The Happy Camper: Mystery Trip to Opasquia, Part Two
How surreal it is to be dropped off by a bush plane after a two-and-a-half-hour flight, passing over a northern landscape with no roads, no hydro lines, no development. I spent the entire time gawking out of the tiny fogged-up side window of an old iconic de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, and all I could see were patches of burned jack pine, spruce bog and countless lakes that exist without having a name slapped on them by some European white guy.
The pilot wished Andy, my canoe buddy, and I well for our exploratory canoe trip in the remote Opasquia Provincial Park, and then took off back to his home base in Red Lake, Ontario�but not before buzzing over us, tilting his wings as a gesture of good luck. He had gone over his limited fuel and was hopeful to use the tailwinds to help him back safely.
At first glance, the landscape seemed mystical. This was not the tamed interior of Algonquin or the semi-wilds of Temagami. This was �pure� wilderness. The only way out was to push an SOS button on our satellite communication system and have our pilot, Sean Lambie, come back and get us.
We had two weeks, three packs, a barrel full of dehydrated food and two litres of whisky. Andy had a fake hip and a bummed knee. I was drugged up with arthritis and anxiety meds… and we paddled off on some unknown lake in one of the most remote places in Canada. Two old guys that just turned 60 couldn�t be happier.
The first day of paddling was quite quaint. We drifted over big water, pushed over a few beaver dams, checked out cliff faces for ancient pictographs, watched bald eagles soar above and spotted a mink the size of a wolverine. It was an interesting place; all new to Andy and I. But little did we know the land was about to teach us a lesson�we were like two gullible emperors being exposed in their new clothes.
We made camp early on a nob of rock. We learned quickly that no �true� campsites exist here. You have to make one, and we did. Life was good. I caught two walleye and a pike off shore, we dinned on our first homemade dehydrated meal (spaghetti and veg) and poured our first dram of whisky. The sun set over the tips of black spruce and a pair of loons serenaded us to sleep.
Come morning we packed our canoe and paddled over to the first portage of the trip. We had to alter our route the day before departing due to wildfires burning up the park to the northwest. We chose an old and little-documented route to the southeast of Opasquia. Portages were shown in a book titled Canoe Atlas of the Little North. I spotted the beginning of the first noted trail: a 230-metre portage.
Andy paddled the canoe up to the shoreline and I stepped out to check it out. A few metres in, the trail completely disappeared. The way was clogged by thick alder, a carpet of sphagnum moss and Labrador tea and hundreds of downed and burned jack pine, which looked as if a giant had spilled his box of toothpicks over the forest floor.
We made it across to a small pond and paddled over to check out the next portage: a 600-metre one. The same thing. No trail, just brush and downed trees. By the time we scouted, marked, and cleared our way across, it was late in the day, and we pitched our camp at the far end of the trail and filtered our tea water from a mucky pond.
The same conditions remained for the other three portages that linked more small ponds to a much larger lake. We figured things would improve once we reached the larger lakes but for now, we had our work cut out for us as we made our trails between the ponds. A 600-metre, 400-metre and another 600-metre portage took us six full days to scout, tag, clear and carry over!
To be continued�.
Check out the first four videos of the Opasquia series on my YouTube channel.
Part 3�The Land Will Teach If You Listen
