Day XIV - "Is it raining?

Another wasted potential push day.

This morning, I woke up with my feet in a puddle and my back had about this shape:

For a change, we took forever to get out of the campsite. For some reason the girls were a lot more efficient this morning. The kids had decided that because of the shitty tent spots, they’d try to sleep outside last night. Unfortunately (but quite obviously), rain ruined their project and they all had to retreat hurriedly in the boys’ tent early in the morning…

The first set of the day was pretty sweet and kind of similar to the one we ran yesterday. Then we ran another set that seemed to be just a big C1 in the distance but that ended up, as we got closer, being a wave train of epic proportions. Hayley and Jacqui dumped. It was the first dump since the pinned boat.

The more time I spend on this river, the more I realise the scale of what’s around.

We are fucking ants out here.

We had a drifting lunch today, which coincided with the apex of nice weather for the day… but things got shitty pretty fast after that. After eating our 250418th snack with the intention of getting Black Betty somewhat lighter before Salmon Ladder, we started hearing thunder. We then started a time race against the approaching storm front that appeared from the mountains behind us. Quickly enough the wall of rain caught up with us. Ahead was a gigantic cloud shaped like a comic book villain about to punch us in the face…

We finally pulled over on what was supposed to be a campsite but was in fact a flat, overgrown area with some kind of a fire pit. While Marcus was working on creating crop circle-like tent spots in the barrens, I put together a pimped out fire pit back in the woods and picked wild leeks that we had with the mac and cheese.

Time had come to teach the kids how to use the outback oven and make lunch for the following day, and girls happened to be first. After a laborious effort, they ended up making an ok bannock without setting anything on fire. Good for them.

Tonight is the first night where we are going to bed before dusk. Our headlamp batteries are starting to run low. This is a little sad.

Health and physical condition update: before going to bed, I scoured the now pretty badly infected cut on my ankle with Bactine, Polysporin and whatever was left of my self-control. Hopefully it heals. Also, my hair is now long enough to braid it into one braid instead of two. Marcus’ hair isn’t, on the other hand.

We checked out what’s ahead for the next days on the maps and figured out that we aren’t that late after all. We might even be able to have pit days (at last). If only kids moved faster in the morning, that would help.

Slide show tonight. The video of Jacqui and Sarah is just absurd.

Emily asked again “Is it raining?” today. Ridiculous.

Day XIII - Bublé... I'm sorry I broke your heart

Hum, it’s nice out today.

What could start off the day better than a good poutine? A good conversation where we make fun of Michael Bublé, Avril Lavigne and Jessica Simpson around the fire, Luke gorging himself with gravy sauce (probably out of spite just for the hell of grossing everyone out), a good layer of coconut-scented Hawaiian Tropics (which I forgot to reapply later on in the day, causing myself a good old burn on my lower back), and here we are, on our way for another fantastic day on the Moisie!

I accumulate miscellaneous injuries. I know I’ve been writing a lot about this, but it’s worth enumerating them for posterity: hundreds of scratches, pain in my right heel, cut on my ankle that tends to infection, sunburns, eye swollen by fly bites… me tocó la lotería de la salud.

More portages.

We ran unreal sets with awesome standing waves. I shot a video of Sarah and Jacqui flying across a set and some cool pictures of Emily and Nick.

We saw a cool waterfall this morning.

2nd portage: war for the Nutella. Bugs drove everyone insane. We talked about baseball and hockey.

The Moisie is getting prettier every day. Hills turn into legitimate mountains and eskers are higher and higher. The last few kilometres of the day were swifty and led us to “Pope’s favourite”, a neat campsite with ludicrous granite formations, impressive waterfalls and eerie potholes. I wish we could have a pit day here. It’s a ginormous playground!

The sunset was beautiful: we couldn’t see the sun, but rays of golden light reflecting against the wet rocks turned the whole landscape into a jewel. The only problem about this campsite is the lack of decent tent spots. Our tent, for example, is set up on a rock that has about this shape:

We’ll see what kind of sleep I can get from that.

It was Jacqui’s birthday today. We let her choose the food we were going to eat and spent a great deal of time making a chocolate cake with an elaborate strawberry-marshmallow filling. I think she was happy about it. We also gave her the present we had bought for her, an inflatable shark she christened Sherman.

Everyone progressively turns into lepers because of their bug bites. Good thing we didn’t see any human being apart from the members of our group since we left.

Interesting exchange of words:

(Fallis, coming back from scouting the first 2o m of a portage) “This portage is a dick!”
(Basen, grinning) “That means she likes it...”
(Basen, later on) “Yeah, when I grow up I want to become a struggling comedian…”

Day XII -lama-like balsam firs and postcard perfect sunsets

Hum, let’s start with the end, today…



As we were enjoying our very first “early night” of the trip, all happy with our 6km of endless, shitty portages through swamps, black flies, and whatever fucking weird rock formations the glaciers decided to leave there, the Moisie decided to offer us the very first spectacular sunset since we left: the shadow of the narrow valley strained the light of the fading sun, splattering rays of red, pink, yellow and orange light all over the water and the clouds… We all went down by the water and sat on rocks to check out the breathtaking scene. Nobody dared to talk, and with our group that’s really a fucking exploit. It’s always a turning point in long trips when silence isn’t awkward anymore.



I’d probably still be sitting there right now if it hadn’t been of the bannock menacing to burn.

We left the maps to Jacqui today. It’s a little weird at first, kind of like seeing a child’s first steps… but I still can’t tell if it’s Jacqui or the maps themselves I felt insecure about letting go of alone…

I have blisters and a pretty impressive assortment of scratches all the way to the sole of my feet. And don’t even get me started on black flies. The comforting part is that everyone is the same. All men are equal in the taiga…

There is sand everywhere because of our beach campsite from yesterday.

Oh, I got stung by a bee this morning.

Cool elements of the landscape today:

- The valley getting deeper and deeper
- The various tree lines drawn by the shade of the mountains on the opposite shore
- “Pride rock” and it’s intimidating silhouette against the sky
- Pékans, even if really that was more yesterday
- The cottage-sized boulders and rock slide trails

Marcus showed me how to use the machete and got spat in the eye by a balsam fir. We had our first fit of the giggles in a while. That’s reassuring, I guess.



I put my head in a small waterfall this afternoon and everyone made fun of me since the water probably came from a bog on top of the mountain. Whatever, I can’t really be any dirtier than I already am.

Lining is fun.

I wish I could write some more but I’m way too tired.

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.