Day 52

Paddling through Lake Parent, we caught a fish! We scooped a pike out of the water in our net, and then held its mouth open with my pfd knife while I tried to carefully remove the hook. Previously, pike had bitten my fingers and lodged hooks in me and Erin during this process. I have since read that the wise fisherman uses pliers. But my hand took no harm when the pike twisted spasmodically; I yanked it away dropping the fish back into the net. The hook got caught up in the net, but with some effort, carefully twisting, pulling, and giving the fish some healthy respect, we sorted everything out.

I’d bought a line with a ring at one end and pin at the other for threading through the jaw of a fish so that we could keep it in the water alive as long as possible. I’d forgotten it at home.

So with a key ring and a piece of string from my repair kit, I made another one there on the water, and tied it to the back of Erin’s kayak. We resumed our paddle, and caught another pike just before being taken down the light rapids out of the lake.

As we fiddled with the second fish, hook, and net, the wind blew us into some bushes and onto some shallow rocks, which was much better than down the rapids.

Fish secured behind the boat, we paddled down.

Beneath the rapids, a large wild stream poured into the river beside a small cabin. We searched around the cabin for a rainwater basin to resupply, and didn’t find one. It looked like the stream came from a section of Lake Parent, northeast of where we left it. We thought it best not to drink water downriver of Senneterre.

We continued downriver and began searching each cabin for drinking water. Silt and stagnant goo filled most of the streams at the side of the river. We found a basin of rain water on the third try. The basins are linked to the roof gutters and fill up from rain: likely full of bacteria, but probably not giardia. We made camp on the screened in porch of a cabin just above some rapids.

The porch had a grill on it, so we grilled fish for shabat. Mosquitos got into the porch area through holes in the floor, but not into our tent. The porch on the hill gave us a view of the river and lakes on three sides. We enjoyed a well deserved day of rest in aslice a paradise.


GPS coordinates: 48.78547, -77.0828