Cycling Trips
-
U.S. East Coast
- Maine
to PA
- The Edge of N.J.
-
Fahrradtour
Canada
-
Skiing Whistler Mtn.
-
Canoeing Wilderness
Lakes
Europe +
-
Exploring Heidelberg
- Bad
Luck In Germany
- Trolley Adventure
in
Milan
- A
Week In Israel
New Zealand
-
Volcanic Vistas
U.S. North
-
Remote Alaskan
Roads
-
Navigating the 1,000
Islands
U.S. West
-
Miserable Hawaii
- California
Redwoods
- High in Albuquerque
-
Omaha Surprises
- Summer
at Tahoe
Even More
-
Recent
Travels
- My Quest For All
50
States
- About Bob
Paddling Through
Forests
Primeval
For a week we paddled through the Canadian wilderness, admiring countless moose, staying a step ahead of the bears and seeing no other people for days.
Algonquin
Provincial Park, Ontario--The moose lifted its head and glared
at us across the water, long strands of lily pad roots dangling
from its suddenly motionless jaw. I froze, my paddle poised in
midair, daring to move nothing but my eyes.
Slowly, cautiously, the moose began to chew, its wet crunching the only sound in the quiet Canadian twilight. Its velvety antlers spread outward from its huge, ungainly head, lending an air of majesty to the beast, which lingered now just 50 feet away.
I slipped my paddle into the still water and took a brazen stroke forward, the beast's eyes still hard upon us. For a moment more it regarded our approach. Then, with a slow, deliberate turn, it plunged its long snout into the water and tore out another mouthful of lily roots. It had, for the moment at least, accepted us into its tranquil evening world.
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It was our first day in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park--and it was nothing short of magical.
For months I had been planning this week-long wilderness excursion for myself and four friends into one of Canada's largest and most well-known wildlife preserves. A century old in 1993, the park began its days in the barren aftermath of a 19th century logging euphoria that stripped it of most of its white and red pine.
As
evening falls, Bob Neubauer paddles
silently towards a grazing
moose.
Though logging continues in remote areas, the park has
recovered, enticing countless anglers and canoeists annually onto
its network of wilderness waterways. More than 930 miles of canoe
routes criss cross its 2,900 square miles, offering plenty of the
backwoods bliss we were seeking.
In the preceding months we had plotted a route that would take us through 16 different lakes, giving us a new campsite each night and enhancing our chances of bonding with the local flora and fauna. By fronting only the essentials, we hoped to purge all thoughts of civilization from our minds.
It worked.
The large lake below the first "N" in "Algonquin" is Opeongo.
After a 12-hour drive from the Philadelphia suburbs, we spent our first night at Pog Lake Campground, one of eight public campgrounds lining route 60, which traverses the southern section of the park. We rose to blue skies on Sunday and set out for Opeongo Lake.
There we rented a pair of 17-foot Kevlar canoes from the well-stocked Opeongo Algonquin Outfitting Store and filled them with all our food and gear for the next week. Then, dipping our paddles into the glass-smooth surface of Opeongo, we set out, letting the cars, the store and the stress of the past week slip into the distance behind us.
We had lunch on a small island within sight of the notorious Bates Island. There, not nine months before, two campers were attacked and killed by a black bear as they set up camp. The story brought home the grim reality that we were merely visitors in an untamed wilderness.
After
navigating the wide waters of Opeongo we located our campsite, one
of hundreds created and maintained by the park staff. It not only
contained tent sites and a fire pit, but a wooden privy nestled
among the pines. We quickly set up our tents and prepared dinner.
Our meals consisted mostly of dehydrated fare, supplemented by Rice-A-Roni, powdered soup, bagels and instant oatmeal. Though we had portable stoves, we cooked on open fires when possible, in the spirit of the frontiersmen we were emulating.
Collecting wood proved a chore, though, since the area had been picked clean by previous traditionalists. To find it, I ventured far into the dense, unbroken forest, feeling the wilderness envelope me. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes also enveloped me. I pulled mosquito netting over my head and slapped on some maximum strength Muskol, both of which proved invaluable in the ensuing week.
After dinner, we stuffed our food into two duffel bags and hung
them from the branches of a tall tree to dissuade bears from
feasting while we slept. Then three of us 
paddled
to a nearby bog, hoping to glimpse a few moose. We were euphoric
when we saw the first one--a mere dot in the distance--and
instantly began snapping pictures. But as we continued quietly
forward, we saw, with delight, that it was in no hurry to flee.
For half an hour we floated around the massive brown creature, examining its long ears and humped back as it grazed, up to its belly in the water. It gradually moved closer to shore, eventually stepping out on long, sinewy legs and disappearing into the forest.
We journeyed deeper into the marsh and were thrilled to encounter a cow moose and her calf as we rounded a bend. The calf, already as big as a deer, dutifully swam behind its mother as she crossed the water, not 30 feet in front of us.
By the campfire later I sat with my canoe partner Rich Miehle, 26, reminiscing about our good fortune and listening to the haunting call of a loon echoing from the rocky shoreline. Our first day on the water had been a glorious success.
Rich Miehle paddles from the bow of one
fully
loaded canoe.
The morning dawned overcast. We broke camp and headed for our first portage, a 1.4-mile test of manhood. Clumsily, we threw on packs, hoisted canoes to our shoulders and marched off, crossing bogs on plank bridges and stopping frequently to rest. It soon began to rain, filling the air with the damp smell of pine.
We crossed Happy Isle Lake and were met at the next portage
by a lone Canadian canoeist. After we had exchanged pleasantries,
he strapped on his backpack, threw his canoe on top of it, and
bounded off down the trail, carrying twice what any of us had
shouldered. Humbled, we ceased our bellyaching and reorganized
ourselves.
The
rain tapered off as we reached our island campsite on Big Trout
Lake. That night the clouds parted to reveal one of the most
star-filled skies I had ever seen. We lay on the rocks
contemplating the heavens, as the Indians and loggers of centuries
ago must have. From the distant hills, the mournful howling of a
lone wolf reminded us we were a long, long way from home.
We rose to sunny skies and ate a relaxed breakfast, having no reason to hurry, no schedule to follow. We hadn't even brought watches. Without them to regulate our lives, we woke with the sun, ate when we were hungry and slept when we were tired. We eventually even forgot what day of the week it was, so unimportant was it to our lives.
Jim, Rich, Joe and Karl take a lunch break by the rapids.
The day's portages were short and easy. We stopped for lunch beside some rapids, then relaxed there for a few hours, swimming in the lake and sunning on the warm rocks. Black-throated Blue Warblers entertained us with their memorable songs, while yellow-bellied Blackburnian Warblers flitted from branch to branch, eying us.
After camping on Burntroot Lake, I woke myself the next
morning with an invigorating swim in its calm waters. A family of
loons accompanied me, cackling crazily about 100 feet away and
rippling the reflection of the dawning sun. I warmed myself by the
fire as we cooked up apple pancakes.
We boiled much of our drinking water throughout the week, or pumped it through a purifier to remove any of the dreaded Giardia microorganisms, reputed to make excretory activities unpleasant for the next month if swallowed. We got a lot of mileage out of "Giardia water" jokes by week's end.
That day we encountered three sets of rapids and ran them all, steering madly to avoid hidden rocks and plunging over small waterfalls into chaotic, swirling pools, as Blue Herons and Sea Gulls fled before us.
We were now at our farthest point from civilization. We had seen no one the entire day. Our campsite that night was more rustic than the others, lending to our growing feeling of isolation. Somewhat unsettling, too, was the discovery of fresh bear droppings at the edge of our site.
Moose abounded in the area. Rich and I counted seven of them, including another calf, as we paddled about the area. We stared in wonder as they calmly dined amidst the cattails and tall grass, and for a few moments felt almost a part of their world. The air was still around us, fresh with the mingled scents of balsam, cedar and spruce, all of which abounded.
After
dinner, as darkness fell, we stoked up the fire, feeling
vulnerable now that a bear's presence had been confirmed. A sense
of urgency accompanied our loading and hoisting of the bear bags.
Then, as we lay in our tents, the nearby rapids played tricks on
our ears, imitating the sound of wild creatures crashing through
the underbrush. Nevertheless, we slept well.
Our short time in the woods had seasoned us considerably. Lighting fires and raising tents were no longer hardships. We stopped noticing the mosquitoes and gave no thought at all to our appearances; unkempt hair and dirty clothes seemed trivial here. Camping and canoeing had become our lives.
A
veil of mist hung just above the lake when I woke before dawn the
next day. I watched the sunrise over the pines, then woke the
others. After eating, we broke camp and paddled along a winding
waterway between walls of tall grass. We crossed three portages,
totaling 2.4 miles, before lunch. With most of our food gone, the
packs had become lighter, allowing us to better enjoy the lush,
incredibly green forests of sugar maple and beach, punctuated by
flowering Orange Hawkweed and wild Irises.
After a rest, we set off on the longest portage of the trip, a 2.3-mile trek through swarms of kamikaze mosquitoes. As we neared the far end, we encountered the first people we had seen in days--a scattered group of adolescent boys from Camp Tamakwa, one of the youth camps along Route 60 (and the setting for the film Indian Summer ).
Their faces reflected a strong lack of enthusiasm for the venture. Many of the lads sat sprawled next to their gear, puffing from exhaustion and swatting mosquitoes. Every one of them asked us the same question: "How much farther?" They were not pleased with our answer.
We were exhausted ourselves when we reached the far end. We limped across Big Crow Lake and threw together a hasty camp, not finishing dinner until after dark.
A strong wind mocked our paddling efforts the next day, churning up whitecaps and steering us in directions we had not intended to explore. We struggled for miles through a winding creek and then crossed Proulx Lake before tackling our final portage back to Opeongo.
There, in an attempt to harness the wind, one of our members, Joe McNulty, rigged up a sail and lashed it to both boats. The wind, however, taunted us by pushing us perpendicular to our destination, and we were forced to tear down the mast and face the stormy waters with just our paddles. Rain blasted our faces as white-capped waves splashed over the gunwales.
We stopped on an island for the night. The rain ceased long enough for us to cook dinner, then started again as we dove into our tents. I slept soundly. So soundly, in fact, that it wasn't until the next day that I learned I had snoozed through a violent thunderstorm. Torrents of pounding rain had threatened to collapse our tent while I snored peacefully.
The next morning, with the wind at our backs and blue skies above, we left our last campsite. Loons teased us by diving underwater and resurfacing on the other side of us, while the smell of distant campfires told tales of other adventurers about to set out.
I pondered the past week as we closed in on the final turn, the one that would take us within sight of the outfitting store and civilization. Suddenly I had a revelation.
"Happy
Fourth of July," I proclaimed.
"Oh, yeah," acknowledged Rich. "That's right."
We were silent again. The topic didn't seem to have any place here.
In the distance a loon called, bidding us farewell in the only way it knew. I turned for a last look at the clear, sparkling water and the green, piney hills that had been our home for a week. Then we rounded the bend and headed back to civilization.
This story appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer.