Wabakimi, the Flora

This is my third post about Wabakimi Provincial Park and our canoe route reconnaisance trip.   To read the whole story, start with the "First Chapter".

There is a 1600+m portage between Granite Lake and the unnamed pond on the way to Van Ness Lake. There are literally 100's of unnamed bodies of water in Wabakimi. Imagine having to give directions to the pilot of the bushplane to pick up you there...  1600m is a long portage on a good day.   The first challenge was finding the landing....and this is the picture of the "wall".    According to the "section sheets", the portage was right next to these palisades, and you have to try and keep an open mind....but every bone in your body tells you that this will be a long uphill climb.

Phil spent a long time looking at it from our campsite, reading the landscape, and the most likely place to pull up.  And once we paddled over....this blaze was clear AS DAY, and certainly not old.  Our best guess is that it was made by Native hunters following caribou in the winter.  Notice how high up the canoes had to go?  I'm standing on the rocks at the landing and the branches of the tree are hanging over me.     The section sheets point you in the general direction but once you get there, you still have to actually find Point A.    Occassionally there are 6 trees laying across the path at Point A and you have to create your own alternative.....

This is my favourite chapter, the highlight of my trip (I won't say "our trip"" because I think Ray liked different things than I did).  This day of "work"  turned out to be one of my favourite days because I got to take pictures all day.   I could indulge my inner flora geek.  We went through quite a few different kinds of terrain so there was also a wide variety of plant life.   A bog with a creek, caribou ridges, dense boreal forest, more bog, and a beaver meadow.   We had to find the blazes on the way to the other landing and Ray and Jerry measured this portage on the way back.    We  did not clear this portage....so we traveled light with relatively empty hands.   We didn't  make it to the very end, because it ended in a bog that was so long we couldn't spot the water....we dove back into the treeline, found a new game trail and a few blazes and got closer but not to the end.   Phil asked me to photograph the treeline on our flight out and send him the pictures.    Our last way point is marked on the GPS, and the crew that comes up from Van Ness, later this season,  will try to connect the dots from the other direction.     With the photograph, they be able to see whether it is worth pursuing a trail through the trees,  and Phil can see where the top of the bog is....the GPS will confirm where we've been.    The flat light green area on the right side of the picture is the bog and the place where we first entered it  isn't even visible.  The slice of water at the top right is our leg of Granite Lake and the forest in between...spans about 1.5km.   Can't wait to see what Phil will do with this one, I sense that he and his crew will end up with at least 2km of portage trail if they skirt the entire length of the bog, but at least they'll keep dry feet. :)

On the day we set out on this trip, Phil has given his blessing for me to click away to my heart's content.  I sense that he enjoys my love for the wildness of this place, and my desire to capture some of its essence so others can see it the way it is.  I saw the most beautiful mushrooms and  fungi on this trail.    Some species must have popped up overnight encouraged by the rain the day before.     I love looking them up in a book and finding their names.  The next time I am hiking and look around on the ground it's like seeing a familiar face.  I imagine God looking down and seeing all of us walking around here.  He knows all our names and the paths that we're on.    He knows the name of every star in the sky, from one end of the Milky Way to the other....and then some.   That blows my mind!   So I feel small again, but welcome, privileged, and invited to see how fearfully and wonderfully He has crafted this remote piece of His Creation.    I marvel at the hundreds of little sections that make up a piece of peat moss, and how the sections differ between the species, and how the colour depends on the amount moisture it receives and how much sun it receives.   I love how much more I can see when I watch the pictures pop up on the screen, especially the close ups....and how much more I notice when I see them for the 3rd or 4th time.  I am amazed to peer into the pitchers of the pitcher plant and see the downward facing hairs that prevent insects from escaping.    I was looking at this tiny species of mushroom that actually only grows on other decaying mushrooms, and I saw a moss, that  I had paged past a few times in my book, growing right in front of them....and yes...I get excited when I see the portrait gallery at http://www.lichen.com/portraits.html.

I've decided to end this post with a web album so I could show more photos :):)   There are some great close ups, and some great general shots that are typical of the Boreal forest.  I never get enough of looking at these and they tell their own story..... Click  here to see it (I highly recommend it as a slideshow!!).   And if you read between the lines, you will realize that Ray, Jerry, and Phil...did the "real" work on this day.