September 1, 2004

    Our planned 5 am start quickly faded following a sleepy-eyed phone call from Cam saying that he had overslept.  No matter, in 6 hours or less we'd have put some distance between ourselves and the rest of civilization for awhile. 

    This was our 5th year going to Algonquin Park  and we decided to investigate what the west side of the sanctuary had to offer.    Our journey there would take us  through the highway 60 corridor, a haven for many day trippers from the Toronto area, and lead us north of Huntsville up to Kearney to Access Point #2 where we would check in with the park staff.

    After scarfing down a few "cardiac combos" at the chip stand across the street, we picked up our permits and headed down the windy back roads to the Forest Tower Outfitters to pick up the canoes I had reserved. 

    Now in order for you to fully appreciate the humor of this whole situation, I must fill you in on the telephone conversation that took place while making these reservations. 

    Upon requesting the rental of two canoes, the helpful little sales girl, being the ambassador of the business that she was, quickly pointed out that they could also provide us with meals and all camping equipment as well as a shuttle service both to and from the put in point.  I politely refused and said that just the two canoes would be fine, when she asked me if we had one or two vehicles to transport the canoes.  I told her one, and she informed me that that would not be acceptable and that it was not their policy to let customers put more than one canoe on a vehicle, but that they could provide a shuttle service for an extra fifty dollars.   I pointed out to her that we would be in a van, not some compact car and that we had done this many times before using 2x4's tied to the roof racks to accommodate the extra width of the second canoe.  She reluctantly agreed but said that we had to bring our own 2x4's  and I thanked her for all of her help.

    So the night before leaving, Greg and I had this phone conversation about how we both agreed that the ten foot long 2x4's in his back yard would stick out way too much on the roof of the van and needed to be trimmed a little, but how much, we weren't quite sure.

    So there we were at the outfitters, placing the two canoes on the 2x4's against the roof of the van and low and behold, the pieces of wood are about two inches too short.  So we did the only thing we could...

    We tied one canoe flat and propped the second one up against the first on an uncomfortable angle with lifejackets wedged in between the two in hopes that it would offer some extra protection.  We got them tied down (probably the best and most securest that we have ever tied canoes down) and are about ready to leave when the owner, a hippy driving a brand new BMW SUV, pulls up and tells us that they don't normally let people take more than one canoe and that we've signed the papers claiming complete responsibility for these canoes.  

    So we assure him that they are secured very well, that we will take our time down the winding gravel roads and proceeded to leave with a small knot of doubt in our guts.

    At about 10 mph, it proved to be a long drive to the put in, and we unanimously decided that it was a good time to sample some of the beer we had bought for the first night.  Because of the park rule of no bottles or cans, we had found a case at the beer store that came in plastic, reseallable bottles.  Tiverton Bear honey brown lager was what is was called, which I quickly renamed to Paddington Bear to lighten my thoughts of any bears that we may meet throughout the trip.  As it turned out, it was quite good beer.

    The put in was a pretty busy place, so we loaded our gear and supplies relatively quickly and headed out down the Tim River towards Tim Lake.  The Tim River meanders through swamp land surrounded by thick bush and provided enjoyable travel while we bickered back and forth between canoes and sipping on a few pops.  We were on Tim Lake in less than an hour where we observed a few other canoes in the distance but continued on the river to our destination on Rosebury Lake for the evening. 

    Travel down the second leg of the the Tim, apart from a few beaver dams, was pretty easy going.  We were glad for all the rain that had fallen a few weeks prior to our trip as low water levels would have made canoeing considerably more difficult.  There we also a few moments of confusion and doubt as we past a couple of the larger tributaries, but in the end, as it turned out, we had made the right decisions.

    It was around 5 or 6pm when we finally arrived on Rosebury Lake.  We checked out the first campsite were the river meets the lake, and although it was nicely setup and well sheltered, it was also completely out of the sun and had no access to clean water.  While standing there discussing the pros and cons of the site, we noticed a stretch of beach directly across from us that would have sun for the rest of the evening.  This looked decidedly more appealing.

    It didn't take us long to arrive and get our tents setup, and in short order we were sitting back in the sand enjoying our beer in the setting sun.  Following a serious conversation on the subject of what's wrong with the world today, we decided to light the fire and cook some dinner.   Hot Italian sausages on buns were what was on the menu that evening, and after cooking a pan full of them, I proceeded to pick up the first one thus upsetting the delicate balance of everything that was cooked.  Needless to say, we ended up washing the sand from the sausages in the lake by flashlight and reheating them a second time.

    It would seem that it has become tradition (good because of the sheer entertainment that it provides and bad because of the inherent dangers of) to hang the food in the pitch black and only after the consumption of alcohol....and as tradition would dictate, this is exactly what we did.  It would also seem, that all our very tasty home cooked meals that we chose to bring this year, weighed considerably more than any dehydrated meal could possibly dream of, as it took the four of us to raise our hefty payload up into the leafy canopy.

    The temperature dropped pretty low that night, and after a long day of driving and canoeing, we all retired to our tents were the warmness of our sleeping bags awaited us.