We canoe on Lac Sorcier

Lac du Sorcier

One of the lakes in Mastigouche wildlife reserve is called le Sorcier, or the wizard. Legend has it that there was a wizard on the big island in the lake that would make strange sounds and prevent people from sleeping around the lake. 

It makes me wonder if this is why the campsite is past a small island at the far end of the lake. You can't hear what goes on there from other parts of the lake. Before we went canoeing we also went to explore the camping called Le Sorcier. We figured out there was one spot we'd really like to get, and from what I can see it's almost always reserved. No kidding, it's a lone spot at the end of this campsite, and you can get your canoe directly into the water from there. Most of the other spots at Sorcier you have to portage your canoe down a really steep incline. You might as well bring it to the boat launch across the bay where we put our canoe in the water. 

Lac du Sorcier

After exploring the campground at le sorcier, we took off in Canoe it was around 12:30. We paddled for about an hour and landed on a big rock on one side of the lake to have a picnic and to bake a bit in the sun. My companion had been cold earlier in the day and he enjoyed baking.  From the rock we saw what looked like a beach across the lake. 

Walking on the beach of Lac du Sorcier

I didn't figure it was all the way across the lake. It was, but we paddled it anyways. Along the top of the lake there is a long area with a sandy beach. I'm figuring it's probably not that visible some of the time if the water is higher, but this year the water levels are low, it's very dry, so this year there's a nice beach. 

We hung out at the beach for about an hour and a half. We swam a bit, we walked along the beach and saw all sorts of animal tracks. We saw at least 1 hoofed animal, deer, or caribou. TOo small to be a moose. We also saw dog tracks, so wolf, or coyote, large cat tracks, which I don't think was a Lynx so maybe cougar or bobcat, and something either racoonish or beaverish as tracks.  My buddy also saw a grass snake but could not find it to show me. We also saw some frogs and lots of dragonflies. 

The point where the beach was on top of Lac du Sorcier

The lake of course has a pair of loons which were swimming with their baby.  We also saw some other form of duck, we saw one red tailed hawk too I think. The lake was quite peaceful. Despite the fact it was construction holiday we only saw a total of 8 people on the lake. 6 in Kayaks and 2 in a canoe. That was it. 

Ironically it was more quiet then Lac Vert! Less people! At some point sitting in the middle of lac sorcier, just letting the waves carry us, all I could hear was the breathing of my friend. I could not hear another sound. No human sounds, no animal sounds. Just a touch of wind in the distance in the trees.

Lac du Sorcier

By the time we got back to our car it was 7:30 pm. We figure we paddled about 5 hours total. We didn't see the extremities of the lake either. Maybe another time. 

Camping and canoing at Mastigouche

Riviere du loup in Mastigouche at sunset

I left work at noon on Friday and by 2:30 pm we had loaded the truck, attached the canoe and were on our way. Since it was construction holiday I figured we'd get a lot of traffic so I decided to take the road less travelled. We took the 440 to the 25, and then at the end of the 25, went towards Joliette, and from there made our way to Saint-Alexis-des-Monts.  It took a while and we got there for 6pm. It probably didn't help we stopped 30 minutes at the Canadian Tire in Joliette to get propane. 

Campsite 10 at Dickerman in Mastigouche

In Saint-Alexis-des-Monts there was confusing road signs. I figured I'd use google maps on my phone BUT I had no reception. However there was enough of a map and the GPS location that I was able to find the right road and make it to the Acceuil des pins.  I had hoped to camp at Lac Sorcier, but there's only like 12 spots there, and being construction holiday they were all taken or at least reserved. We ended up camping at a campground called Dickerman which was about 20km from Lac Sorcier along la Riviere du loup, which we couldn't even  go in at the level we were at with our canoe because of six falls. 

Red Squirrel eating toilet paper that had sausage grease on it

We lucked out at Dickerman. We took a spot that only had one spot close to it. Spots 10 and 11 were paired but far bigger then the spot we had a Sugarloaf. We also lucked out that although the spot 11 was reserved for the week-end, no one showed up so we were isolated from everyone else at our spot, and had reasonable amounts of piece and quiet

Documented deaths exceed 20,000 in Syria

The Syrian Press... so predictable...

If you're with the regime, you're honorable person. The minute a woman is no longer with the regime, she's just a prostitute. It amazes me how as soon as someone says they aren't with the regime, suddenly they are just bad people. 

I'm not sure how the Syrian government justifies having a PROSTITUTE as it's attache in Cyprus. I mean that should require an explanation other then "She defected". Who hires prostitutes to serve in their embassies? Apparently SYRIA!!!! 

So Bashar, spent anytime with a prostitute lately? How does Asma handle your choice of friends? 

Words of Wisdom

What other people think of me is none of MY business!

It's THEIR problem, not MY problem :) 

Since Techie/Nerdy has become cool, everyone wants to be a techie

Some people fail at being geek savvy miserably. Like the monitor repair company, that despite being a company that repairs monitors, they did not have 1 displayport card at their disposal to verify the repairs they make on displayport monitors.  Thankfully the monitors I got back from this outfit actually worked in displayport. The part they replaced affected all ports, and once it was replaced they all worked.

Today one of my employes went to the IT department to get a 6ft displayport cable, he needed one for one of his displayport monitors. Some of the 6ft cable we have have flaky latches and the plastic just breaks into our hands during simple use.  So he needed a new cable. The IT person who was on duty offered him many HDMI cables, but in the end could not find one displayport cable. His solution was to use another port on his monitor.  This might be a fine and dandy answer if he were talking to an employee that used 1 PC and used it to do work. This is not a fine answer to a person who is currently testing graphic cards with displayport connectors and yes we have to test connectivity and it's hard to do without the specific cable. 

I mean he could have offered to see if there was cables on order, and also if there were not to put some on order. Also he could offer to contact my employee when the said cable came in. All that could have been helpful, at least we'd have an ETA for the cable. As it stands, I'm going to have to order 6ft displayport cables in a rush because  well someone screwed up and I'm going to end up with new LCDs with no  displayport cables in the days that follow. 

I don't know if this guy is lazy or just a really bad tech, but he's often less then helpful. If I can help it I usually deal with the other 2 guys that work in the department. One of them I haven't seen in a while so I'm wondering if he's on vacation, sick leave, or if he left.  The other I know is off this week, he was there last week and he's my first choice as person to speak to when I need help, although the other guy can help too. He'd know which cables I wanted without needing a map. He'd tell me if when he'd get some in stock if he didn't have any in stock. 

Yeah nerdy might be hotter, but it's hotter if you actually know what you're talking about.  I know so many people who think they are so hot because they know buzzwords. Like wow.  I don't necessarily retain all the buzzwords, but I know how things work and I want to vomit when I hear a bunch of guys around me all try to one up each other talking PC and most of them have no clue what they are talking about, but they think they do because they talk the talk! 

I was nerdy, geeky and a redhead way before it became cool. Not because it was cool but because it is a reflection of who I really am.  Just saying...

July 22nd was no different

Students have been having marches the 22nd of each month since March, and July 22nd was no different. While the daily marches have petered out with the summer heat, the marches on the 22nd have not. 

Students are getting ready to continue their protests in the fall, and hopefully if there are fall elections, all the youth will be going to the polls and making their opinions known. Maybe Charest will NOT get in again and it will change the political climate in Quebec. 

If I drank Whiskey I'd drink Jack Daniels

They wrote the nicest cease and desist letter I've ever read. They are telling the guy that when he reprints, they would like him to change the cover.

Niqab ni Maitre

Syria - let's hope it's the final stretch

I haven't written about Syria in weeks. I haven't shown up to events in weeks. It's not that I've lost interest, I just find it harder and harder to hear about more deaths. You'd think I'd be somewhat desensitized. I've stopped looking at gruesome video's for months now. After watching them for months I could not see the dead and the maimed anymore. I don't need to watch the videos or see the images. I just read about the number of deaths in that day and I see the images and the videos still running in my head. Once you've seen this type of violence it's hard to unsee it.  

I so feel for the children in Syria witnessing things that should never happen that even adults cannot deal with and yet they are stuck in the middle. They see all the carnage, they see what happens to those who are against the army and the Assad government. 

The red cross has started calling what's going on in Syria a civil war.  Lately there has been high end defections from the regime. There's also this excellent opinion piece by Maher Arar. 

I keep hoping that tomorrow I'm going to hear that Bashar Al Assad stepped down and that the Syrian people will be able to choose their leader, but until then I will keep lighting candles for the martyrs and keep praying the opposition finally depose of Assad.

How to stay hydrated during heat wave

We pack our things and head back home.

I was upset the week was over. I think I could have lived for several weeks enjoying doing nothing or just going to canoe a bit and explore the wilderness. It was too short a full week. Sigh.

Doesn't the dog look thrilled to be canoeing?
Photographer: Nina Haigh

This dragonfly was next to our vehicles as we left

We were camping under the biggest pine tree on the island

You can't tell from this distance where the tent is.

Here you start noticing it.

The tent seen under the pine

Under the big old pine

We go swim in le Reservoir du Poisson blanc

Dog enjoying the canoe ride.

Four of us decided to go on a day trip and went all the way to the Poison blanc reservoir. My friends were not planning on bringing their dog, since it makes it harder to surprise wildlife with a dog, but the dog decided it was coming. They left the dog with their friends but the dog decided to swim to the canoe  :) Apparently the dog likes to ride in the canoe.

Dragonfly at beaver lake

 It was 2 portages. We carried our canoes through the first one, but just walked the 2nd one, which was much longer and through a swamp. We got to paddle through 2 small beaver lakes and walk along the third one since it's too marshy to canoe through. 

At reservoir du Poisson blanc.
Yellow and black dragonfly

The beaver lakes had interesting vegetation and animals. Lots of dragonflies and birds. We tried to get photos of a big blue heron but mine turned out all fuzzy. I did better with the dragonflies both around the beaver lakes and at reservoir du poisson blanc.

They made a trip to the depanneur

Sunset in the woods

I didn't think I could find my way, so my friends made the 5 hours trip to the depanneur without me. I enjoyed the peace and quiet of being alone on my side of the island.

With the exception of the dog who came to say hello a few times, I was left to my own devices. My friend had left quite a few sick trees he had saw down earlier, so I cut some of the trees into firewood. We got this cool saw called the Sawvivor. 

It is portable and easy to carry and can saw any tree you need to cut into firewood. Very good camping purchase. MUCH SAFER to use then an AXE, and even I can cut wood with it :)

I went to the North west tip of the island to take sunset pictures. While I was walking through the woods to find a good angle for more sunset pictures I heard some weird sound so I started to look if it was a bird or a bug, turns out it was a hummingbird and I managed to see it.

But since it was dusk I wasn't able to get a really good shot of it even though I was using my telephoto lens. However I am pleased since this is the first time EVER I have been able to photograph a hummingbird. I think this was a ruby-throated one, but I could be wrong.

Hummingbird in pine tree.

We visit a smaller Island

Fireweed, growing on island

One of the smaller islands in the lake, my friend had told me about. She said last time they had been there, it was obvious there had been a fire on the island. So we canoed there, and went to explore the island. My first comment was that we should fire Fireweed there since it's generally one of the first flowers to grow anywhere there's been a forest fire. In fact I spotted at least one plant of fireweed.

We were able to still spot signs that there had been a fire on about half of this Island. It makes it less attractive for camping because if there is any kind of storm it leaves at the mercy of the elements. I suppose before the first it was probably a fine place for a couple to camp with a small tent. At the moment it's just good for exploring. My friend thought it might be on this island that there was a geocache - but it turned out to be on the island next to this one. 

The toilet that gives the island it's name.

An island affectionately known by those who camp around lac vert as toilet island - because it has a toilet made out of stone and is still fully functional. This island is slightly bigger and it also seems to have had suffered a fire on part of it. This one is actually better for camping and I noticed a few days later that some canoe landed there when it was almost completely dark because they had to land somewhere.

We caught some fishies last night

The fish we caught died overnight due to lack of oxygen!

Both my gf and I caught some Dore. They weren't really big, and I doubt the biggest fish she caught was longer then 8 inches, my longest one was probably closer to 6 inches.

We put all the fish in my bucket, but it was too small to keep them alive overnight. They were all dead by morning. She taught me how to clean them and scale them.

My grandma taught me how to fish when I was just a wee little girl. She taught me how to make my own fish line with a pole, some thread and a hook. She even showed me how to worm a hook, but she never taught me how to clean or scale them. 

Delicious Dore just about to be eaten!

So I had the fish - and let me tell you it was some of the freshest fish I had ever eaten. My friend decided that one of the 6 fish we caught didn't look good, so we got rid of  that one and I put the other five in aluminum foil, put a bit of margarine and some salt and pepper and tossed them into the fire.  It took little time to cook, and would have been yummier if I'd had a lemon. I'll know next time I go fishing to also bring lemon and aluminum foil to cook the fish.

It's easy living on a desert island...

Southern tip of the island facing another island.

We got woken up early again by the damn red squirrel. I decided it was a good day to take a walk around the island we were staying on. My tent was at one of the northern tips under a great big pine where we got early morning sun, but not on our tent due to the great big pine.

I took dozens of photos of the lake and it's green colour. It's just amazing. Anywhere the water is shallow at a distance it looks like the water is this pale green. It's like the tropics in Quebec!!!!

Later in the day my friends went to get wood. I wasn't feeling up to canoeing that day so I let them go look for firewood around the shores of the lake and some of the other islands.

The maturity of some people.

Later in the day we went to hang out on the other side of the island. I brought my fishing gear and my friend brought his guitar with him. He sat around playing guitar while I fished.

I believe the others had gone out to get some wood, and when they came back they decided it was a good time to swim but decided to go swim at the southern tip of the island so that they wouldn't be in the way of my fishing.

At some point we hear loud singing and we notice 5 canoes paddling past our island each with 3 people in them. As they passed the tip of the island they broke into song about "nude people bathing on the beach".  It was obvious there was 12-13 of them who were teens probably on a summer camp outing. It turns out our friends had been skinny dipping, and seriously if you're a teen and you've never seen someone naked, it's about time you do!  I mean we're all naked under our clothes!

Group of singing teens on the lake.

Here's an interesting fact, bathing suits didn't exist until the 18th century.  People tended to strip either down to their underclothes, or naked to swim. I will still wear a 2 piece bathing suit. The thought of getting a sunburn on my breasts has never appealed to me... but I did go in at dusk without any clothes... and without the risk of these teens coming back. :)

We canoe back to get the rest of our things

Red squirrel trying to open belly pouch
 by it's zipper to get nuts!

After sleeping listening to the flow of the water in the lake, especially the parts of the night while it was windy, I got woken up fairly early by a red squirrel trying to break open a bag of almonds. After telling him off a few times I gave up and put the bag of nuts in the tent. 

We canoed back to the Grand Vitara to get the items we didn't bring with us on the first trip. Since we picked up the canoe for $300  just a few days before leaving for the trip we weren't even sure if the canoe was going to sea worthy.  We'd also never canoed together so we didn't know how we'd handle it and so we didn't load the canoe too much. On the way back from camping we just made one trip with all the junk we brought. 

In the canoe with Taya - Photographer: Nina Haigh

As it turns out our 16ft canoe is a genuine Indian brand canoe, made in fibreglass and handles well. My companion wasn't familiar with canoes of this size, but I remember using similar canoes in my youth. Apparently it doesn't matter if you haven't canoed in 35 years, it's like riding a bike, you don't forget.  

This canoe is weird too, in the sense that the benches are not made for kneeling but for sitting. This isn't a bad thing considering that I have bad knees on which I should not kneel long periods of time.

Wilderness camping and canoe camping at Lac Vert

Lac Vert, in Municipalite de Lac Ste-Marie - seen from one of its islands

This morning we met up with friends and left around 11:30. We took the 40 in direction of Ottawa. Then we turned and headed towards Gatineau, then towards the municipality of Lac Ste-Marie. We drove through Lac Ste Marie and then took a small gravel road to a parking lot and access to Lac des Bagnoles.

We put our canoe in water, put most of our camping equipment in it and paddled half of the lake to get to the passage to Lac des Roches, and then a quarter across that lake to get to the passage that brings us to Lac Vert. And yes Lac Vert is actually green. Nice shade of green.

Rape isn't a 'feminist agenda'. Men get raped too.....

And using the word rape casually in video games is really NOT COOL for those of us who are rape survivors as this male survivor of rape rants on for several pages. Well worth the read.

Awesome blog goes inside the head of an ADHDer

I just read a blog written by someone in the ADHD group I belong to on facebook. Awesome read. If you were unclear on the concept of ADHD and what goes on in the brain of someone with it, this blog will really put things into perspective.

Twentyeth anniversary at work

Today it has been twenty years that I work for the same company. Can you imagine? Twenty years?  That's currently almost half of my life as I will be fifty this year. 

Wow

More photos from Riviere des rats

Red-tailed Hawk that nests around Riviere des Rats

Under the rainbow!

Pretty little white moss

One year anniversary

Canada day is  the one year anniversary of the death of my friend Rick. While I was in the middle of nowhere I thought about how fragile life is and how it's best to enjoy every day we have. 

Last year I blogged about how Canada day is a typical moving day for most Quebequois. 

Happy Canada Day.

Flora and Fauna around the riviere des rats.

Tent up and tarped

We put up our tent in the dark. I had flattened the area, but I missed a spot, under where I slept. It also ended up being the spot that accumulated water. However with the foam puzzle-piece floor we put down inside the tent I never realized there was a puddle. The water came in before I tarped. 

dragonfly

I seemed to have  done a poor tarping job, but the tarp as put actually kept the sleeping area of the tent dry as well as cooler. We could keep the back door open even in the rain or at night and not have to worry waking up wet or over heating when the sun beats down on the tent. 

I'm about to measure my tarp. I figure one twice the size will be perfect to fully tarp over the tent.  This one can be used to put over the picnic table when there is one, or over an area to hide under in the rain :) 

Found near the shores of Rivere des Rats, flowering early July

Fireweed

I didn't get to sleep more then 3 hours. There was no sun at sunrise not until 10am. Then it came out, long enough to make the tent too hot. So I opened the back door to let in some air. At 10:15 it started to piss with rain, so I got up quickly and closed the back door and one of the front vestibule windows I had also opened to create wind.  At that point I gave up sleeping. It just wasn't happening. I waited for the rain to stop and went outside - big mistake the bugs were voracious.  In between several showers I tarped over the tent.

I spent part of the day collecting wood and keeping a fire going when it wasn't pissing rain. I also took a few photos of the flora and the fauna.

Camping at Riviere des Rats

Friday I left work around noon, and by 2 pm my friends had shown up and we hit the road around 3pm. We caught heavy traffic around the 640 leading to the 15, in fact we lost most of our time on the 640, thinking it would be better then the 40 across Montreal - but not this time.

A butterfly that landed on my tablecloth

After which we took the 40 to the 55 at Trois-Rivieres, passed through Shawinigan, Grand-mere and headed towards La Tuque. We made a pit stop in Grand-Mere, gassed up and picked up some groceries. We crossed the St Maurice river at Riviere des Rats and went in the Zec Wessoneau.  It cost us $35 total, that included the $10 for the bridge and the 3 nights of camping, plus a right of passage for both of us.  We camped along riviere des rats, around the 22km mark of the road.

The cliff on the other side of rivere aux rats

 I stayed up till like 7 am as I was hoping to take photo's of dawn but it was extremely cloudy at dawn. However it was interesting as the light came up, since it was dark by the time we set up our tent.  We realized that the river we were camped next to had a huge cliff on the other side, and that for all intents and purposes we were at the bottom of a big cliff.

It was extremely quiet. Other then a couple of 4-wheelers and one or two trucks per day, no one went by the road. 

Interviewing students again

We've been interviewing students for the fall internship the past couple of weeks. We have 5 positions opened and we had only found 4 candidates so we were still interviewing yesterday. 

One of the 2 students we interviewed was friends with a student we had 2 years ago that we kept on part time because he was such a sweetheart, did the work well and he wanted to stick around.  The student said all the right things, seemed eager and interested and the descriptions of the job we gave him seemed to enthrall him.  So we made him an offer, which he accepted. He'd obviously also heard good things from the student who worked with us.

The other student had never read the job description. It was obvious that he was at a point where he can't take any more classes until he does his first internship and he had applied to every single job he could apply to.  He showed up at the interview not only not knowing what he was applying for, but smelling of desperation. It's never a good thing to smell of desperation. That's definitely not a good way to sell oneself! 

Of course as usual I got large piles of CV's and I had to sort first by GPA, I can't hire someone who's GPA is too low, company policy, then I remove anyone who isn't a first or 2nd year. After that I start looking at cover letters. Anyone who's cover letter is taking about a division different from the one I work for is also not going to get an interview. Either make a generic cover letter that applies to all the company or make a different cover letter for each position you're applying for and watch that if you're applying in Graphics, you don't ramble on about how much you like our Imaging division!  Especially for a Quality Assurance job.  You need to pay attention to detail, if you can't even put the right thing on your resume, how can I trust you'll find the problems?

The current interns I have are doing really well. We have one that carried over from last semester. He's a student from UQAM, who was happy to stay on an extra semester especially since his classes were cancelled. So at least he's worked, got more work experience, especially since he's an international student and in his case really improved his English. He decided to do another stage in another team and got the internship for fall. So no matter what happens with school, he's good till winter.  Great kid. 

The other who started in early May are working independently and managing their work well. One student felt she was thrown to the wolves so to speak but is absolutely loving the experience.  She pointed out usually they get months of theory and then get asked to do something, here they got asked to do something and they are learning as they go along. But she also noted it she was really appreciating this experience because it's like nothing she's done before.  Many students are first surprised by the responsibility I give them, but then by the end of the work term feel like they were truly part of the team and it gave them a really good idea of what  working will be like. Especially for engineering students, if they will be responsible for designing things, they need to be able to work by themselves.

Before I went on vacation, I gave them a list of boards that needed to be covered with the drivers and told them to divide the work among themselves and to consult one another if they found issues. At first it was the two girls working on this, and the male student was assigned to another task, and then once it was finished he was to consult them to see what he needed to test. They made their own spreadsheet to keep track of their progress, and have found a plethora of issues.  They are doing the main of the testing because the rest of the team is currently on Wind8ws since it's getting close to release. 

White underbelly cats hang out in the kitchen, while orange tabby is sleeping somewhere

Jethro

Spock and Jethro hang out

Spock - Emulating Jethro!

Little Ziva the little diva lounging on the kitchen carpet

Windows 8 another Me or Vista?

I've been playing with Wind8ws for a while now and I don't like it. This isn't new.  There isn't a new Microsoft OS that has released that I've ever liked. But some I grew to like. Like Windows 98SE that was good. Windows XP was good, and my last liked OS is Windows 7. 

Usually it takes 6months-1year after release for me to finally start getting used to an OS and liking it.  But I have a sense of whether or not I'm going to like it and if it's going to be a nice OS. This one gives me weird feelings. It's like the only thing they are planning for is tablets and smartphones and things like that. 

The whole Metro look might be pretty on a tablet but let me tell you it looks really tacky on a large 4x4 stretched layout.. Then never mind the fact that there's an 8kx8k limit to the size of surfaces we can do. 

Personally I think Wind8ws is going to end up much hated like Windows ME or Windows Viiiiiiiiista [The 64 bit version of this OS takes up enormous amounts of diskspace - more then Windows 7 64bits!!!!]

Today's American children are some of the most spoiled children EVER!

It's something I've been thinking for a long time and lord knows I was chastised by my ex, his current wife and plenty of other people for being a 'bad mom' because I expected my children to help themselves.  If my child was old enough to put on his shoes and tie them I expected them to! Imagine!

I can still remember the kid in my eldest' preschool class, who's mom had asked me to take him to the class with my daughter one day, who expect me to take off his shoes! He was 4. I can understand some 4 year olds not being able to make a bow on a shoe lace, but just taking them off? A baby can take off his shoes if they are so determined!!!! I remember looking at the child and saying "Well I can wait all afternoon, you're the one missing the fun activities". In the end he took off his shoes by himself.

I was reading an article today about this phenomenon of spoiled children and it's spot on. 

I'm also grateful that I ignored all the stupid comments I received and continued to teach my daughters how to be self-sufficient, resourceful, and capable of taking care of themselves.  Because expecting others to do everything for you is going to create an entire generation of wankers!

Cats missed the patio door :)

Been trying to think of a good caption to turn this into a lol cat.....

Joyeuse St Jean - Happy St Jean-Baptiste day!

I noticed along the coast of Gaspesie that many small coastal municipalities had taken all the dead driftwood that lands on their shore and built them up into huge bonfire shapes - we assumed in preparation for St-Jean-Baptiste day. We even noticed it on beaches on the New Brunswick side of Baie des Chaleurs.

 

This particular one is on an Acadian beach on Baie des Chaleurs

Joyeuse St Jean a tous!