The joy of camping

Camping – the mere word conjures up bucolic images of loons, canoes and the theme song for Hinterland Who's Who. After enduring the brain-shrinkage from the Muskoka Novel Marathon and a rather stressful period at work, I was looking forward to a pastoral week of summer slacking in Algonquin Park.

If you've ever been camping, you know the short period between packing-driving-setting-up and taking-down-driving-unpacking is rather peaceful, lovely and exceedingly short. It's those bracketed ends of slave labour that do you in. 

For me it's laundry-laundry-laundry in the days leading up to the camping trip because gawd knows there's enough icky camping laundry afterwards without adding moldering week-old underwear. I always do laundry leading up to any big event. Trips, parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, tornadoes nuclear armageddon – I do laundry in advance. A whole town full of zombies approaching my front door to tear out my gizzard? I'd be telling them to hold off until the rinse cycle.

Shopping for camping is crazy. I don't know why this is but we always eat far better during camping trips than at any other time of the year. Maybe it's to make up for sleeping on a thin slab of foam and walking 40 miles to the loo. Yup, if I'm going to wash dishes in a plastic tub full of ice water and do without a bath for a week then I'm going to eat steak and cheesecake every night! Woo HOO! Let the righteous win! Let the arteries harden! Bring on the blessed bacon! 

By the way, the high cost of steak and Jiffy-Pop is hard to justify to the bank manager when you're whinging and writhing on her office floor arranging a second mortgage to pay for it all.

When you've bought every last pound of bacon, bag of ice, sack of Doritoes and package of Twizzlers in the store you bring it all home and stuff it in the car. That and clothes, rum, pillows, rum, blankets, rum, sleeping bags, rum and pool noodles. Whatever you do, don't forget the rum. 

The packing is an all day fiesta of carrying crap. By the time everything is loaded, you're toast. Burnt toast. And all you can think of, as you're driving to the park, with two kids fighting in the back seat and repeating "Are we there yet?" in a Marathon Man litany of pain worse than that endured during root canals sans freezing, is how, when you finally arrive, you have to get out of the vehicle and help your husband back a 21-foot trailer into an 18-foot campsite. I kid you not, this is the number one reason for divorce.

Suffice it to say, all I wanted to do after we got to the park and set up was nothing. A big blob of zilch. Dave sensed this (funny how massive amounts of whining in his ear sharpens his mind-reading skills) and set up the hammock for me. What a wonderful man he is. I crawled into the hammock and squiggled into the most comfortable position and watched puffy clouds float across an azure sky. Ahhhh, camping ....

That's when the hammock failed. WHOMPF. I landed unceremoniously butt-first in the dirt. I stared up at the puffy clouds and I swear they were mocking me. I started crying, big, ugly, mucous-endowed bawling while I felt around my butt to see if my hip was broken. 

That's when I noticed the lady in the next  campsite staring at me. 

I pulled my hand away from my derriere and tried to act nonchalant.

"You saw that, did you?" I asked, a goobery plop of something gross hanging off my quivering bottom lip.

"Sorry, yes I did," she said. Then, whatever societal politeness she had been clinging to let go and a honking projectile bray of laughter spewed out of her cavernous, lipsticked mouth.

My utter mortification was complete. I closed my eyes and lay there like a well-trussed slug.

My butt still hurts. I didn't go near Killer Hammock for the rest of the week. Dave insists it wasn't my beatific buttocks that crashed the hammock; the ratchet strap slid through an eye loop or something.Yeah, whatever. This kind of thing never happens to skinny women.

The hammock wasn't my only ordeal. Two days later we were on a canoe trip along Sunday Creek (which should be called Bog of Death) and not once, but twice, I sank into the harrowing depths of a leech-encrusted abyss of muddy squelchiness. The first time, with one misplaced step, I went right up to my crotch. Pulling my leg out was like giving birth. I've been having nightmares about vacuum suction ever since. I've washed my formerly white socks three times since then, in bleach, and they still look like men's black dress socks.

The second time I just stayed there.  

A week later, here I am,  feeling much like a weiner in a Pillsbury crescent roll, watching puffy clouds (and turkey vultures) go sailing by. 

I really do find camping relaxing ... don't you?

Born to be wild and have a really flat ass

There have been some "discussions" about Dave's new motorcycle. When he first was talking about buying a used donor-cycle I had an opinion. I know, hard to believe, me having an opinion.

"Get a big one," I said. "Like a Goldwing. Something we can both sit on comfortably." I know he thinks of me as being a slender young tart with a narrow derriere so I had to remind him that I am old and creaky with a rather enormous butt that doesn't sit well on crotch rockets and in other smallish spaces.

He did not listen to me, obviously still believing I have the butt of a small boy, and bought a mid-sized bike. A Kawasaki Vulcan, 750, I think. I mention this in case you know something about bikes and only to help you imagine the seat on which our butts sit.

I was nervous about the bike. Well, maybe nervous isn't strong enough a word. I was actually scared out of my cheesely mind. Every time I climbed aboard all I could think was how violently my melon was going to explode when I hit the pavement. Dave is a good driver though and it wasn't long before I relaxed and started to LOVE going on the bike. That is precisely the moment that Dave decided the bike wasn't big enough to take us on long rides. I was like, what the heck? I TOLD you to get a big bike! Instead of arguing with me further, because he has learned there is no point, we decided to hit the open road on Saturday.

The first half hour was pure bliss. I raised my arms in the air proclaiming I'M KING OF THE WORLD and hugging my baby and clinking helmets and singing "like a true nature child, I was born, born to be wild" on a loop because those are the only words I know.

The second half hour my butt started to go a wee bit numb. Just a wee bit. Dave started squiggling in his own seat and it wasn't long before he pulled over for a break. "How's your bum?" he asked. "A little numb," I replied. Because I am a poet.

A while later it wasn't Steppenwolf I was singing, it was Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb."

We took lots of breaks but the bike ass we were experiencing was cumulative and by the end of the day my butt was as flat as a proverbial pancake. There was no more singing. There was screaming. From my ass. My ass was screaming, "GET ME OFF THIS STUPID BIKE RIGHT NOW," and when it wasn't screaming at me it was asking, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we almost there? How bout now? Are we there yet? Huh? Are we there? Are we there?"

The pain was exquisite. Who knew a butt could hurt so much just from sitting on a motorcycle for a day? Oh, and my knees hurt just as much as my arse. When I finally got off I was walking like a greenhorn who just got off a horse, all bow-legged and saddle sore.

Other than that, it was a good day.

Oh, wait a minute. That's not true. We did have a rather horrifying moment when the bike broke down halfway between Dwight and Huntsville in the middle of fecking nowhere.

Not having a cell phone, because we are the only two people in the universe who don't have one, apparently, Dave said, "We're going to have to push the bike into town." Town was about 15 km away. A rather long jaunt for two out of shape old people walking bow-legged, pushing a broken flat-ass-inducing motorcycle.

Dave being a mechanic and all, he was able to wiggle some wires and check the spark and even though he didn't think he could do it, he fixed the problem and we were on our way again. You know how he checked the spark? He stuck a screwdriver in the cap-thingey where the spark plug goes and then he yelped and said, "yup, lots of spark there." As if that wasn't bad enough, he had to do the same thing with the other plug. I was like, "seriously? You're gonna do that again?" When he was done his ears were smoking and his hair was curly.

Dave's new-to-him toy. This ass-break photo was taken
at a roadside parkette between Algonquin Park and Dwight,
before the breakdown. Thus, he still likes the bike.

Boat launch at Dwight. It was a fine day, a real beauty.

This bear is one of the roadside attractions at The Dwight
Trading Post, a gift shop and snack stand that sells all kinds
of tacky knick-knacks, tremendously comfortable moccasins
and really tasty fudge.

Dave-the-mechanic goes to work fixing the bike. Thank goodness he did.
I just could not imagine walking for 15 km.

A stellar debut for North Bay Nipissing Life and some, ahem, bragging

Ok, I have to do a little bragging for a moment. I apologize in advance for making you roll your eyes and skip through to a more interesting non-bragging blog, but when a short story you write gets published in the debut issue of a slick new magazine, ya gotta share the news, know what I mean?

The magazine is North Bay Nipissing Life and it just hit newsstands in North Bay (a city about four hours north of Toronto, depending how fast you drive). Our company, Metroland North Media, started a weekly community newspaper there almost a year ago called North Bay Nipissing News and it's been doing extremely well. Readers are excited about the comprehensive community news coverage and the casual vibe. Advertisers are starting to realize that it's the paper everyone's reading and are responding accordingly. All in all, things are looking up, which is why Metroland decided to launch a slick quarterly magazine to supplement the News and provide a vehicle for celebrating the people of the area in a more in-depth way.

I designed the magazine, laid it out and made it pretty so I'm proud of it for those reasons but I'm extra pleased to have one of my short stories in the magazine. The caveat is I WORK for the magazine so it's not like the editorial heavens opened up and said, "You are the best writer known to man and we must print your story." No, it was more like I asked the editor if he was interested and he read it and said, yeah, okay. Also, I didn't get paid.

STILL. The editor has very, very strong opinions on certain things. If he didn't like my story, it wouldn't have been published. So I'm hanging on to that knowledge and celebrating it.

Kiosk is a perfect story for NBN Life. Kiosk is a ghost town in that area, about halfway between North Bay and Mattawa. You've heard me blog about it before – Dave and I go there every spring and every fall to do some fishing and camp in Algonquin Park. What used to be a lumber mill town is now nothing but ruins within the park. Which is great if you're an outdoorsy person who loves camping and loves nature, but is heartbreaking if you're one of the people who used to live here.

"Claire" is one of those people. She runs a bakery out of her log home just north of the park. She makes and sells amazing, almost legendary, butter tarts and delicious pies with crust just like my mom's. She also makes jams, jellies and sells coffee to everyone who goes by. Claire (I hope I am spelling her name correctly) grew up in Kiosk. For her the story of its demise is pure sadness. It was with people like her in mind that I wrote the short story Kiosk and year or so ago. The original story is posted here on my blog.

Gotta love that byline!

Second page spread of the story. The old photos are from Kiosk.

Last page of the spread. In case you can't see the tiny yet IMPORTANT
photo of the girl in the blue sweater, I've blown it up bigger for you, below!

That photo was taken during our honeymoon trip to Newfoundland. I love that place. Yup, chubby bare toes in a mag.
Yup.

The cover.

The masthead. Look Mom, that's ME! :)

***

As an aside, today is a sad day for the people of the Muskoka community. We are mourning the death of Gillian Brunette, a much loved local writer who used to work for the Huntsville Forester and freelanced for many of our other publications. I can't believe cancer managed to claim her. She had such incredible enthusiasm for life, such indomitable energy and she will be missed. Today is her "Celebration of Life" and, in Gillian's case, it is a perfect term because she lived her entire life like it was a celebration. We'll miss you so much, Gillian, and in your own wise words and sunny English accent, "BLOODY HELL."

Poetry in Algonquin: Thanksgiving 2011

Dark water and sunshine in the beaver meadow,
marsh grasses whistling on the October breeze.

Black woods, gnarled roots, dead things, smell of rot.
Brilliant youth, beloved and bright, dappled in sunshine and forever.
"Look at me! he shouts, his voice like music, and how can you not?

White pines, home of the beaver, Tom Thomson's ghost smiles from the pond,
mighty moose, somewhere, wandering at will.
"Boomdiddyahdah," in my head, on a loop, Girl Guides in a canoe,
skinny dipping, when it was still okay to be naked under a yellow moon.

"All the diamonds in this world
that mean anything to me,
Are conjured up by wind and sunlight
sparkling on the sea."
– Bruce Cockburn

Apple doll in the sunshine, heart light, happy.

Polka dot stepping stones for tiny creatures of the pond, bullfrogs croak their ballet.
"You're gonna drown, you're gonna drown, you're gonna drown," but the green frogs
connect the dots, slower now, slower still, their skin cold as death.

The leaves are almost done, hilltop maples are bare, only orange oak and True Grit poplars
paint Algonquin hills. Look close, though, bend down, and colour bursts from the earth.
David versus the Goliath of weather, wind and time.

Patriotism sings now, it's the distant hills that call out,
symphonies of splendour. Foolish pride swells my heart, a beer commercial on my tongue.
I. Am. Canadian.

John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Little Blackie, Little Sister, moving through the gold poplars.
It's my favourite part of that classic movie, it's my favourite part of this walk,
my men walk ahead, footsteps shifting in the sand.
I take the photo, I take a breath.
And hold.

I'm Alive

Barely.
Everything hurrrrrrrrrrrrts.
This was the best Thanksgiving. The weather was fantastic. I mean, middle of July fantastic, except that the temps got down to zero Celsius at night but the skies were blue and the sun was shiny and the leaves in Algonquin Park were at their most fabulous.
But oh, I am a hurting unit. Three solid days of biking and hiking has jellified these old bones and now I am salivating at the thought of a hot bath and a handful of extra strength Tylenol.
Tomorrow marks the end of my 50th year and I have much to be thankful for as I say good-night to another Thanksgiving Day. A year ago I couldn't have imagined myself biking all over one of the most beautiful places on earth in my baggy-assed sweat-pants, looking for moose and bear, and passing 11-year-olds in a single bound.
I have so much to tell you about but it has to wait, it does. I just wanted to let you know I'm alive and well and looking for the heating pad.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow I eat cake.

Kiosk Fall 2011 and Bear Poo

Got an e-mail from my friend Alan in Newfoundland who wondered why I've been so quiet lately. I've been fishing, Alan! Dave'll tell you – I haven't been quiet, I've just been noisy in a different, internet-free place.

Kiosk is one of the northernmost camping areas in Algonquin, one of Ontario's most famous and largest provincial parks. The are no roads into its vast interior, just a loose waterway of canoe routes, lonely dark lakes and black forests. The bottom end of the park has a highway and several campgrounds running through it (we go to one of those campgrounds regularly, Lake of Two Rivers), but there are really only two campgrounds in the north part, Brent and Kiosk. Both are at the end of long dirt roads stretching through Crown land. Both are former sawmill and railway villages, now ghost towns with only foundation remnants as clues of once thriving communities. And both are launching points for adventure-seekers looking for true wilderness experiences.

While Dave and I have camped in the interior, our trips to Kiosk are far more comfortable. We bring our trailer and our aluminum motorboat and spend four days every spring and every fall looking to catch and release some big fish, spend some time together and catch our breath. No jobs, no kids, no pressure.

The weather was downright terrible. Grey skies and rain the whole time we were there – except on Sunday, when it was time to pack up and leave. Oh well. We've never let the weather put a crimp in our style. We fished, we rode our bikes, we read our books, we played cards. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary in a place we have both come to love as much as we love each other.

I took this picture to show you the difference between water levels in the spring and in the fall. This past spring we couldn't get under this bridge because the water was so high. Last weekend the water was so low there was barely enough water for our boat – the difference is at least four feet. The bridge, by the way, is part of the abandoned railway line built by lumber baron J.R. Booth in the 1800s. It's the main reason Brent and Kiosk existed, with sawmills cutting up the rich forests of Algonquin and shipping them, via railway, all over the world. Before Algonquin was cut bare of trees, it was mostly giant pines and spruce that grew here. The regrowth has brought maple to the park, making Algonquin a gorgeous place to be in the fall.

Normally you would never be able to perch on a rock in the rushing Amable du Fond, the river that connects Algonquin's northern lakes: Kiosk, Manitou and Tea. We've never seen the river so quiet but took the opportunity to walk up the waterfall and take some photos. Dave brought his line and tried to wangle a brookie onto his line but even the fish thought there wasn't enough water.

This was my fish, a nice 4 pound bass. Dave, of course, did fish holding duties, baiting the hook duties and looking good in his rain suit duties. I did all the real work, wrestling that beauty in, kicking and screaming. We posed him for a pic, than he flicked his tail and disappeared into the water. 

Dave also caught a nice bass - not as nice as mine, though. .. jest saying...

And a trip to Kiosk just isn't complete without a lake trout. Dave was happy to snag this one.

Isn't this ridiculously cute? I know. You should have seen her waddling around in it.

When I was taking this photo I couldn't see Misty in the viewfinder – she completely blended in with the orange leaves and dark water of the Amable du Fond waterfall.

Because my friend Linda requested it, here's the bear poop in our front yard. Yup, we went all the way up north to see wildlife and we come home to see that a bear had ripped down our bird feeder and then crapped in our front yard. Linda, you can see the pitts of the choke cherries the bear had been eating. Judging by the freshness, the bear had been there within the last day. And judging by the size, it was a BIG bear. For ages we were under the false impression that there were no wild animals in our neighbourhood, other than a few foxes, raccoons and skunks – but now we know there are bears so we have to be a little more careful. We did see some wildlife in Kiosk – on our way there we had a rabbit run right towards our vehicle – Dave had to swerve to avoid it. The hare had eyes as big as saucers. A little bit down the road we saw the reason why: a fisher hunting it. "Run, bunny, run!" we shrieked out the window. Dave honked the horn and scared the fisher into the bushes. We hope we gave the bunny enough of a break to survive.

Our busted bird feeder with poo in the background.

The top of the feeder the bear had ripped off.

The wire that had held the feeder until the bear decided to have a closer look.