More about the Widerness camping trip Labour Day week-end - Part 2

By the time we packed the canoes back with gear Friday morning, the fog had cleared and it was a beautiful sunny day. We crossed back the bay to the starting point and went back to our cars to add/remove gear for the trip to Lac Vert.  By then we'd seen 2 people arrive with motor boats, probably for  a day of fishing. We'd seen another group of canoe campers, who'd camped across the other bay overnight also gear their canoe up and leave.

Lac des Bagnoles once the fog cleared

My friends canoeing with their dog.

Then we canoed across lake towards a little island, and next to it is a passage that brings you to lac des roches. We were lucky it was not too windy. It was interesting paddling a canoe alone like it was a rowboat.

Me canoeing in Lac des Bagnoles on Friday

I found that if I go solo with this canoe, I have to use the entire back to sit to be able to paddle properly. I have to learn to travel even lighter. The gear was stacked pretty high.

I did ok considering it's the first time I used my canoe solo. But I had a hard time keeping up with my friends. I suspect if I had went a few more times over the summer, I might have kept up better. We canoed along lac roche and took the turn to go towards lac vert. We saw a few more people also canoeing. We stopped to check out one spot. It was ok.. So we moved onwards. I knew we were not going to camp on the same island that we did last year, and it was full of people already anyway as I canoed past it.

At some point I passed by 2 women, and they were like, they it's a woman solo in her canoe! And they were like, that's so cool.  It felt empowering :)

I could see my friend ahead, but there was also another canoe not too far away.  I stopped a few minutes to take the photo of a seagull sitting on a rock in the middle of the water.  and then I could only see one canoe at a distance and it wasn't my friends, no shape of a dog.

I fgured they went around the other side of the island so I turned there and started going around that island.  I heard a loud sploosh and saw that a girl had just jumped off a  15--20  drop rock and as I approached another one jumped.  As I crossed them going to a spot to be able to get out of the water we exchanged pleasantaries and I asked them if they had seen a canoe with a dog. They said no, but they had seen a dog on the island near the jumping point where they were, and the other pointed out it was a dog with a life jacket. 

That had me puzzled, as we had talked going further at the end of the lake.  I kept going , went around the island and around the point I stopped, I needed to relieve myself as well as needed to be out of the sun for a few minutes.  This is when I encountered the water snake.

Water snake in lac vert

Water snake swimming away

It didn't stop me from jumping knee deep into the water, once I figured the spot the snake wanted to hang out in.  After a break I continued going around the island. I remember my friends missing me last year, because they hadn't gone quite far enough around an island. So each time I'd see a new alcove in the shape I'd be hopeful that they had landed there, and then I saw their canoe and their orange tarp put up so I'd spot it from a mile away...

Where they had landed you can't see from the other island or the channel between them, so I'd missed them going there.

Another snake I saw

Where we camped, right behind our tents is the high water jumping point.

Interesting stump

This dead tree broke forming almost a pentagram.