He also wrote, “Canoeing gets you back to nature, using a method of travel that does not even call for roads or paths. You are following nature’s roads.…You discover a sort of simplifying of your values, a distinction between those artificially created and those that are necessary to your spiritual and human development.”
I often wake before my companions and paddle the shoreline of the early dawn. I find it euphoric, a heavenly experience, a combination of sheer excitement and complete peace. There is no other time in my life when these two incredible yet diametrically opposed feelings coexist.
Rod MacKenzie and George Danio entering Hamburg Lake.
What is it about canoe country that makes it so special? Accessibility to your own small piece of heaven is part of it. The nearly four hundred island-studded lakes in close proximity are interconnected by rivers, streams, and ancient paths called portages. The perimeter of these lakes is often lined with mature red and white pine. Their stunning beauty is only surpassed by their ability to create the most magnificent campsites on this planet. As the lower branches drop their needles a carpet is formed that inhibits growth of underbrush. Combine this with a rocky outcrop of the Canadian Shield and you have a camper’s paradise. Hundreds of such campsites can be found scattered throughout the park, and it is not rare to travel for days without seeing another person.
These same portages and campsites were used by Aboriginal people for thousands of years and were visited by the explorers and voyageurs who traded with them in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Rich in wildlife, the area was vital to the fur trade. Numerous references to the beauty and features of this land were mentioned in the journals of famous explorers and traders such as David Thompson and Alexander MacKenzie.
One of MacKenzie’s journal entries describes how Saganaga Lake was a cherished spot among the Native peoples: “The population was very numerous: this was also a favourite part, where they made their canoes, &c. the lake abounding in fish, the country round it being plentifully supplied with various kinds of game, and the rocky ridges, that form the boundaries of the water, covered with a variety of berries.”
These were the trade routes of the continent’s first economy, the highways of a fledgling nation before the automobile. Anyone who travels within the boundless territory is sure to feel an overwhelming sense of freedom and timelessness. The only schedules are self-imposed. Where, when, and for how long is entirely at your discretion, influenced only by the rhythms of nature just as it was for the inhabitants of the past millennia.
Year upon year those who have felt its power return, often for several weeks at a time, to explore the never-ending labyrinth of lakes. It is a time to re-energize, to endure hardship, to build physical, emotional, and spiritual strength. But most of all it is a time to grow: a time to feel alive in every sense of the word. Not a way to escape everyday life but instead a way to make sense of it and cherish it. Those who “disappear” to the north woods for a month at a time, sometimes by themselves, aren’t running away — they are returning home.
The motivation to return is best described in the essay “Why Wilderness?” by Sigurd Olson: “Ask those who have known it and have made it part of their lives. They might not be able to explain, but your very question will kindle a light in eyes that have reflected the campfires of a continent, eyes that know the glory of dawns and sunsets and nights under the stars.” This as much as anything describes the magic of Quetico.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I kept a detailed journal of my first trip to the park, but the majority of the trip is etched vividly in my dendrites. Like most monumental events of our lives, the outing occurred largely by chance. In previous years I had ventured with my brother and brother-in-law on a fly-in fishing trip. It was invariably the highlight of the year.
For various reasons neither was able to join me, so I recruited Rod Mackenzie to help salvage the trip. I’d met Rod when I coached his son’s hockey team, and we quickly became friends. Rod is an incredible individual. He is a very soft-spoken and courteous person who rarely says a negative word, especially about another person. Raised in a small northern town, Rod began working with the railroad at an early age before spending the majority of his career running the control room of Terrace Bay’s pulp and paper mill.
Despite his never attending university, I have always considered him an intellectual, the type of person comfortable in any company. His memory for people and places is uncanny, and he often speaks with the wisdom and demeanour of a village elder, yet at times he can be as giddy as a six-year-old.
For three successive days he enraptured me with stories of his adventures to a motorless wilderness area of which I had never heard, despite its being just two hours from my home. He stressed that it was a different type of trip, as it wasn’t just about the fishing — but the stories of the large and numerous fish had my complete and undivided attention. By the time the plane left the outpost I was committed to joining him next spring, and I could tell he was equally eager to share the experience with a first-timer.
Rod MacKenzie studies a mature white pine along the Jean Creek Portage.
With a copy of Bob Beymer’s A Paddler’s Guide to Quetico in hand and some scribbled notes of Roddy’s past fishing successes, I had the entire winter to plan our route. He left when, where, and for how long entirely up to me, with the exception of mentioning that he would love to visit a small, out-of-the-way lake named Draper if it was okay with me.
After an exceptionally long Northern Ontario winter, our departure date in June eventually did come. A half-day’s work at the office behind me, we hit Stanton Bay off Pickerel Lake by late afternoon and were blessed with a perfectly calm and mild day. With a terrific campsite established in Pickerel Narrows, we had enough daylight left to catch dinner. It was a slow start, however, and just minutes before we planned to pack it in for the evening Rod felt a solid tug on his line. Almost immediately I felt my fishing rod double over. Unable to draw the fish nearer for several minutes, I assumed that I must have latched on to a northern pike. As the fish finally broached the surface I was shocked to see the sharp spines of a large dorsal fin — it was a walleye! In fact it was the largest that I had ever caught, and an excited holler broke the silence of a picture-perfect evening. This incredible fish was too large to keep, but fortunately we added another to the stringer before the sun dipped below the tree tops.
It was an unbelievable beginning. A night of cooking over an open campfire and watching the stars and glowing embers was surreal. Evenings in canoe country are simply magical. So much so that it is a rare occurrence now for me to spend a night cleaning and frying fish. I rapidly distanced myself from this fly-in fishing habit and much prefer catch and release, as the evening time around camp is just too precious.
Every bit as incredible was the dawn of our first full day. There is no better feeling in the world than to be serenaded by dozens of chirping birds while zipping open the tent fly to discover a calm, clear morning. So many people are reluctant to sleep in a tent, but I would choose having just a thin nylon wall between me and the shoreline over a five-star hotel in Paris any day.
After another fantastic campsite and great fishing on Maria Lake, we faced an inadvertently self-imposed challenge. The portage to Jesse Lake looked straightforward enough on the map, since it began at the end of a skinny bay. Trying to distance ourselves from an approaching group, the first we had seen that trip, we hastily disembarked on a moose trail and completely missed the very obvious path just thirty feet across the bay. I had a GPS with me at the time and had been marking the coordinates of each portage until then, but on this occasion it was left with the second load of packs.
Rod