu it was shown with whipped cream. So I requested whipped cream.
The waffle was whisked away, and some 5 minutes later it reappeared with whipped cream on it. I took one bite and made a sour face. Just at the moment I figured out that they had used salt rather than sugar to make the whipped cream, it was whisked away again. After a longer interval, a new waffle showed up, replete with whipped cream -- this time, sweetened with sugar. Everyone else had long since finished, so I wolfed down the waffle and we were under way once more. I don't recall anything about the statehouse in North Dakota; if we stopped, it must be less memorable than its neighbor to the south.
The second night, I think we camped somewhere near Winnipeg. It was a scout camp of some kind, but with rather spartan accommodations. There were showers but no cabins. I recall cooking spaghetti in a 28oz food tin; I don't recall why we didn't have proper cookware.
The next day, we drove in to Bissett. It's about 150 miles from civilization, northeast along the shore of Lake Winnipeg. The road going in there was a broad dirt road, going for mile after mile through forest and scrub. There was no view of the lake (or much of anything), but an occasional right-angle turn that allowed us to mark our progress on the map.
At one of those turns, I downshifted the Mazda to second gear. After speeding back up to 50 or so, I failed to notice I was still in second. Some time later, I noticed that the temperature gauge was very hot: the engine was overheating. I finally noticed my error and shifted into fourth, but the damage had been done. The rotary engine is very sensitive to overheating, so that oversight led to my having to rebuild the engine after we returned to Boulder.
Arrived in Bissett, we continued on to the canoe base on Lake Wallace. It was either the only building in the camp or the only one I recall -- a corrugated steel structure with the general store on one side and the canoe house on the other.
There were just enough scouts to fill up three 17' canoes. Gear for 3 people went behind the center thwart and the passenger in front of that. Of course, each boat had a bow and stern paddler. Our guide had a smaller boat that he paddled himself. I was usually in the stern of the boat I was in, and not very often a passenger. I had practiced a bit in Boulder, and had developed an efficient J-stroke. I could paddle for a long time on either side and let my bow man switch off as he pleased. When he was in the stern, he would call for a switch every few strokes. So it was clear what was the the most efficient combination. Charles Lamb was the smallest scout in the group, and he was usually in the passenger seat.
I don't remember any details about the first camp, but there were established campsites all along the way. It was easy to pull the boats up on sandy beaches and set up camp for the night. The terrain seemed to be mostly weathered limestone. There were birch and pine trees clinging to the rocks. Here and there, one of the trees that had been blown over showed in its roots just how shallow the soil was. There were blueberry bushes everywhere.
I often (always?) volunteered as cook and took to gathering blueberries and fortifying our meals with them. Blueberries in the coffee cake for dessert, blueberries in pancakes for breakfast, etc. By the time we finished, I didn't want to see another blueberry for an entire year.
We must have portaged into Obukowin Lake, because we ended up canoeing down the Gammon River. Obukowin Lake empties into Carroll Lake. Our first camp was most likely on one of these.
The second day out, we stopped for lunch at a rocky promontory that separated two lakes. This is where I learned that other boats leave trails in the water that you can follow. I had noticed that there were lines of bubbles in the water and a kind of ribbon of smoother water around those. When we climbed on the rock and started unpacking lunch, there was evidence that another group had just left there a short time before. I realized that we were just a short distance behind another group of scouts, and that the trails I had seen in the water showed where their boats had been.
Sure enough, we caught up with the other group in the afternoon. We chatted with them long enough to determine that they were taking a shorter loop: we would not be competing with them for campsites.
The guide took us to another rocky shore with a crude dock and a little shack. A man came out and greeted us. He told us he was a trapper and lived up there all by himself. Charles Lamb asked whose land it was where this guy was staying. He replied, "It's all God's country, boy."
Occasionally, we had to portage between lakes. The actual portage was not a problem, but the mosquitos were. Out on the lake, there were no bugs, but the moment we landed, the mosquitos were all over us. We got into a pretty smooth routine, where two people would jump out of the boat, grab one pack each, and immediately go bashing through the brush. The third would stow the paddles under the thwarts, heft the boat onto his shoulders and start blasting down the trail after the others. The boat would be thrown keel down in the water at the other end, both packs hefted in, all men loaded and out onto the lake -- again within seconds. We all had bug dope, but it was pretty much useless. We tried to set up camp in a location where there was some breeze to carry the bugs away.
The third day we stopped for lunch at a grassy bank along the Gammon River. I stepped ashore to make "rest stop", and discovered that it wasn't actually a shore. The grassy bank was just a mat of vegetation that had grown out into the river over the years. Under my weight, it sank until the water was lapping over the tops of my boots. The floating biome supported a variety of grasses and wildflowers. I hopped back in the boat and we chose another place to land.
At about 5pm, we came down to the mouth of the Gammon River where it empties into Aikens Lake. We were on the eastern shore and had to cross to the west. However, there was a pretty strong wind from the west and 3' waves crashing on the shore. The guide decided to wait for the evening calm before trying to cross. We had dinner early, and some of us went swimming in a large pool right where the waters joined.
When we continued, the waves were still about 1 1/2' high. It took some skillful canoeing to slice the waves without getting water in the boat. It was still pretty thrilling for the bow paddler, getting hit with spray from the bow. The passenger got pretty wet, too. It's best to hit the waves perpendicularly, but doing so meant we had to veer off south of our destination. After we got about halfway across the lake, the waves went down and we were able to alter course to reach the next campsite.
My boat had gotten ahead of the others, so we paused mid-lake to let them catch up. In this lake, there was a submerged ridge that came up just below the water's surface. We set our passenger out on a rock that was barely awash, and I backed up to take a picture of him "walking on water".
That night or the following one, there was an electrical storm. It is a bit unnerving lying in a tent with aluminum verticals, wondering whether the next lightening strike will prefer the tent pole to a nearby fir tree. But eventually the storm moved on and I slept easily after that.
Our camp on the western shore of Aikens Lake must have been Wednesday -- our third day out. From there, we portaged into the Leaf Lake drainage. The upper reaches of the creek leading down to the lake had barely a trickle. In many places, we all stepped out of the boat onto the bank and dragged the canoe across until it was floating again. We were all very happy to see the marshes at the head of Leaf Lake, since it meant we were paddling on open water again.
Phil had made us leave our watches behind but brought his along. (Hmmm.) At one point, someone asked the time. I looked up the sky, gauged the position of the sun, and using my built-in compass announced, "It's about 2pm." Phil chimed in with, "It's 2:10." Nailed it!
Leaf Lake drains into the Broadleaf River. I remember this as one of the most picturesque parts of the trip. The lake is long and narrow, and rounding each point exposed vista slightly different from before. The stands of trees changed and the shorline came in close or curved far away. As the lake narrowed into the river, our views became more intimate with tall stands of birch and pines on either side. As evening drew nigh, a pair of wood ducks flew overhead, following the course of the river. That image is the perfect Canadian wilderness cameo.
The next morning, we turned into another river (the Wanipigow) where we were paddling upstream. There were rapids, and the current was so strong that we had to get out of the canoe and drag it upstream. At the second or third of these, my bow man lost his grip and the canoe started to swing out into the current. I stepped forward to grab it, but discovered that below water line the rock was completely covered in moss. I slid right under the bow and found myself floating (barely) in the middle of the river.
It was very hard to swim. But then, I realized that I still had the paddle in my right hand. "Oh, yeah. Release paddle," I thought. It tried swimming back to the south shore where the rest of the party stood. But after several seconds, it was clear I was not making progress. The current was pushing me away. "Okay, then," I thought, "go with the flow." I turned around and made for the opposite shore.
The river at that place was about 25 feet wide, so it did not take long to reach the other bank. But when I was about 5' out from shore, I got caught in an eddy, and could not make further progress. I swam for about 30 seconds and then noticed that the bottom of the river was only 5' down. I simply stood up and walked out on the bank.
In the mean time, Phil and another scout had gotten back in a canoe, retrieved my boat and paddle and then came around to ferry me back to the south shore. Even though I assured them it was not necessary, they made me strip off my wet clothes and change into my dry outfit.
As we continued on, the Wanipigow River narrowed. Wild rice grew on the bottom of the river 2 to 3 feet down, and brushed our boats as we passed over. There were grassy meadows as we went around the bends of that meandering stream. We came out on the western arm of Wallace Lake, and I began to recognize my surroundings.
At that point, we were pretty well strung out. The strongest scouts were in the lead canoe, followed by Phil and his crew. Next was the guide, paddling solo and lastly us. My bow man also recognized the surroundings. I started to put my shoulder into my stroke and at that unspoken signal, my bow man started to put more power into his stroke. We passed the guide within a few minutes, and passed Phil's boat before they had figured out what was happening. We came up right abeam the lead canoe before they had caught on. Then, it was a fight to the finish.
It was about a mile from there back to the landing. My bow man switched when he had to and I adjusted. But we found that we were most comfortable with him paddling on the left and me on the right; we spent much longer in that mode. We kept up neck and neck with the other boat -- their bow was always just inches in front of or behind ours. They had a slight advantage because they had the inside track, but no matter. We managed to keep up with them just the same.
Finally about 100' from shore, the scout in the stern of the other boat called for a switch. In the switch, they dropped back about 3'. They never made it up. In my boat, we continued in our preferred mode all the way to shore. The two boats hit the beach a half second apart, but it was clear who'd won. Ooh, arrgh!
After stowing our boats and loading our gear back into the cars, we headed for home. We stopped for a celebratory dinner at the first decent-looking restaurant along the way. The waitress offered us fresh blueberry cobbler for dessert, which I found I had to decline. I did eventually recover my taste for blueberries.
Alas, there are no pictures to accompany this narrative. I had taken along my trusty Argus C-3 and two rolls of film, and I had attached a 1/4-20 U-bolt to the tripod mount so I could fasten the camera to one of the thwarts to keep it dry. Somewhere along the way, the camera and film fell down into the bottom of the boat and got soaked, so all of the film was ruined.
