The Happy Camper: A Seasoned Voyageur Crew Heads Back Along Superior
My journey with the crew on the Naturally Superior Adventures voyageur canoe trip along Lake Superior’s northern coast came to an end way too soon. A week of sitting side by side in a cramped 36-foot replica birchbark canoe had made our skin crisp from the sun and our stomachs hardened from the tossing and turning of the swells churned up by the world’s largest freshwater lake. We had become seasoned paddlers and friends for life!
It took us two days to paddle back to Rock Island Lodge at the mouth of the Michipicoten River. We kept closer to the shoreline this time, seeing the sights and visiting historic places: a voyageur grave site, remnants of an old lighthouse and a beach where Canada’s Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson had painted. It was his summer retreat from 1955-1966, where the artist hiked, sketched and captured the beauty of Superior and Michipicoten Bay (the backdrop for at least 15 Jackson paintings).
The only downfall of our last campsite was that sand once again got into our sandals, tents, sleeping bags, toothbrushes, bathing suits and pretty much everything else. But the last sunset over Superior was beyond enchanting.
Our group had gathered five days prior to paddle a section of Lake Superior and pay homage to the legendary Canadian artist and filmmaker Bill Mason. We did exactly that, and it was incredibly fulfilling. However, during our travels on this mystic lake we were also reminded that others far before Mason’s red canoe had lived and thrived here. Native paintings decorated the granite rock faces, ancient campsites were strewn about the shoreline littered with shattered arrow heads and there was literally a vibration of energy echoing off the lake each time the sun set.
At the journey’s end, I was reminded of a piece author Johann George Kohl wrote in his 1860 book Kitchi-Gami: Wanderings Round Lake Superior. Kohl had visited the Lake Superior Ojibwa in 1855 and made unbiased studies of their material culture, religion and folklore.
“Then I commenced: “Kagagengs, I hear that thy head is full old stories, as an egg is of meat, and as I am so eagerly collecting the stories of the old time, as thou dost the herbs, I have come to thee to beg thee and to ask thee if thou art disposed to tell me some tradition of thy tribe?
Naturally enough, such a request, which startled the old man like a gun-shot at his ear, rendered him quite silent and confused. He wrapped himself more closely in his blanket… At length he said that he was not conscious of knowing any stories, and if he did, they were not worth hearing, and, besides, they were so many stories in the world, that he did not know where to begin.”
I’ll be returning next year to Lake Superior to host another voyageur canoe trip with Naturally Adventures. I’ve asked for the route to be different—that’s what pure adventure is about. Most likely, it will be a paddle from Lake Superior Provincial Park with a visit to the over 100 First Nation pictographs along Agawa Rock and another of Bill Mason’s favourite haunts, Old Woman Bay.
Check out the last two videos of the Voyageur Lake Superior trip on my KCHappyCamper YouTube channel. The trip was assisted by Algoma Kinniwabi Travel Association and 18 per cent of the revenue was donated towards the Trans Canada Water Trail initiative.
Day 4:
Day 5:
