How Did it Go?

Sunday:

     The light show started around 2:30 in the morning. At times the flashes lit the tent like daylight and got me thinking about how close the big white pines were. The idea of being incinerated or crushed under a few tons of softwood held no appeal but I quickly fell back to sleep. In my mind sleep trumps death. Brian told me we had a solid downpour for a couple of hours. Gully washer. Around 5:30 the roaring winds said it was time to wake up. The tent ballooned and snapped like a wet towel against an eleven year old's backside in a game of lakeside high jinx, but held it's place and never shipped a drop. Thank you Ryan Kruse.

     While it was rippin' and snortin' outside we started stuffing gear away. We had a date at 11:00 with an ATV. This was no time to lallygag. Packing seems never ending. So much crap. A Conestoga wagon's worth to cram in three packs. By the time we crawled out to join the brightening gray the storm had all but passed.

     Brian made a fire and heated water for oatmeal. On Thursday my twenty year old Coleman stove had given up the ghost, blew the gasket under the main burner and made sounds like an arming hand grenade. That left us with a useless twenty pounds of metal box and gas but we had matches and a forest full of wood as backup. Birch bark, bone-dry spruce twigs and a small stack of match-ready aspen from an abandoned beaver lodge provided all the fuel we needed for eight meals.  

     Leaving is hard but not as hard as it was when I had a job waiting for me in the morning. Besides, four days of pounding the water, carrying packs, the never ending tasks around camp, constantly sweating through my clothes and sleeping on the ground had worn me down. At seventy-two I'm not yet an old man but I'm close. Finally everything was packed, we walked the site picking up micro bits of litter and the load began. It was the food pack that did me in. My back was twisted when I hoisted it. Ping! Not a major torque but enough to let Brian know he'd have to load me on the portage. We left camp a half hour early.

     Most likely I'll never paddle a loaded canoe again but our exit will leave me remembering there was a time I could track a dead straight line. Sweet. We were trim and balanced, moving a solid four miles an hour and rarely switching sides. Paddling a canoe is a skill I wasn't born to. No one is. But after thousands of miles it'd grown to be a simple joy. I dislike the idea of having to say, "I remember when...", but I think that time has come.

     The portage proved no more than work. Pick it up, shut your mind off, watch your step, work. We paddled our last two and a half miles to the portage and tow. Tina was waiting. We slid dead center on the trailer at 11:00 on the dot. Ever the FedEx courier.