Monday Aug 30 Wabakimi

Sunshine is wonderful. We soak it up on Monday morning. And try to dry some soggy clothes while we are at it.

Even if it's a glorious day, we still have to get going. Time to get the canoes in the water and head off.

This site has a nice shoreline where we can actually load all the canoes beside each other. We fill them up. Even the broken canoe gets a bag or tow...after all it managed the waves the other day and is seeming to be doing just fine. Definitely pack duct tape when you go on a trip!

 

We cruise south down a long arm of Smoothrock Lake.

After a long time of paddling and a tiny rapid that we almost didn't notice on account of the people in a motorboat fishing nearby, we found our portage.

This is a 1 km portage. Quite a humongous trek! It's a good thing we have been eating all week. Food is our heaviest most difficult thing to carry, after all.

Melanie and I took turns carrying our canoe. It was the heaviest most awkward canoe. I certainly appreciated the breaks. Our map said this was a good portage. We wondered what a bad portage would be like, as there were a lot of fallen trees to go around and we did find that it was kind of a tight squeeze in certain places.

There were some quail on the trail. Obviously there has been no hunting in this park for a long time. They were a bit clueless, it seemed. Nice to get a close look at them, though. Even if you had to worry that you might step on one by accident.;)

1 km does feel pretty long. The kids who'd wished for portages so badly did not enjoy the portage as much as their earlier remarks might have suggested they would. Even for me, tough and uncomplaining as always (haha) it was nice to get back in the canoes on the water again.

We are, I think, on Spring Lake. The maps are a bit vague. And we are grubby and smelly. So most of us opted for a bath, not knowing when the next sunny and barely warm enough opportunity might arise.

After the initial cold shocking feeling, it was still kind of cold, but not quite so shocking.

But it sure felt lovely to feel clean again! We tried convince Matthew it was worth it. He is not convinced.

Melanie did up Jennifer's hair once again.

Nothing like running around and playing to warm up again.

I feel clean, but it's hard to look clean if your clothes aren't a whole lot different. I did do a lot of laundry here too.

And we did our best to dry the clothes in the sun while it lasted.

Melanie kept me company while I was cooking. Especially when she wants hot chocolate. She'll even run down to the lake and fetch extra water for me. (or her, perhaps)

So nice to see the sky, with only a few clouds in it. We have hopes that tomorrow will also be sunny.