Day XI - Pékans, at last.

WE ARE (more or less) BACK ON TRACK

After a cumulative of about 3 km of portage, a bunch of sets and the first sunny day without significant rain (yaaaay!), we finally made it to Pékans Falls, at a campsite that has a little something tropical about it (beach, gigantic trees, mosquitoes…) and we caught up with our attempt schedule that kept on being pushed back due to several events such as:
- Fucking Opocopa headwinds
- The kids’ chronic incapacity to hurry up in the morning
- The whole lifejacket episode

So right now we’re not ahead of time, but we’re not late anymore. Wonder-awesome.

Today’s 3 portages and carryover were particularly efficient. It’s both cool and frustrating to see how our kids can be machines when they want to but sometimes just won’t do anything… but in any case, they were awesome today.

There was a dead mouse on a rock during the carryover. I wondered if, with our usual luck, anyone would freak out at the sight of it during a particularly critical moment. It didn’t happen, though. Good. We also saw an otter jump in the rapids and a few eagles. None of them reclaimed the feather we found the other day.

Nat’s funny. He’s a good paddler but he’s a little zealous in the rapids about spotting rocks. At the sight of the smallest pillow rock he’ll scream “ROOOOOCK” at the top of his voice… considering most of the sets we’re running these days are bump-and-grind style, he screams a lot…

Pékans was pretty impressive. Now that this raging waterfall is pumping loads of water into the Moisie, the river will become major league I'm pretty sure.

First roasted marshmallows of the summer.

The cabbage smells like mould already and the carrots are progressively melting into a smelly goo. Good thing we have lots of curry.

My legs look like a battlefield… bushwhacking might finish off the skin that’s left on them if the bugs don’t take care of it before…

The kids also seem to have a hard time with portaging and the environment... it doesn't impair their habitual cynsim, though:

(Reznick at the end of a portage) “Holy fucking Jesus!!!”
(Basen) “Aren’t you Jewish, Sam?”

Day X - Capital letters are satisfying on long days.

WE ARE FUCKING SLOW
(It took us until 16h00 to finish the fucking portage)
WE ARE OFFICIALLY ON THE MOISIE
(Finally, cliffs and current)
WE LOST MOSES
(I already miss that little fuzzball)

THERE IS GOAT SHIT EVERYWHERE
(My clothes, the tent, Luke, the dishes…)

MY BACK HURTS
(and all the rest of my body as well, but whatever)
50% OF THE PIZZA BANNOCK WAS OK
(The other half wasn’t cooked properly and it needed onions)
I SCOUTED MY FIRST SET OF RAPIDS OF THE SEASON
(Nobody died)
EMILY IS GETTING BETTER AT PADDLING
(She's actually good when she pays attention to what we tell her)
WE ARE LOW ON COOKING OIL FOR THE PEROGIES
(And probably several other essential items)
I AM TIRED AND IRRITABLE
(Even Flight of the Conchords' hilarious songs get on my nerves today)
WE HAD NICE WEATHER FOR MORE THAN 50% OF THE DAY
(At last)

Day IX - Putain de put-in...

In the “Grand n’importe quoi” category, today was a record breaker.

How can two 16-year old boys that did a 12-day Coulonge pin a canoe in a C1 comparable to the sets on the Mattawa?!?!?! I barely believed Nat and Nick when they told me that Luke and Reznick had dumped…It took Marcus and I about 20 minutes and a lot of frustration-induced strength to get the fucking canoe out.

As we reconvened at the end of the set, Nick realised that he had left his Grey Owl paddle on shore at the site of the pin. He was ready to leave it there when read on our faces that he'd better go get it.

The real adventure of the day, though, was definitely the 1.2km portage we did around waterfalls explorers, prospectors and government officials didn’t even bother naming. Marcus and I, on our first trip, realised that there was a put it (or "putain", as Oli Brière comically renamed it) about 500m after the take out. We scout the portage in its entirety as the kids portage everything to the first put in. The path was ok but was crossing a bunch of boulder fields that Hayley will later describe quite accurately as “ankle breaking territories”. Marcus goes off to scout the rest of the rapids as we munch on wet trail mix. According to him, it’s runnable if we line and carry over parts of it. We decide to take a chance…

Unfortunately, it wasn’t our lucky day. After 200m of sketchy lining and bump-and-grind paddling, Jacqui falling into the water, a broken yoke and a few other échappé-belles, we come to realise that we’ve made a huge mistake, as GOB would say. We definitely can’t keep going, especially since it’s freezing cold, rainy and windy, it’s 16h00 and we got nothing but a handful of soggy peanut-free gorp in our bellies since this morning’s oatmeal and fried fruits. We ain’t got a choice, we have to go back to the put in (sigh).

(Whoever said that the shortest way between A and B was right. Or at least it’s more efficient than what we did this afternoon…)

So after considering several scenarios, we decide to haul the boats back up the rapids in waist-deep water, accumulating bruises, scratches and other miscellaneous small injuries that we can’t feel for the moment because all of our lower body is numb with mild hypothermia. Once everything is taken back to the put in, we start portaging on the path we should have followed in the first place.

Now, that’s frustrating.

On our last trip to get the frou frou that had been left behind, we made quite a strange discovery…

A faint quack-quack attracts Marcus’ attention… as we get closer, we realize that it comes from an abandoned god-knows-what, probably some kind of duckling or gosling, sitting in the bushes, petrified with fear… We joke around about taking it with us and therefore saving it from being eaten by the first predator to come across it, but progressively the joke turns into a real saving intent… as Marcus tries to catch it, the poor thing runs off and falls into a crevasse… Ok so now it’s definitely going to die…

We try to get it out with paddles first, but our attempts remain vain so we change our tactic in sending me face first into the crevasse to get it. It was the first time I ever took a bird in my hands and I was pretty awkward about it since I was a little scared that it might bite me (stupid idea now that I know that some paperclips pinched my fingers harder than that poor thing), but in the end I got it. After debating for a while (Franklin, Lazarus, etc.), we finally decide to call it Moses, since it somewhat sounds like Moisie and we found the poor thing orphan in the river…

At lunchtime (20h30), when we finally had soy nut butter and the rest of grand-maman’s jam on tortillas, the kids get to know Moses. He spent most of his time eating mosquitos (good thing) and shitting all over the place because it was terrified (we need to work on that). Surprisingly, though, it remained very calm as we went down the last sets before our campsite, hiding quietly under my seat, facing the end of the canoe. We had another of those gorgeous rainbows, which helped everyone's morale as we were waiting for Marcus to scout. We set camp at dusk at the middle of a portage. The boys had to go get water and some stuff we left at the beginning of the portage in the dark so Marcus armed them with the GPS set up on "go to" with our campsite coordinates. Losing 3 kids in the woods was the last thing we needed today.

Marcus, in a pyromaniac brainfart, built quite possibly the biggest cooking fire I’ve ever seen and went around shouting utterances such as “Burn, mother’ucker!” in a slightly deviant voice. It’s been a long day for everyone, I guess. As I cooked pizza bannock and refamiliarized with my old friend the outback oven, Moses stopped trying to run away and chilled by my feet. The heat radiating from the bonfire slowly turned it back to its original puffy texture, which made him cuter despite the fact that he still shits all over the place (including my clothes). He slept in our tent in a makeshift nest made out of a plastic bag and moss.

Oh, before I forget: Marcus’ superwatch ran out of batteries today, which leaves us with my 12 year-old Ironman watch with no alarm and two missing buttons as our only provider of time. Great.

Day VIII - Enjoy your lifejacket, you're very rude.

Beurk.

Not only do we get attitude when we called back yesterday about the fucking lost lifejacket, but in addition to that the bush pilot (which I imagined with a tremendous angry face, a cigarette at the corner of his mouth and an unshaved beard that makes him look like a convict) literally dumps the new lifejacket in the middle of Opocopa… not that it’s exactly how we lost it in the first place or anything… So here we are, Sarah and I, paddling and trying not to loose sight of a minuscule red dot across this huge body of dreadful, wavy hell. Thanks, asshole. At least it made an epic conclusion to this mishap.

Dinner in the cabin yesterday was like cooking in a sauna, since we unwisely used the stove to bring our water (and the rest of the air contained in the cabin while we were at it) to boiling temperature. The cabin progressively heated up and the air separated into various layers that got hotter and hotter as you went up. Marcus, exhausted by his frantic paddle in search of the lifejacket and dodging of storm cells, was about to pass out and land face first in the vegetable stir fry, so he went lying down on the floor, i.e. the only area where the air was anywhere near breathable. I finished cooking dinner in my bathing suit, taking several breaks to go outside cool off in the brisk Northern Québec night. Being overheated made me somewhat cynical:

(Reznick) – I really respect Eminem. He’s a real gangster…
(Fallis) – No he’s not…
(Reznick) – Well, he had a pretty hard life and all, which makes him a real gangster…
(Me) - Helen Keller had a hard life too and she’s not a gangster…

I’m sick of being sleep deprived.

First push day of the trip. I guess we all needed it, both because freakin’ Opocopa devoured our extra time and because kids need to be pushed to the edge a little more right now.

I never thought that some day I’d get to the point where I would duel an inanimate object such as a motherfuckin’ big lake. Opocopa was defeated today, or at least we survived it. I kissed a rock at the end of it, I couldn’t think of any other way to express my happiness.

We checked out an esker today. It was cool, I felt like I was on some kind of a natural via romana. Kids were hanging out in a circle, their backs against the gorgeous landscape, as if they were in a high school yard during recess. Sometimes they discourage me a little. But then they goof around and occasionally do extraordinary shit and it makes me happy.

Marcus just farted.

Day VII - Opocopa you suck.

It’s 16h30 TTZ. I’m stitting on a deep layer of emerald-coloured moss, my back against a tree, black flies devouring the 5 square inches of exposed skin I have left, and I am waiting for Luke and Marcus to come back to know if they found the lifejacket that was blown away in the Opocopa wind this morning. Câlisse.

Everyone else is spooning in what might be the worst tarp job in modern history. I’ve been knee deep in cold water at the point twice already to see if Marcus and Luke were in sight. Nothing. Time passes by VERY slowly. I had time to extensively clean and bite all my nails, to kill about 387802458 black flies and to call camp. We have to call back at 18h30, said Dave.

As we were saying earlier, it’s better to call because we lost shit than because someone is injured. But the best remains not calling at all.

ON VA TU FINIR PAR LE FINIR CE FOUTU LAC-LÀ?

Hace un viento que te cagas desde que llegamos aquí. Marcus tenía razón (como siempre) de decir que cosas raras ocurren al norte del 50º paralelo… No sé todavía a que me refiero, puesto que a parte de la perdida de esta maldita chaqueta salvavidas no hubo nada que se podría describir como “raro”, pero persiste este sentimiento extraño de que estamos en otro planeta, o por lo menos otro país… pero un país desierto, donde hay que deducir por ti mismo porque por razones desconocidas se han marchado todos los habitantes, dejándote abandonado sin el manual de instrucciones para este ambiente surrealista.

Black flies are having a fucking party on my lower back right now.

I’m starting to understand “Surfacing” at a whole new level right now.

I’m still debating whether or not I should be writing a bunch of random thoughts and slices of life in this journal or if I should keep a detailed log of all the stuff we do. I guess parts of me want to remember every minute of the trip, while other parts find it more authentic to just write whatever I find relevant at the time. I guess the river will decide for me.

Day VI - Can a bug be prosecuted for a neck rape?

FUCKIN’ HEADWINDS!!!

I :( lake Opocopa…

Other facts and cool moments

- The girls and their endless water pumping session in the morning
- Sam lingering in the tent as everyone else is moving and packing

- Sarah and Luke coming up with "Part time Paraplegic", their own version of a Flight of the Conchords song
- Our mad jam session at night including about an hour of non-stop "freestyling" on the chords of "Gone" by Jack Johnson
- The Mega-panzarotti shaped like a gramma’s bonnet co-created by Nick and Luke
- Emily lily dipping and being made fun of for it
- Nat’s explanation of Judaism
- The day 3 campsite
o Gorging ourselves with cranberries
o Lying on the moss
o Finding an eagle feather (apparently you’re on the right path when you find one. We’ll keep it in the map case, hopefully the saying is true)
- The creepy noise of the waves against shore
- The girl’s terrible (and unnecessary) dishwashing job at lunch
- Cutting mangoes on the beach and still feeling very far away from the tropics
- Struggling with our adaptation to trip time zone
- Finding cool pieces of quartz in the water

Day V - “You skullfucker muffincock”

Did you ever wonder if it was possible to take 4 hours to get ready in the morning? Maudit verrat qu’ils sont lents!!! Ok, I must admit it wasn’t entirely the kids’ fault, as we took a while to get a fire started with white gas and we had forgotten to get a lunch ready, but still.

Our Canada day was started off with the firing of the spud gun, followed by delicious paddler's breakfast and by the most exhaustive river morph session I’ve ever attended due to the threat of lightning. It seems to have worked, though, since everyone did very well in the 2 sets we ran today. Scouting was difficult since the water was high and numbingly cold. Actually, it would be better described by "the water was like being slapped in the face with a shovel". There are animal tracks everywhere in the woods, printed in the 2 inches of moss that cover everything: moose, deers, unidentified animals stalking moose and deers (now that’s a little scary), bears…

The campsite is a little scary, not only because of these tracks, but also because of the shreds of torn plastic all over the place. It's the second night in a row that our campsite somewhat looks like a horror movie set, mostly because of traces of human presence.

We paddled all day through narrow, windy river. We stopped in a swampy and buggy area to gulp down the potato salad.

I like the kids.

We caught sight of a moose that hadn’t smelled us until we turned the corner. Majestic animal.

Our campsite is weird. I smiled and thought of Cam Baldassara when I saw all the mossy patches. As the Rogan Josh was cooking, a jam session was improvised.

I cough. A lot.

Our tent spot kind of sucks despite the thick layer of moss. I can’t believe I spent so much time camping without a therma-rest.

Marcus demonstrated how flies don’t need a head to live. Interesting.