Wabakimi - Tuesday Sept 2/08

Note: for those of you just tuning in, I (Ray) am a guest writer on Tetcy's blog to give an account of my trip on the Wabakimi Project. I was in Wabakimi Provincial Park for the first week of September. Sorry about the shameless teaser on the previous post, but yes the only victim of the bear attack was the oil can. Thank you for reading and for posting comments (Karen I LOL'd on your first comment).

Now, back to the story:
-we get up around 10 (I read in bed for several hours). Breakfast was oatmeal and a breakfast bar
-we pack up camp. Walt & Dave had said that Phil is very particular about how his equipment is packed up. Phil definitely does not belong to the stuff the tent in the bag camp. Everything must be folded up perfectly. Phil brought his tent back to the manufacturer for some repairs once and when he unfolded it they jokingly offered him a job folding up new tents. Phil was even consulted on the design of some of the Eureka tent models.
-we carry everything to the shallow muddy pond. The water level has fallen and now that the canoes are loaded it is even more difficult paddling/poling on this pond
-we cross the next pond and then take a 900m portage to the Raymond River. This portage is maintained by the park’s portage crew and it has many small stumps along the path. It certainly isn’t up to Phil’s standards. The trail is very hilly and rocky and it is pouring rain. It is still very hot and muggy and I am having difficulty navigating the trail because my glasses are fogging up.
-Phil moves rather slowly on the portage and carries only some small packs - now he is showing his age. Given all the packs we have, it takes quite awhile to complete the portage.
-we paddle 4 or 5 kms in the rain down the Raymond River to Pickett Lake. We hope to stay at the Ogoki Outfitters Outpost Cabin. However, when we get to the the cabin we find it is being used. So much for Shangra Lai! Jeff & Karla from Chicago were staying there for the week to do some fishing. It must have been quite a surprise for them to have paid several thousand dollars to have been flown by float plane into the middle of nowhere and then have a bunch of soggy yahoos come out of the bush to knock on the door. They graciously allow us to set up camp on the lawn and use the gazebo as shelter from the rain. There is even an outhouse. So much for wilderness camping! There are very few potential spots for any campsites so I don’t know where we would have gone if they had turned us away.
-after we got unpacked, I went for a swim. The water was cold but I wanted to get cleaned up a bit. Lunch was salmon salad on bread and Gorp (trail mix).
-it kept raining for the whole day, the wind started to pick up and the temperature got cooler. I was a little chilled from the swim so I put on extra clothes to try to warm up. The gazebo is
screened so it started getting quite cold just sitting there.
-some partridges came out of the woods during the day to look for food in the lawn which was cool
-Dave slept a good part of the afternoon in his tent
-Jeff & Karla stayed holed up in their cabin. I didn’t even see them come out to go to the outhouse
-supper was soup which helped to warm me up abit
-we have a lot of paddling to do in the next couple of days so Phil showed me a more efficient paddling stroke called the Canadian stroke. Phil teaches the Canadian stroke to most participants but I still feel a little embarrassed that he criticized my paddling
-since we are just sitting around we do alot of talking and hear more interesting stories from Phil. Phil even met the hermit Wendell Beckwith once.
-the plan is to get up at 7 tomorrow morning because we have a 26 km paddle ahead of us. Yikes. The farthest I have ever gone is 15 km and then I was tired. However, Phil’s canoes are cruising canoes which are more efficient in the water than my prospector canoes
-I went to bed around 9 or so and read for a bit and then fell asleep. Walt & Phil talked for awhile in the gazebo. I must have slept well because I didn’t even hear Phil come in the tent.

Favorite Phil Story: He went to Baffin Island in the 1970's as a cook for a group of 28. The group had not met their freight allowance so Phil took along some milk to trade since it is worth $6 a litre there. He traded his milk for a whole hind of caribou