Summer 2016 Day 18

Paddling along, as had happened many times before, the lure snagged on a stone or some weeds and we lost it.  But we found someone else's lost lure on a half submerged branch.  The new lure caught two fish, before we lost it, and then lost two more.

The day grew long as we continued our slow progress against the current.  Ready to stop, we asked some fishermen on a dock beneath a house in the woods if we could make camp on their lawn.  They were only renting the house for a few days and wouldn’t give us permission.  

Not long after, we found a dirt boat ramp leading off the water and pulled up.  Small cottages spread through the woods above.  Campers rented them for the week, and one brought us to the reception office, about a mile away, where we learned that we would not be allowed to camp by the boat ramp for the night.

We set our tent up at the edge of the woods and hoped the receptionist wouldn’t come out that way.  She didn’t.

We made it a policy never to eat in the tent, lest the smell of food convince them that our brightly colored tent was little more than a candy bar wrapper.  By the time we sat to eat our fish dinner, the mosquitoes were on us.  We applied lots of repellent.  It helped, but not enough.  Worst super-tasty dinner ever. Still, better to be eaten by mosquitoes than bears.

Summer 2016 Day 17

With heavy rain forecast, we set out wearing our drysuits.  The river narrowed.  The current grew strong, and as we worked our way into the flow, my line caught on something.  I pulled it in, and it yanked against me.  It had somehow gotten tangled in another fishing line.  I cut it free, pulled it and found, caught on the hook, an enormous, one-eyed fish.

Before it could flip free, I had it in my cockpit and removed the hook from it’s mouth while Erin held it firmly.

During the process, we’d floated downstream and now worked our way back up, excited for the evening’s feast.  Five oncoming canoes cruised past us with the current.  They didn’t say hello.

Sweating from the effort, we stopped to take off our much too hot drysuits.  The forecasted storms  were brief, intermittent showers, and cooled us not at all.

Hours against the current, we found a dock.  Another bunch of canoeists sat and had lunch.  They’d paddled down from the Gouin reservoir that lay ahead of us.  The current wouldn’t get much stronger than where we were, but then again, we would find waterfalls upstream.  Their summer camp ran multi-week trips down the river.  They’d never heard of anyone going up it.

We got back on the water, but as we approached a bridge, the current grew so strong that I only barely got through a choke point, and Erin couldn’t, near the edge, or in the center.  Above, a storm approached from the north.  Who knew how much water it had let loose up stream.

We returned to the dock where we’d met the canoeists, now gone.  Above the dock a path led through the woods to a gas station and  a hotel.  The gas station threw me out because I was barefoot  The hotel gave us drinking water, but refused to let us set up camp on their ample property.

As the heavens unleashed watery fury, we sat on the hotel’s porch and drank hot fish soup, then gorged ourselves on the one-eyed monster. Bellies full, we made camp on a woodsy  lumpy spot just above the dock.

Summer 2016 Day 16

Marlene, our hostess, wanted to help us in any way she could. She took us to a fishing store to replace our lost lures, only it was closed on Sundays.  We tried a second, and then a third.  The third store had an ice fishing rod, only a couple of feet long, and perfect for trolling a lure behind the kayak.  The mechanical settings made it far more suitable than our plastic donut.

By the time we arrived at the dock, the day had warmed and I  wore my hat as we packed the boats.  Since we were only packing and not paddling, there was no need to tie my glasses on yet.  Finally, we launched.  After I spent the sabbath talking technique and form with my hosts, I demonstrated a roll and came up without my glasses. I forgot to tie them on.

Since Marlene had spent so much time driving us around, I didn’t want to impose on her to take me to get glasses after losing them like a dope.  I also didn’t want to spend the rest of the trip without glasses.

After waving goodbye and fifteen minutes of paddling, we found a fellow walking down by a dock with a little girl and asked him about glasses.  He took us up to his English speaking family at their mansion.  His mother brought us lemonade while he called anywhere that might have glasses for me within a reasonable distance..  No luck–Optometrists were closed on Sundays.

We launched.  Motor boats zoomed about every which way and fish cowered in hiding, without so much as a tug on the line.  At first we passed country communities on either side of the river, but by the end of the day they had worn thin leaving a highway along the right side of the river and forest on the left.

We pulled up to the “Teepee Ranch,” which had lots of scarecrows and teepees.  I told the proprietor our story and asked how much it would cost to stay for the night in our tent and use their shower.

“No problem,”  he said.  Free was excellent.  He then showed us our options. We could stay in a teepee, a small cabin, or a nice cabin with a jacuzzi.  

Hmm, “How does pricing work?”  He showed us the pricing chart.  Free was a misunderstanding.

“Where can we pitch are tent for free?  We can’t really afford to stay here,” we asked.  He pointed across the street toward the river and explained something we didn’t really understand.  

We setup our tent across the street and began making dinner beside the highway.  Trucks zoomed by.  The proprietor came over and explained.  He hadn’t pointed across the street earlier, he had pointed across the river.  He suggested we make camp on the island across the river.

We’d unpacked our gear.  After dinner, we’d go to bed.  We weren’t about to get back into our boats and paddle across the river.

The proprietor told us the police patrolled the highway and we’d get a ticket.

We moved down to the dock.  The police wouldn’t see us there.  We couldn't pitch a tent, but unless it rained, we wouldn’t need to.  

His wife came down and talked with us.  She clearly felt guilty about our predicament.  Erin got permission to use the bathroom, and then we were on our own.  

The mosquitoes came.  The netting that we’d previously used when tentless no longer sufficiently protected us against the horde.  Somehow, though, we slept until the rain came.  Then we set up our tent in the dark, perhaps faster than anyone has ever set up a tent before.

Summer 2016 Day 15

Not far up from our launch we found big rapids.  Paddling up them would be impossible.  Mary, the night before, warned us that we’d find a popular local white water kayak hangout, and a portage.

The trail began at a dock on an island.  I scouted it out, lost the trail, and ended up bushwhacking to an obvious put-in.  From there, I followed the correct path back to our takeout.  The trail, often flat enough to use our kayak cart, was marred only by swarms of mosquitoes.

As we paddled beneath a cluster of suburban houses and a small party dining on their porch, Erin’s fishing line went taut.  “I caught a fish!” She yelled as she reeled it in.

One of the women eating above called back down to us “You caught a fish?”

The fish escaped.

As we got closer to the Grand Mere dam, the current picked up.  Passing under a final railroad bridge before Grand Mere took some effort, but we were rewarded with the sight of the boat launch. About 750 meters before the dam, we had a long portage ahead.  

We asked a jet skier if another ramp lay closer to the dam.  Nope.

We crossed the now wide river at a strong ferry angle against the current and took out.

After unloading our gear beside the ramp’s parking lot, we took the first boat up, then made a couple of trips with dry bags depositing our things at the top of a steep path from the road down to the water.  A car with roof racks passed us as we returned to our takeout to get the second boat.

The car came back.  The driver, a local kayaker who spoke no English, invited us to stay with her and her husband for the weekend.  While I didn’t understand her words, her hospitable smile was more than enough to make her intention clear.  

They had a shower, laundry machine, tools to fix our broken pot handle, and wine.

Summer 2016 Day 14

One by one, we wheeled the kayaks up a steep road to the top of the dam where a locked fence blocked the new section of river.  A Hydro Qubec employee in a bright orange vest with the tiniest bit of English at his disposal opened the gate and told us to be careful not to get sucked into the turbines.  

He also warned us that danger lay ahead, just before the railroad bridge.  We need to paddle the third path from the right.  

As we neared the bridge the current picked up, approaching but not reaching what it had been the day before.  With some strong sprints we made it up the V current formed between the shore and an island, and then under the bridge.

After the bridge the current slowed and we crossed the wide river as storm clouds approached.  As we paddled past a dock with seaplanes tied to it, the heavens opened up and it poured.  We discussed taking out and finding shelter in the sea plane marina.  We could change into weather-appropriate clothing, but decided instead to continue.

We caught a fish, and talked about the tasty warm fish soup we’d make when we landed.

The rain subsided and the water calmed to glassy smooth as the river narrowed on either side around an island.

The dam in Shawnigan did not have an obvious take-out, so we paddled into a small bay with Hydro Quebec buildings on either side. There,two young ladies on a catwalk bridge above us called out that we couldn’t be there since we were beside an electrical dam, and that it was dangerous.

One of them showed us where we could land and told us we could take the road through the electrical plant, up the steep hill, to a dock on the other side, a kilometer or so from where we were.

I gutted the fish while Erin scouted the road to make sure that there really was a way through, then Erin got the soup started while I wheeled the first kayak through the plant and up the hill on our collapsible cart.  A man stopped me, but when I told him I had permission he let me go on my way.  I left my kayak just inside of the plant’s security fence at the top of the hill.  

On my way back down a different orange-suit stopped me, and began to interrogate me.  He asked me lots of questions, some of them recurring as though my story might change.  What was I doing there?  What was the name of the person who gave me permission?  Didn’t I know I was on private property.  Where were these kayaks I kept talking about?  Where was this other person who I readily admitted was also on Hydro Quebec’s private property.

I walked him back to the second boat and our gear spread out on the lawn waiting to be hauled up the hill.  He spoke to his supervisor on the phone and confirmed that we couldn’t be there.  He opened a small locked gate only a few yards from where we took out.  Behind it, a small, heavily overgrown dirt road cut steeply up the hill.

We would not be allowed to roll our boat up the smooth winding road.  We’d have to carry it up the hill in the woods.

A crew of orange suits now watched us haul our gear, soup in the pot, and final boat outside of the private property.  When I stepped off the wet grass to carry my gear toward the gate a slightly roundabout (maybe 5 feet longer?) drier way on the road, one of the new orange suits yelled at me.  He wouldn’t let me sneak into the plant again.

The original orange suit agreed to meet us at the top so we could get our kayak.  Once our gear was out, he locked the gate behind us and we began carrying our boat and gear through the woods up the steep hill, then retrieved our boat.

Exhausted from our repeated heavily-laden climbs, we sat on the grass and ate our soup, still hot.  The original orange suit showed up.  We had hoped we were done with him.  He told us that he wished things could have worked out differently and that held only done his job.

After our rest, we wheeled the boats down to the waterside park on the other side of the hill and made camp besides a public dock.  A whitewater paddler named Mary, walking her dog, recognized us from a post I’d put up on Facebook a month earlier.

She gave us a ride to a supermarket and let us charge our electrical gear in her house overnight.  The supermarket meant an extra nice dinner, with premade pasta sauce, extra cheese, and canned chickpeas.

Summer 2016 Day 13

We began our journey on the Saint Maurice, gateway to the back country.  Sprint kayakers raced down the smooth waters in the opposite direction.  I think that by the end of our trip, with a little help from giardia, I looked as fit as they did crossing our bows in line.

The town is called three rivers, which is weird, because there are only two, the Saint Maurice and the Saint Lawrence.  Maybe they’re not very good at counting.

At first, we paddled into a mild current.  But gradually, it grew. We hugged the sides where the current flowed weakest, used eddies where we could.

Sometimes a rock, tree branch, or bend in the river caused a jet of water to push us out into the stronger current.  We’d sprint like mad to get above it and back to the side.

A bald eagle flew overhead, lazily crossed the river a few times, and settled in a distant tree.

A plastic sea kayak came down stream and the paddler was shocked that we were going up.  Rapids lay ahead.  Maybe we could make it if we stuck to the left side of the river.  We crossed to the left side and donned our helmets.

A fish leaped out of the water behind us.  Erin had caught it on her line.  Against great pressure, she reeled it in.  Finally close enough, she pulled the fish out of the water and, stunned by its alien countenance, held the beast before her.

The fish flipped, flopped, and freed itself of the line.  In a moment, gone from sight.

The water at the edge of the river became too shallow to properly plant our paddles against the current.  Where the water was deep enough, the current rushed too strong.

We got out and walked, pulling our boats behind us through the rapids.  I took a step off a cliff into dark deep surging water.  The current had me, and in my panicked attempt to swim out of it while holding onto my boat, I let go of my paddle.

“Grab my paddle!” I shouted to Erin as the current took it to her.  Holding the bow of my boat, I swung out into the river as I futilely fought the immense forces around me.  The stern of my expedition heavy kayak slammed into Erin’s legs, and in spite of the near crippling blow, she grabbed it along with the paddle.

With two hands and only half a moment to think, she held my paddle and both boats, bracing against the enormous pull of the river that had rendered me helpless.  I don’t know how she did it.  With the stern of my boat now anchored, the current rushed me around back to the side where I stood up and smiled, pleased I hadn’t been washed over rocks miles below.

We continued our slow dredge, hiking and paddling, up the gauntlet, now on the lookout for underwater ledges.

Sometimes paddling around the jets took multiple attempts.  Failures washed us hundreds of meters downstream (paddling in the US is safer because we use feet).

I’d taken over the fishing since Erin had enough sense to focus entirely on the task at hand.  I caught two fish!  I filled my cockpit with water so they could remain alive and fresh.  When hauling the boat behind me, I struggled enormously against the chaos of the river to keep the boat upright, so that my captives would not escape.

We were perhaps more tired than either of us had ever remembered being when we saw a house in the woods on the far side of the river.  We had hoped to make it to the first dam, but had no idea how much farther we had to go.  We decided to see what we could find at the house.  With the enormity of the current, we’d have to paddle farther up river to make the crossing to the house, since we’d fall back with the current.

We saw the dam.  The closer we got to it, the stronger the current grew.  Hiking through the water was no longer an option, so we carried the boats over rocks along the edge.

Finally, we saw the takeout.  A boat ramp led down from a park on the other side of the river.  Just beneath the engineering behemoth,the mighty river exploded out.  Wild hydraulics bounced us up, down, and every which way through terror.  But we both remained upright, and with colossal efforts, made it to the boat ramp.

We camped in the park.  A friendly fellow gave me a ride to a gas station where I picked up some treats for dinner and filled my water bags.

Exhausted nearly to tears, we felt, correctly, that our trip was finally beginning.

Summer 2016 Day 12

In the morning we carried our gear down an old, heavily-used dock to our boats.  A plank cracked and broke under my weight as I stepped on it and I quickly moved on.  It happened twice more.  Our host had been on and off the dock casually a few times, and we had unloaded on it the evening before.  But by the time we launched, due to forces of nature entirely beyond my comprehension, I’d done quite a bit of damage.

With a strong current and an encouraging tailwind we set out across sunny Lac-Saint-Pierre.  Unable to see the far end of the lake, we took a bearing and stuck to it.  We were only a little off.

We passed a buoy with a sign on it.  I paddled close to investigate.  “Danger.  Military Training. Unexploded Ordnance.” My fishing line caught on something and snapped, probably the anchor line for the sign, hopefully not a mine.

Later, a racing canoe crossed in front of us.  Two fit canoeists paddled like blue jays in flight, swish swish swish, change sides, swish swish swish, change sides.

A rainbow in the distance turned out to be a bridge over the river leaving the far end of the lake.

In Trois Rivieres (pronounced twa) we passed waterfront factories and turned up the Saint Maurice, the river that would take us into the North.  A dozen boats sat moored just up the river off of a beach enjoyed by volleyball players and bikini tanners.

We asked a leisurely sailor if we might find a shower at the beach’s bathhouse, and he told us it would be worth our while to turn back, continue east on the Sait Lawerence for less than a mile, and spend the night at the marina there.

The dock master at the marina was accommodating if not welcoming.  We could spend the night, but we’d have to pay five dollars for him to open the showers for us. Our own investigation however found that in the men’s room, they were unlocked.  I smuggled Erin in and kept watch while she showered.

The dock master asked us not to leave our boats on the dock, so we put them back in the water and tied them up for the night.

The residents of the marina were much friendlier.  Besides smiles and conversation, they offered us baguettes and olives.