Paddling Episode 5

 We've paddled Lake Eugenia more than once, but it's been fun every time.  I'm going to show you an air photo first for a change, and try to explain where we went, but you can just skip that if you want.  The air photo below shows a mix of farmland, cottages, the lake and marsh.  If you've read my last few posts you'll know that we didn't bother paddling across the open lake - what fun is that?  Instead we explored the marsh and the shoreline.

Lake Eugenia was created in about 1905 when Ontario Hydro purchased the low-lying valley and built a dam in Eugenia, flooding a wide area of farms and piping water from the lake to the edge of the escarpment.  Even today this provides the highest drop of water for hydro production east of the Rockies.

Looking at this air photo you can see the dark water of the lake, a shoreline that is sometimes marsh (the very light colours), and a white line across the top.  That white line is the causeway, and we kept all our exploring south of that.  We put in off the dock of a friend's cottage in about the centre of the photo, and paddled south.  Eventually we attempted (mostly unsuccessfully), to explore up the Beaver River where it enters in the southeast corner of the photo..  The white lines in that area are simply property lines.  Let me know if you find this sir photo interesting.

Here we are putting in off the dock, my friend in his kayak, and my one-person canoe waiting while I take the photo.

  Blogger is really messing up my spacing today!

At this end of the lake the tree stumps were simply left, and the shallower water here means they are exposed.  Makes for an interesting paddle though!

We headed for the marsh first, but found it was way up over our heads from the vantage point of a canoe.

So we headed south where we could find our way to where the river flowed into the lake.  My canoeing buddy had a thing for exploring these narrow creeks.

It was very similar to exploring the creek that flows into the Robson Lakes, where we ran into frequent logjams.  Here you might think we were stuck, but we wiggled around the far left side of these logs and continued on.

You could watch the current as the aquatic vegetation moved in the water.  This story is obvios=usly going to take more than one day, so we'll return to this tomorrow.

The Coulonge River

The Coulonge is in Quebec, and runs southward into the Ottawa River, roughly parallel to the Noire which was my first northern river canoe experience.  In my memory the Noire flowed through sandy country (and was therefore fairly forgiving), but the Coulonge ran through rocky country, (and was therefore fairly unforgiving)!

We had to use a shuttle for this one, driving a bumpy backwoods road, pulling a trailer loaded with our canoes to get to our chosen put in point.  We were aiming for a seven-day trip.  Again there was lots of gentle whitewater, so I had an intense learning experience.  When you're heading fast toward a bit of whitewater you don't get much time to sit and ponder your options!

This was a trip with actual waterfalls, and one memorable portage that involved roping the canoe down a vertical slope to the water below!  Glad there were other more experienced folk to take charge of that one!  I also recall seeing half a canoe sticking vertically out of the logjam in front of a portage!  But the most interesting thing one of our members found was a name carved into the rock in large letters, mostly covered in moss, presumably the name of a lumberjack with time on his hands.

By the end of this trip, my third with this group of friends, I was beginning to think I knew how to handle things.  And each trip was incredibly interesting!

Canoeing, Episode 4

Before I go any further, I need to show you the Beaver River.  After all, we're often talking of the Beaver Valley, and it features a designated canoe route.  The core of the canoe route here is a wide meandering channel through a large Silver Maple Swamp, complete with designated access points and of course the river-side bakery in Heathcote.

The route starts just north of the village of Kimberley, where there's an inconspicuous sign, but this time we put in at the mid-way point, on the Epping Sideroad..

From there it's a pleasant drift downstream, though if you don't paddle the trip will take a long time!  As you ca see by the high water, we're paddling in the spring.

Soon you come to the 'Flower Bridge' where a neighbouring nursery hangs baskets of flowers and keeps them looking good over the summer, though it's too early this year.

At one point a pair of Turkey Vultures watched us from above.

After the village of Heathcote where we stopped to visit the bakery, the pace suddenly picks up quite a bit, and we've got some actual whitewater to contend with, leaving the swam behind.  They were little more than swifts and we enjoyed a faster paddle the rest of the way.

We passed pairs of Canada Geese in several spots.  The nesting pairs sat still and silent but the 'teenagers' flapped away honking madly.

The old low dam at Slabtown was our ending point, but we drifted down 100 yards to where we could easily bring the car close.

This is my two-person canoe, in comparison to the ;pack' cane I've mentioned.  This is an old canoe, rebuilt.  The body is original, but the gunwales and thwarts are all new, as is the colour, in a mix of ash, cherry and walnut.

The Spanish

The second river I joined my friends for was the Spanish.  The Spanish River is known as one of the best introductory rivers for those wanting to learn whitewater canoeing.  It's easily accessible, safe and definitely adventurous!  The river flows from north to south ending just west of Espanola, on the north shore of Lake Huron, west of Sudbury.  You can access the river at various points; we had a canoe rental outfit drive us north so we ended up with a five or six day paddle.

The river features lots of swifts, class I and class II rapids, as well as some class III (those might be wise to portage around if you're a beginner!).  I was lucky, I was in a group with at least six experienced whitewater paddlers.  They looked after me, gave me advice, and taught me how to watch for the rocks, follow the 'Vs'.  On easy whitewater you can make fast progress, and we did.

We took a detour onto Biscotasi Lake, one of the spots in northern Ontario tied by legend to Grey Owl.  Archie Belaney was an Englishman who came to Canada in 1906.  Fascinated by stories of the 'Indians' of North America as a child, he headed for Temagami in northern Ontario, and eventually made contact with a local group of Ojibwe.  He developed a life as a woodsman, trapper and guide, and many years later took on the personality of Grey Owl, claiming native ancestry.  In this guise he became a popular speaker and writer.  He spent part of his life in the region of the Spanish River.

I remember our trip as an exciting run down through a lot of gentle whitewater, learning fast how to handle it.  The days were long though; our leader had an idea of how far we'd go each day and I remember clearly complaining to my canoe mate 'how far does he want us to go anyway', after we had paddled 36 km. one day.  A great river for sure!

Canoeing, Episode Three

It's snowing and blowing like mad outside but I'm thinking of summer and how nice it would be gliding across the water in my canoe.  Last post I showed you Bell's Lake; the other local lake we've paddled in is a group we know as the Robson Lakes.  With an undeveloped shoreline except for Participation Lodge, a community home for those with complex needs, the lake is small but really worth exploring.

These lakes are so small I might not have bothered, but they turned out to be quite interesting, easy to get in to, and kept us busy for an hour and a half on a beautiful summer day.  This time we used my regular sized canoe and paddled together; I got to sit in the bow with my camera.

We don't spend a lot of time out on the open water; we prefer to explore the shorelines.

You actually start out on a smaller lake, Hines Lake, but a narrow channel takes you through to Robson Lake.  Lots of shallow water and fallen branches to navigate.

With the thick aquatic vegetation in places, it meant steering for the open channels.

These bulrushes made nice reflections along the shore and provided a splash of brighter green.

And this group of weathered stumps caught my attention.  I just missed getting a picture of a turtle that slipped away into the water.

And then we came to  the waterlilies.

With a little bit of direction and practice my buddy was able to get me close enough to get some good pictures.  These are the common White Water-lily.

You may not know the story of Claude Monet, the great French painter, the founder of the 'Impressionist' style of open-air landscape painting.  In his later life Monet established a garden at Giverny, outside Paris, with a large pond, which he made into his water garden.  He became immersed in painting pictures of waterlilies and their reflections in the pond for the last 20 years of his life.

His final gift to the people of France was a group of enormous waterlily paintings (6 feet high and 40-50 feet long) that wrap around two large oval rooms built for this purpose in L'Orangerie Gallery in Paris.  We had the chance to visit both Monet's garden at Giverny and his waterlily paintings in Paris in the years before my paralysis, and it was just amazing to see the link between the actual water garden and the famous paintings.  So I was glad to get some pictures of my own.

Canoeing, Episode 2

Although all my earlier memorable canoeing experience was on northern rivers, here in the valley we do have some nice small lakes that are attractive for a paddle.  This one is Bell's Lake, a small mostly protected lake that is really just a widening of a small stream, but because it's all wild, it's fun to paddle.  It's like a bit of northern wilderness plunked down here in southern Ontario.

The stream crosses a road where there's a convenient spot to get on the water.

At one point you literally paddle across the top of an old fence!

But once you get there you've got a ot of interesting shoreline to explore.

At some point the water level has risen and killed off a lot of trees, so today there are stretches of shore that are a tangled mess of fallen tree trunks, with lots of reflections.

What struck me about all the paddles we've done on this lake (I think we've been here at least three times), was the bird life.  The Kingfishers were common, each patrolling its own stretch of stream or shore,   At one point we saw a Kingfisher dive into the water and come up with a tiny fish.  I consider myself lucky to have got this shot; Kingfishers are known for flying away down the shoreline in front of you!

And this is a Kingbird, easily recognized if you get a good look at it by the white band across the bottom of the tail feathers.  It feeds on insects, catching them on the wing as it swoops over the water.

Puttering along the shoreline I spotted this shrub, a Swamp Rose I think.  But I had to move up through a tangle of branches to get the picture!

Can you spot the same group of blossoms in this picture?

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Meanwhile, here on the home front we've had more snow.  

A lot of snowblowers going on the street this morning!

Canoeing, Episode One

 The earliest paddle I can find in my own records since I've been living in the valley was a trip down the Nottawasaga River east of here in 2011   This was with an organized group, the paddling group from our local Probus Club.  A friend of mine was the leader.  As a new member of the group, I took it as a chance to meet other interested people. 

The Nottawasaga is a slow meandering river, flowing through a landscape of sand deposits at the head of Nottawasaga Bay, the southern part of Georgian Bay.

It was certainly an easy paddle as we drifted down with the current!  I had just picked up my new canoe, a 'pack canoe', designed to be paddled by a single person and extremely light weight!  It has a kayak seat in the centre and you paddle it with a kayak paddle.

There were lots of birds as we paddled along, including Kingfishers and Swallows.  But the highlight of the paddle for me was seeing this juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron just sitting on an old post as we passed by!

Later that summer I joined the group again for a paddle down a nice stretch of the Saugeen River, starting in Walkerton.  The Saugeen is really popular locally and it's a large watershed for southern Ontario.  The Conservation Authority has developed access points at the major bridges and there are one or two camping spots.  The entire route is over 100 km, and would take 3-4 days.

Parts of the river are easy paddling, but in other places there is some gentle white water, often not much more than a visible 'V' in the current (you always aim for the 'V')!  I was paddling my single 'pack' canoe and after three hours I was worn out!

There was one momentary bend of more exciting whitewater; you can see it just beyond that canoe.  This was the first time I'd encountered anything that could be labelled 'whitewater' in my new canoe, and I was a little nervous at the time.  A single canoe handles quite differently than a regular two-person canoe.

But we slid around easily and I could look back on the others following me.  A 'pack' canoe got its name because the original model, built for Teddy Roosevelt who was an avid fly fisherman, was small enough to be packed into the wilderness on the back of a mule!   After two trips I was quite pleased with it, and besides it's light enough to pick up with one hand!

The Noire

The first distant canoe trip I joined my friends for was the Noire (Black) River in Quebec.  We gathered in Pembroke and were flown into the start of the paddling, landing on a small lake to wait for the others.  The tiny float plane could take only one canoe and two people; there were eight of us on the trip.

This was definitely a big step up for me, with class I, class II and even some class III rapids.  I had to learn fast!  I was of course delegated to the bow, and started learning the role of the bow person - to watch out for rocks, deadheads and logs so we could avoid them!  I was taught the bow draw and cross draw, strokes you use to pull the front of the canoe sideways when necessary.  Given the experience of the group I was joining, particularly four friends with decades of paddling experience between them, I was learning fast.

The Noire runs through a sandy landscape, so on the inside of each big bend in the river was a wide sandbar.  That's where we camped each night, though my own recollection is that I seemed to always be rushing, trying to keep up with the others, have time to help out, and be ready on time when we left in the morning.

At any rate the trip was enormous fun and I learned a great deal.  I guess I did well enough, since I was invited back the next year when we paddled the Spanish River in northern Ontario.

Canoeing Adventures!

I've been wondering what sort of adventures to take you on this winter.  As you know, I can't get out much exploring when there's snow, slush and grit on the ground!  But looking back over my past photos I find a number of canoeing adventures I've been on.  And thinking back over my life, I'm thrilled that I got on ten serious canoe trips which were the adventure of my life!  I don't think I've shared these with you recently, so I thought they'd be a good choice for the next few weeks.

They fall into two groups.  I began my big canoe adventures shortly after I turned 40.  Somewhere I read that if you have big things you wanted to do in life you'd better get on with it once you're 40!  So I called up a friend who I knew did some serious canoeing, and asked him if I could go along.  Boy, did I luck out!  

He and four other folks had been canoe trip leaders as volunteers, and had several decades of experience between them.  They knew all about running white water, about packing and cooking food, about portaging, and anything else you might need to know!  They were my age and they had decided to have their own canoe group just for fun!

So they went on a canoe trip of about 10 days to two weeks every year.  And I got to join them!  It was wonderful, the greatest physical adventure I've had!  This painting of a photo, which hangs in our den, shows me paddling out in the delta of the French River, in between the narrow shallow bedrock outcroppings known as the 'Fingerboards', part of the original route of the 'Voyageurs'.

Unfortunately I have very few accessible pictures from those years, so I will have to describe the highlights for you.

But I do have more recent pictures..  We have paddled on several local lakes and rivers here in Grey County, so I thought I would mix these together, describe a recent paddle for you, with pictures, and add a description of one of my whitewater adventures further north.  Does any of this make sense?

Our January Thaw

We had a January thaw last week.  The temperature hit 9°C on Thursday, and a great deal of our snow disappeared!  It's back to winter now, quite abruptly, but the sequence of changes as we get a thaw always fascinates me.  It's impossible for me to get out and get many pictures in the winter, but I do have the view out our back window, so here goes.  Maybe it's seeing the same view every day that makes me aware of this.

If you remember. a week ago today the snow out back looked like this.

By Wednesday the temperature was rising and half our snowstick reappeared.

By Thursday morning the thaw was well underway.  The snow was simply collapsing down on itself and the bright sun was helping it along.

A leaf or two of the Hellebore appeared at the feet of our snowstick.  I wish that counted as an early sign of spring!

Patches of grass appeared on the golf course.

And a day later, a great deal of grass was showing.

But then 'poof!  It wasn't a lot of snow, but we woke up to everything looking white again, and it still does today.