I've angered the canoe Gods.

Yesterday morning, in anticipation of a canoe excursion in the Riviere des Milles Iles, I managed to be out of the house at 7:30. The only problem is that when I got outside to my truck, I realized I'd left my purse inside the house.  I was now outside without a car key or without a house key.

On a normal day, Debbie would have been home, but she is currently in New Brunswick visiting with her daughter and youngest son, and possibly Izzy, who's been staying with me since she got back from the UK, but she was already gone to work.

I called Izzy, who called her boss, who showed up within 15 minutes and was nice enough to lend her truck, so Izzy could come and go more quickly then by bicycle. I was at work by 8:30. Sadly the idea was that I wanted to be at work for 8am.

The friend I was to canoe with,  has been experiencing issues charging his phone, and yesterday morning it decided it just wasn't going to charge. His efforts to find backup battery failed till close to 2pm. I was expecting to pick him up at 3pm at Fairview.  That didn't happen. He managed to borrow a phone battery by 2 something to at least message me so I didn't go to Fairview for nothing. 

So I went to pick him up at home. By the time we got back to my place, it was moot to go canoeing, it was already past 5pm. Would take an hour to get to the park to put the canoe in water, would not have given us more than 2 hours and really it's not worth it.

So for the 2nd time this year an attempt to go canoeing was tharved.  But I haven't given up. Today is another day.

On a positive note, it's the 20th of June and only the past few days have I been sneezing at dusk and dawn a bit but nothing more. The honey has been phenomenal

This is useful for next summer

I was sent a great link on how to portage a canoe, and I wanted to make sure I find it again next summer, so it's here.

Didn't go canoeing as much as I would have liked this summer. Went the first time in August at Rideau River Provincial Park in Ontario.  Then again Labour day week-end 4 day canoe camping trip and then one last time in Riviere des Milles Isles on a Saturday in September were it was exceptionally hot.

I hope to start canoeing in May next year. So many places to visit so little time!

More photos from canoeing this week-end

Looking towards Rosemere from l'ile aux Juifs

Standing at the lookout on Ile aux Juifs

Very pretty the Ivy with red leaves

Every year there are more geese at this house

Woman feeding the geese

Duck wandering away

Canoeing on La riviere des Mille Iles - with lots of photos

This couple in rowboat, the guy was sitting wrong and couldn't figure out paddling!

Fall colours with water lilies

On L'ile aux juifs

Fall colours

Fall colours

The tunnel from a distance

Love this weeping willow

This is the Radisson, the American version of the Sportspal canoe

At the lookout on Ile aux juifs

At the lookout on Ile aux juifs

Selfie of us canoeing on the Riviere des Mille Iles.

I found a 16ft Sportspal canoe - double ended.

I found it for $400 on Kijiji.  Not only is it a double ended, birch bark coloured Sportspal, the biggest sister of my 12ft, but it also came with wooden seats, that were added to canoe, a support for the motor, an electric 24 lbs thrust motor, a battery, and anchor and even foams to put canoe on car.

Paddles, battery, motor, and anchor

close-up on the motor

Close-up on battery markings

Anchor

16 ft Sportspal canoe

The support to hold the motor and one of the wooden seats

The 4 foam things

The canoe was bought new in 2005, so it's 9ish years old. It's in some ways in better condition then my 12ft.

I love it the folks who sold it to me, a retired couple probably 15 years older then me,  wished me as much enjoyment with the canoe as they had.   This is exactly what I wished the couple who bought my old 16ft fibreglass canoe.

I just need to add rope to both the front end and the back end of the canoe in the holes meant for rope. Wonder if I can get hot pink rope big enough for this.

Wilderness here I come!

Today I am going canoe-camping in the Gatineau region. Will be camping somewhere around Lac Vert, the one that you can portage to from Reservoir du Poisson Blanc.  I'm specifying it because there is another Lac Vert not that far away from the one we are going to.

We will go to Lac Ste Marie, and then continue to some small road that will take us to a parking lot on the edge of Lac des Bagnoles. [I always wonder if the lake has an old car graveyard].  From that lake we will go to Lac des Roches, and then make our way to Lac Vert, which has one of the most beautiful shades of green for a lake in Quebec.

This time we hope to camp at the further end of the lake, not on the really big islands.  I'm so excited. I love canoe-camping, and this time I'm even canoeing solo. I'm going with a couple but paddling my own canoe.

Which reminds me one of my favourite sayings "Love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe".

I'm waiting to go meet my friends in Hawksbury and then head over to the Gatineau area. I'm so hyper right now, I can't wait to leave!

Excited about Canoes

Went to Sail yesterday to get some Sea to Summit, eVent dry bag-compression sacs, as well as get a butane stove for my friends birthday. When we walked in we noticed that they sell Sportspal canoes. Who knew? When I google search for dealers, that never ONCE came up.

As a friend says, great store, crappy web presence. No kidding.

They don't carry the 16ft double pointy ended canoe. Most stores do not. Apparently most people don't buy a 16ft pointed ended canoe. They tend to sell square backs and transom's at 16ft.

The only downside with the 16ft double pointy ended canoe is that it is 58 lbs. I'm not sure I can lift and put it on my truck. Whereas the 14ft pointed is 41 lbs.. which is just a few pounds heavier then my 12ft pointy Sportspal

The list of sizes and weights can be found here

So I have till sometime in February of 2015 to decide whether or not I want to order myself a 16ft pointy Sportspal canoe and it will cost in the ballpark of $1200 plus taxes.

Canoe back where it belongs.

My Genuine Indian Brand canoe is back on it's horses.  As I've mentioned  I was very surprised I was able to do it alone, but just as well, it did not stay sitting in snow more then 24 hours, 

It's FRIDAY. Yes!

I messaged my friend to ask if she could help me put my canoe back on it's wooden 'horses' when she got to my place, and she asked me to turn it around so it doesn't accumulate water, which made sense.

So I went to turn it around and in doing so realized that if I just moved one end, because of how high the snow is, I was able to put the canoe back on it's horses by myself. I did it quickly before work. Tonight or tomorrow I have to go position it properly and re-wrap the tarp around it properly. But at least it's back up.
I guess it might not be as heavy as I thought it was.

And now I don't have to worry about it filling with water when it rains tomorrow and then freezing.  I do want to sell my Genuine Indian Brand canoe  this spring... so it would have sucked if it got damaged. 

I've had a 2nd date with the guy I met on POF and so far so good. I'm a happy camper.   :)

Interesting morning.

So after I woke up I went downstairs to clean up the kitchen since my cleaning lady now comes on Thursdays. One of the first things I noticed is that my canoe is no longer sitting on wood but is in the snow. I guess there must have either been a large gust of wind OR some bored kid decided it would be fun to tip it. Though I could not see footprints other then mine going to the canoe to check it's state Sunday.

My friend comes back from New Jersey tomorrow hopefully, she will be able to help me put it back into place  

Then I'm cutting my strawberries for my breakfast, the knife slipped, went flying and scratched my leg. Lucky it wasn't worse. 

At work since going back, I've had nothing but weird problems with hardware malfunctioning and equipment dying.  Wonder what's going to die on me at work today?!?!?!

12ft Sportspal canoe = Happiness

Love my 12ft Sportspal canoe

12ft canoe is small but it can hold 500lbs

Will be getting barrels to drag to have more room in canoe

Takes me 5 minutes to take it off the truck, 15 to put it on.

Mother-Daughter camping trip - Part 3

Lac Temiscouata

Got woken up at 7am by a pair of blue jays screeching. So I went to the beach to stalk the eagle. Alas he did not pearch on the dead tree, but I did see him swoop across the lake once. I spent 2 hours just enjoying the sound of the wind on the water. Also took photos of various other birds.

After breakfast I went walking for about an hour walking along the road the park personel take to do daily rounds to the canoe-camping site twice a day. I was disappointed because I did not see any deer or moose. Not animals bigger then a blue jay. Saw many jays, chickadees and other birds.

Wild strawberries

Ate many wild strawberries. These were bigger then the wild strawberries that grow in my lawn in Montreal. They are so tasty!

Around 3pm we canoed back to the car, and went to take some photos of Lac Temiscouata, and the Garden of memories - where there were tons of dragonflies. We did walk a bit along the memories trail, but it was boring so we did not do the entire trail.

Looking at the riviere Touladis.

Mother-Daughter camping trip - Part 2

The only house on the lac Touladis

We had talked about doing the long canoe ride on Monday so we could take it easy Tuesday. But the wind decided to play. Windiest day since we've been at Parc National du Lac Temiscouata. Waves on Grand Lac Touladis was showing white crests at some point. Daughter pointed out that she wanted to vacation not exercise.

We stopped for a short break. I needed to stretch

We really struggled to paddle that 8km against the wind and the current. I saw about 5 or 6 eagles flying about but much further out on the lake then where I saw the Eagle early the first morning. We left around 12:30, took us till 4pm to get to the centre at Petit lac Touladis.

House seen canoeing out of our campsite

We left the visitors centre at 5:30 and make it back to our campsite by 8pm. My feet got bitten by an insane amount of deer flies most of whom met their demise after biting me. Saw 5 more eagles on the way back. Could be the same ones we saw going the other way.

We also saw a dead moose carcass on the way back, that everyone had been talking about. Three of the parc staff had talked to us about it, and one of the group of campers.

Parc personal on motorboat doing headcounts

After we got back to our campsite just as night was falling we hear a motor boat on Grand Lac Touladis. I went to take photos on the beach. They were doing a body count. They were trying to figure out who was where. We told them that we had both of our cars parked at the Grand Lac Touladis picnic area.  It's good to know that the parc employees do keep track of who is where and that no one is lost on the lake at night.

We found out the next day, they did find the missing camper they were looking for - he had stopped at the main campsite to talk to friends.

Sunset on Grand Lac Touladis

May long week-end canoe-camping trip day 4

It was probably 3AM when it started to rain, but it rained for a few hours at least. It was still raining when I needed to use the bathroom around 5am. Ended up waking up around 8am. This was the time I was hoping to leave the campsite, but at least it wasn't raining anymore.

Still though we had to pack up the campsite knowing there was about 3 hours worth of canoeing to get back to the truck. We left our campsite around 11am by the time we ate breakfast, packed up everything, walked everything to the canoe and loaded the canoe. There was fog everywhere or low lying clouds, whatever you want to call it. Made the paddle back pretty scenic.

We arrived back at the canoe launch site around 1:30pm.  We were in Baie St Paul around 4pm eating some French fries in this little diner in a mall with a "Hart" bargain store. Hadn't seen one of those in years.  We made it back to Montreal around 8pm.

May long week-end canoe-camping trip day 2

Despite all I did day 1, I could not sleep. Probably too hyper from the babbling brooke next out our campsite  I think I had just finally dozed off when I was woken up by a porcupine of all things. He was in our tent vestibule chewing on my companion's shoes.  He came back at 10am for an encore. We pretty much had to chase him off several times.

The porcupines are balsy and seem to think they own the place. Then again it was the first night that campers were around for this season.

We walked the 8km back to the truck to pick up, among other things, my friends boots, as his shoes had been all chewed. The view from the road is not nearly as scenic as in the water but it's beautiful nonetheless. Some views are more spectacular then others. I had a hard time walking 5 hours, well it took us about 2 1/2 hours each way. My right ankle is sore and stiff.

It was mostly sunny with cloudy periods and it was probably 14 or 15C during the say, but dropping near zero at night. This tent is quite warm so no issues with this.   At the campsite l'equerre, you get 2 ballots of wood that come in the price of the campsite. That means we're having a nice fire tonight.

The gorge is really deep

If you look at this photo in it's full size, you will notice a red canoe in the water! Just to give you an idea of how deep the gorge is in the Malbaie River.  Canoeing in the Malbaie river is breathtaking!

Photos from Day 1 canoe-camping

Doesn't our truck look small next to the mountains?

Canoeing down the Malbaie river

Canoeing down the Malbaie river

A loon taking off

Canoeing down the Malbaie river

After canoeing 4Km we ran into the Inukshuks

After canoeing 4Km we ran into the Inukshuks

Those rocks with their reflection looked like flints

The white is actually SNOW!!

May long week-end canoe-camping trip day 1

We left Montreal at 11 am, we should have left at 10 like I wanted to but time seems to just disappear. We made one pit stop at the first truck stop on the highway between Montreal and Trois-Rivieres.,  The next time we stopped was at the lookout tourist information for Charlevoix. The region is beautiful. We had stopped briefly at Baie St-Paul to go to Parc National Grand Jardins last year, this time we were looking for Parc National des Hautes Gorges de la Malbaie.  The view at the tourist information was spectacular. We're way up above and you can look down into the harbour on the St Laurent.

We got to the gate of the Parc National des Hautes Gorges de la Malbaie at 4:50pm. The gate closes at 5pm. I wasn't sure we'd make it because of the distance which is why I wanted to leave at 10am to make sure I'd make this gate.

We drove the 8km to the parking lot, where we left the Suzuki for the week-end and took out our canoe and gear. Thankfully they had canoe dolley to help transport it to the point where we can put it in the water.  We took all our gear, and we don't travel light, and put it in the canoe for an 8km paddle to our campsite.

We left the canoe launch site at 6:30 PM. Part of what delayed us is we had to wait for the SEPAQ to get their boat in the water, as it was the first day they were opened for the season. We couldn't load the canoe until the waves they created while parking their boat subsided, it was just too much.

They told us the canoe ride would be 2 hours, but I guess that would be with a small canoe and little gear, but we have a big canoe and lots of gear. We did not make it there until 8:50, so it took us 2:20 minutes.

The last 15 minutes were the worst as it was getting dark and there was a canoe that moved around the same time and over took us we saw them go in a long arm of the river and come out and disappear to what seemed the campsite so we decided to take the shorter route. However the longer route would have been preferable as we ended up in a shallow area where the canoe got stuck in sand. More then once. It was almost impossible to see anything by then and my companion was ready to park there. {Would not have been a good idea as it was a small island but I digress} I pushed and we found the campground a few minutes later.

Usually I get a thrill with new adventures but seeing I had driven 5 hours, and paddled over 2 hours, and I was tired and hungry, by the time we got stuck I was pretty unimpressed.

Once we made it to the campground, we then realized that the spot we chose was NOT waterfront, and we had to lug all our gear to our campsite. The only thing we did not lug was our canoe.  It was 9:30 pm by the time I put the chickpea curry on the coleman and started warming it up. It was 11pm by the time we had the tent up.

Genuine Indian Brand Canoe

The canoe I picked up for $300 on Kijiji last summer was a 16ft fibreglass genuine Indian Brand canoe.  There isn't much to be found about the company brand because from what I understand it closed in the late 1960s.

From the research and reading I've done, The Indian Brand canoes are good sturdy canoes. They aren't as lightweight as more current canoes but they are hard to destroy. My canoe is quite stable in the water and can handle loads of gear for camping.  So for a good price they are well worth the buy. You can find fibreglass canoes  from 11'-18'   as well as some of the first moulded plastic canoes were made by Indian brand.