rolling on the river

I am now in france but feel that i ought to write about one of the best trips of the summer (though unfortunately without lesley) - our five day canoe trip on the spanish river

the spanish got it's name through the intelligence of our wonderful european explorers who made the first steps towards the eventual theft of the area. upon arriving at this beautiful river, they came across first nations people (Ojidway) some of whom spoke a bit of spanish. It turned out that they had captured some spanish children during a raid in the south and adopted them into the nation, and hence some spanish had snuck into usage in their nation. i don't know if this is correct, but it was what the canoe route map said, and they don't lie do they?

prior to europeans taking the river over for log drives, the Ojibway used it as a trade route to the james bay area, since just north of the source of the spanish  the rivers run north to james bay

anyho, onto the trip. I went with my lovely close buddies shannon and lenny along with  sid and his best friend the unstoppable lucky! we drove upto fox lake resort and stayed two nights in a cabin aptly entitled the "foxden" for us foxes! We drank beer, sat in the wood heated hot tub (with a wood stove sunk right into it), swam and fished unsuccessfully

on the tuesday morning, we woke unciviledly early (7am!), picked out a canoe (shannon had brought her own lovely kevlar canoe) and loaded the canoes onto a trailer and ourselves into two vans. I rode with a bunch of nice folks from cleveland who had been tripping together for years

we unloaded at a train station next to a village consisting of one store and some homes. Fortunately the store was also an LCBO outlet as our beer supplies were dangerously low

only forty five minutes late, a two car VIA train pulled up. One passenger car and a special baggage car. Into the baggage car we loaded our canoes - then a dude put two racks up to the door (which is a good metre or so off the ground) and drove an ATV up the forty five degree angle and into the car! the train, which goes every two days, is the only route for people canoeing the river along with many cottagers along the river. it is a flag stop train and stops whenever someone flags it down

off we went! Along the way the train dropped the gent with the ATV and his five generators (?) and a gent who lives alone in the bush in a shack. We chatted with a cottage who lives on Biscoti lake at the upper end of the spanish. He travels by train into sudbury once a week for a poker game and lives the summers in florida (i think). He offered to give us a lift in his pontoon boat if we ever decide to do the whole river starting in his lake


The train dropped us at the forks - a spot where the two upper branches of the river meet to form the main river. Fortunately it also dropped our gear and canoes.

Almost immediately we hit rapids, at this point with the low august river, they were mostly bump and scrape - nothing too serious. However, it was lenny's first rapids, and also the boys who on previous trips had portaged around rapids (and in sid's case broken into tears when he watched us go down them). I am proud to say, partially due to lucky's intense love of adventure, the boys did every set of rapids  on this trip.

the first night we camped at a lovely spot, and lenny caught a fish! he gutted it (with some tears) and we had it for dinner, a lovely bass (we finally used my fishing license! it is now in the hands of kelly, and i hope she has better luck with it!)

Lenny was great as always with the kids and he put up very well with shannon and my habit of making all our decisions together without consultation. Hey lenny, it's not our fault that shannon and i share one brain between us!

The boys were delightful - each night they played together with their pokemon (one night they feed them all popcorn on a hill and were quite excited the next morning when the popcorn was gone) and actually paddled during the day.

the camping was mostly excellent, however, the second night we were parked right next to the railway. It is one of the main cross canada lines and we were woken by trains every two hours. The trains are big, so big that they have two engines at the front and a third in the middle! this night there was a siding above us, which had the VIA parked in it, and a third siding with a weird yellow device labelled a derailer! if anyone can tell me why they would purposely derail a train, i'd loive to know. we were only about twenty metres from this siding so i am glad it was not put to use while we were there!

the third night we camped on an island, which delighted the boys who immediately named it "lego pokemon pirate island" (see the song later in this post) however, it was also near a swamp and there were lots of bugs. The fourth night was the best, an algonquin style campsite on a rocky point with a breeze, we jumped off the rocks and into the water (thanks to lenny's keen sense of safety i actually scouted before jumping)

the food was excellent, with lenny having dried a bunch of veggies and having made a lovely pesto. My favourite was his jerky, homemade from Gasparro steaks with bourbon in it!

we saw some wildlife despite the boys doing their best to scare it off, a lot of herons, a bald eagle and a river otter. sidney swears he heard wolves - the boy has some strange commune with animals, so i believe him!

the river was awesome, the third day we hit a head wind which made paddling intense, but also throughout this day and the next two we began to hit real serious water, with some standing waves and small haystacks. This, in my opinion, was actually easier to navigate than the earlier, since the standing waves carried us over most rocks. However, it was much more exciting as our speed increased, and as when we hit the standing waves we would jump a bit into the air. Needless to say the boys loved it. They also learned a new word as i found out when we were about to go down one of these and they both turned to me and said "oh s--t" we have since talked about the appropriateness of such language

as always shannon was brilliant, tough as nails, liable to break into her wonderful laugh (mostly at me) able to do almost anything, easy going and quick at figuring out the rapids (though it did turn out that lucky is actually the best of all of us at spotting the right route - he second guessed me many times and turned out to be right)

lenny was awesome also, not only for putting up with us, but for his silliness, his toughness, his camping skills (he can light a fire anywhere!), his wonderful food, his mp3 player (all canoe trippers snear, we did listen to recorded music in the canoes!) his great abilities with the kids, his strength and his willingness to paddle ten hours (shannon and i usually give up after six) he also gave me an excuse to sleep in every morning since he likes a good long sleep as well

all in all, it was a brilliant trip. We only had rain once, and though I was unable to dry out sidney's sweatshirt until toronto, it was so warm that he didn't need it. The river is fantastic, and despite it's popularity we only saw one other canoe and three people who walked out of the bush, watched us swim naked and then turned around and walked back in

i leave you with our song:

Lego Pokemon! Pirate Island!
Lego Pokemon, Pirate Island two!

there was a wonderful canoer, lenny is his name
and when he's not in a canoe, dancing is his game
he dances on the river, in the white water he spins!
and when we come out of the rapids alive this is what he sings:


Lego Pokemon! Pirate Island!
Lego Pokemon, Pirate Island two!

 There was a woman in the stern her name is shannon green
she dodges the big rocks, best stern i've ever seen
when she gets to the camp site she drinks a lot of beer
then she starts to sing, this is what i hear:

Lego Pokemon! Pirate Island!
Lego Pokemon, Pirate Island two!

there's a little guy with a paddle, his name is sid
he likes to take of pokemon, he is a great kid
he talks to the wolves, a wilderness person's dream
and when he wakes up in the morning this is what he screams:

Lego Pokemon! Pirate Island!
Lego Pokemon, Pirate Island two!

my favourite little canoeist goes by the name of lucky
he's quite a little adventurer, you can even say he's plucky
he points out the routes in the rapids, really knows his river
and then he screams out this song, his words make me quiver:

Lego Pokemon! Pirate Island!
Lego Pokemon, Pirate Island two!

my love to my four adventurers!

pictures soon to follow