The air was chilly but we had stayed relatively warm during the night. It helped that we had placed our backpacking mats on top of our regular camping mats which provided more insulation from the ground and was a bit more comfortable.
I woke up at 8:30 to the sounds of highway traffic going by. You could still hear the birds and the chattering of the squirrels in between the short lulls of the vehicles going by. The air was chilly but we had stayed relatively warm during the night. It helped that we had placed our backpacking mats on top of our regular camping mats which provided more insulation from the ground and was a bit more comfortable. There was not much morning sun on our site so I ate my breakfast standing in the sunlight of the empty campsite across from us. It was warmer that way. We packed up camp by 10:45 and headed to the park store to buy a T-shirt. They didn't have anything that I liked so instead we decided to stop in to the Agawa store which was only about a minute down the road. This place was filled with so many hand made items. Even some of the shelving units were handmade out of Birch trees. They had things like colourful hand carved wood ducks. And they had some beautiful glass lights. The walls were filled with the artwork of various painters. In one corner a wooden rocking horse caught my eye. It was made even more interesting by the sign on it that told how it was made by the same carver who made one for Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The wood work pieces in this store were just amazing! From wooden faces on the wall, to wooden vases and bowls on the shelves, the thought and work that went into these pieces were wonderful. There were even wooden board games. The people who made these were very talented. We marveled over how many different shapes and sizes there were of cribbage boards. There was so much to see here. It was almost like walking through an art gallery. We probably spent almost an hour in the store before we finally left and continued on our way to Batchawana Bay which was just 10 minutes down the road. As we had found out the hard way the day before, Batchawana Bay Park is a Day Use Only park. For $11.25 you can load your car up and take the family to the beach for the day. I think that is definitely worth the money if you are in the area. Since we had a valid park permit from Pancake Bay Park we did not need to purchase an additional park permit for Batchawana Bay because Provincial Park permits are transferable in that way. If you make a left when you first come in there is an Information Kiosk at the end of a large parking lot. We parked the car and got out to look around. The Information Kiosk was open for the purpose of public washrooms but no one was around except for the cleaners. So we didn't see what else was inside. Outside the Information Kiosk was a set of picnic tables. I was unclear as to whether or not this was part of the park or if it was open to the general public. If it is not technically part of the park then it would be a good place for lunch and a swim for free if you chose to do so. To the left of the picnic tables was sandy beach that headed towards the tree line. To the right you could see the sandy beach running as far as the eye could see down into the farthest reaches of the park. We got back into the car and started to drive to the other end of the park. The roads were open and paved and well taken care of. One side was lined by many trees that gave you privacy from the near by highway. The other side was bordered by the shores of Lake Superior. There were many little spots with picnic tables and garbage bins where you could park your car and have access to the beach. Some spots didn't have much in the way of trees but most had at least one or two. But every spot had a picnic table and the view of the lake was lovely. The whole place was very quiet and peaceful. We only saw about two or three day campers in the whole park. If it is quiet like this all the time then this would be a fantastic place to spend the day maybe reading a book in the shade of the trees or in the sandy sun. But we didn't have the whole day to spend here. We had to get going because we still had a 6 hour drive ahead of us to get home. So we turned around and headed back out of the park and onto the highway home. We were looking forward to sleeping in our own beds after our week of camping in a tent. But we will also miss being in the great outdoors and we look forward to our next camping trip.
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It was another really cold night. It dipped down to zero degrees Celcius again. Somewhere in the middle of the night we both woke up and were so cold that we broke out the emergency blanket to wrap up in. It was still dark and we didn't turn on the flashlight. We just flailed around with it. We huddled together under it but it kept slipping off of me. Since Heather seemed to need it more than I did, I didn't tell her that she had the whole thing and I just let her believe that we were sharing it. I slept very little and only drifted in and out of sleep. You could hear the loons and the owls calling all night long. They became quiet at around 7 a.m. There were some small birds flitting around the outside of the tent at around 6:30 a.m. I wanted to be asleep but I was too cold and couldn't go back to sleep. At 7:30 I figured that I might as well get up. I could see my breath in the chilly morning air and the dew was running down the sides of the tent. We would probably be packing up the tent while it was still wet this morning. I could hear a boat off in the distance. It was probably the one that brings people to or from the trail entrances. I climbed up the rock cliff to get our food. I was happy to see that no animal of any kind had gotten into it. As I climbed back down the rock with food in tow I met up with a little Wood Frog. He was probably as cold as I was. I started the fire and got some water boiling for coffee and for breakfast. Heather got up not too long after that. She was still cold too. We didn't waste anytime packing up after breakfast because we didn't want to be hanging out when the day hikers started passing by. Besides, we would be warmer when we got moving. At 9 a.m. we were all packed up and just putting our packs on when the first hiker of the day passed by. We had packed up just on time. As we left down the rocky steps of the trail, the sun was only just beginning to show itself over the tops of the trees. I was anxious to see the marsh boardwalk this morning. I was hoping that since it was still morning and not a whole bunch of hikers had gone through that maybe we could see something like a turtle or moose or beaver or something. It only took us about an hour to get to the marsh. The trees opened up into the wide open space of glistening tall marsh grasses that were still wet with morning dew. Once again we kept our distance from each other on the boardwalk so that we both didn't sink in the areas where the water came over the boards. Off in the distance I saw a bird that I took to be a Blue Jay. I have been trying for a few years to get a decent picture of a Blue Jay but had never succeeded. I was hoping that today would be my chance. So I quietly crept closer and zoomed my camera in to try to get a picture without scaring it away. To my surprise it wasn't a Blue Jay at all. But I wasn't disappointed because it was something even better. It was a King Fisher! Up until this point I had never seen a King Fisher in real life before. I was thrilled! There were actually two of them there but one was more camera shy than the other one. The pictures are a bit grainy but I am happy with them. I must have spent a good 20 minutes to half an hour out on the boardwalk trying to get good pictures of the King Fishers. Finally I realized that Heather was no longer in sight. I figured that I had better go catch up with her. I found her waiting for me at the other end of the boardwalk. She didn't mind waiting for me. She is used to me lagging behind to take pictures. About an hour later we were almost done our hike. Just as we were rounding the last bend we saw a strange little mini screen tent in the woods. It was only about 2 feet by 2 feet and came up to maybe my knees.It has a white top and black screen. It hadn't been there on our way in. We figured that it probably had something to do with research but we never did find out what it was for. At 10:40 a.m. we were in the parking lot of the Visitor Center and loading our packs into the car. We did it! We survived some rally cold nights and saw some really beautiful places. We wanted to pop into the Visitor Center before we left the park so that Heather could have a coffee and I could buy a T-shirt. As we were leaving the car and heading towards the Visitor Center we met one of the park rangers. He asked us how the trip was and explained that he was in charge of the trails and their upkeep and that he liked to hear directly from the hikers who come off the trail. We talked to him for about 20 minutes and told him how much we enjoyed it and how it differed from the provincial parks. We also talked about the various types of animals that could be seen out there. Until that point we had no idea that there was potential to see caribou if you go to a certain spot in the park. He also told us that they had just heard from a backpacker that had recently returned that they were being stalked by a bear. Stalking by a black bear is not common behaviour and is a bit concerning so they had sent some of their "bear guys" in to investigate. He didn't say for certain what they would do about it but I already knew that if they deemed the bear to be threat but not necessarily a danger then they would tranquilize it and relocate it. But if it were deemed to be a danger then it would have to be put down. I guess we will never know what the end result was for that bear. We said good bye to the ranger and headed over to the Visitor Center for coffee. When we got into the Visitor Center we were disappointed to find out that the power was out. Apparently they have scheduled power outs about 2 times a year and this just happened to be one of those times. This meant that there was no power to run the debit machine to get my T-shirt and no power to make coffee. Heather was in luck though because since they knew the power was going to be out they had made coffee ahead of time and were storing it in a thermos. Heather was able to get one of the last cups of coffee from the thermos. They said that the power should be back on within an hour so we decided to fill out the "Back Country Return-Registration Form" and wait for a bit. When the form was filled in the power still wasn't on so we went out to the back patio of the Visitor Center to look around for a bit. To the left were some stairs that went right into the water. We looked down the water towards the direction we had traveled that morning. It was a beautiful view. To the right was the beginning of some of the other day hike trails that the park has. If I were to have the opportunity to come back here I would love to take an afternoon and hike one or two of those trails. But we were anxious to get on our way so we weren't going to hike them today. Eventually we got tired of waiting for the power to come on. I really wanted a T-shirt but didn't have enough cash. I opted instead to buy a Pukaskwa patch that I could sew onto a shirt at a later date. I had just enough cash on me for the patch. There is a bathroom just outside the Visitor Center and we figured we had better use it before we started our drive. What we forgot though was since the power was out there were no lights and the bathroom had no windows. So there I was feeling around in the dark for the toilet paper and for the flush handle. It was entertaining to try to wash your hands in the sink with just a sliver of light from under the door to see by. When I came out Heather wasn't there, but a couple of other girls were lined up. I let them know that the power was out and it was dark and they thanked me. Then I went off to find Heather. Heather was the smart one. She remembered that there was an outhouse type bathroom closer to the parking lot and since of course outhouses are designed with no power in mind, there was natural light available to her through the windows in the top. So she didn't have to stumble around in the dark to use the bathroom. Instead of driving 10 hours in one day to get home we decided to break the trip up into two days. We wanted to spend the night at Batchawana Bay Provincial Park. It was probably about 3 and a half hours away from Pukaskwa. But first we had to stop and get a nice juicy burger from the A&W in White River and to gas up the car. We had planned on getting a burger on the way home before we even started the hike and boy was it delicious after being in the woods for days! We drove through Lake Superior Provincial Park which is a pretty big park. Not as big as Algonquin Park, but still a fair size. Just like Algonquin Park, the highway runs through parts of it. Lake Superior Park is another park that I intend to camp in one day. We drove past Pancake Bay Provincial Park which I had camped in about 3 years previous. About 10 minutes further down the highway we arrived at Batchawana Bay Provincial Park. We were happy to have arrived and were looking forward to setting up camp. But as we drove up and read the signs we realized that we had made a mistake. We couldn't stay the night at Batchawana Bay Park because it was a Day Use only park! So we sat for a moment and weighed our options. We could go back to Lake Superior Park or Pancake Bay Park. Since Pancake Bay was only a few minutes drive back the way we came we decided to go there. As we pulled up into the entrance of Pancake Bay Provincial Park I started laughing. As we drove in the first thing we saw was one of the park staff sitting under a blue shade tent greeting all the new arrivals. I said to Heather "Is that their park office now?" She started chuckling too because if you haven't been there before and didn't know that the actual office was down the road a little ways you might get the impression that this was their park office. But she was more like a park greeter and she welcomed us to the park and directed us to the office. We had been worried that since it was coming up to the weekend and we didn't have any reservation that there may not be any spots left but she assured us that there was still plenty of space left. So we headed over to get registered. We were assigned site 206. I don't like it when you don't get to go in and choose your site on your own but they said if it wasn't good for us that we could come back and change it. But we had nothing to worry about. Site 206 was actually a nice site. And it was huge! you could probably fit 4 or 5 tents on this site. It was not directly beside the highway like the sites across the road from us were. Unfortunately the whole park runs parallel to the highway so there is constant sounds of transports and traffics at all times of the day and night. But we were here just passing through and not here for a lengthy stay so we didn't let the traffic bother us. There was a little more shade than I would have liked but all in all it was a decent site. We set up the tent to dry out but we didn't unpack our stuff just yet. We wanted to take showers first. It was while we were setting up the tent that we began to notice just how many kids were riding around on bicycles. They were everywhere and were travelling in little packs. It became even more noticeable when they started riding through our site while we were setting up to get onto the walking paths that led to other campsites. They had no respect for the other campers. It's times like this you remember why you love backpacking in the back country so much. In an effort to limit the amount of bike riding through our campsite we strung a clothes line across the entrance to the path. We figured we better hang some stuff on the line so that the kids knew it was there and didn't accidentally strangle themselves by driving through. We needed to dry out our wet gear anyways so it worked on two levels. And it did work. the kids stopped driving through our site after that. Next stop was the showers at the comfort station! The showers were clean and had plenty of hooks and shelf space. The water was hot and I am sure I stayed in there way longer than I needed to. Outside the showers was a little covered information sign. It had a section that talked about bears and I marveled at the agility and dexterity of the bear in the pictures that was going for a free meal in someone's bird feeder. I though to myself "hanging food in a tree in the woods would never stop a bear from getting it if it really wanted to". There was also a sign about the upcoming events in the park for the week. I thought that Art In The Park sounded great. But then I realized that it was probably just a kids program. It was still early yet when we were done our showers so we decided to go for a walk down the road to see more of the park. Yes, even after days and days of walking we were still wanting to walk some more. We headed up the road that ran parallel to the beach. The beach had plenty of beach sand but it also had plenty of coarse grass growing up through it. It was pretty to look at though. The water at the beach seemed fairly shallow and so we figured that it was probably warmer to swim in than other places on Lake Superior like Pukaskwa. The sea gulls seemed to like it well enough. The beach is very long and goes as far as the eye can see. "How far do you want to go?" I asked Heather. "Well there is a Yurt in the park somewhere up ahead. Lets go see if we can find it". Along the way we saw some campers with hammocks hanging in the trees. If I were going to stay for more than one day, that might definitely be something I would be interested in taking on a camping trip with me. We eventually came to the site with the yurt on it. It was nice because it was surrounded by trees and a fence and looked fairly private in comparison to the other sites. Just like most of the other sites this one was full of kids on bikes. We didn't want to look like we were staring so we didn't stop and we continued on. A little further down we were surprised to find a little wooden bridge that crossed over a stream and out to the beach. The stream joined up with the lake with not much more than a sand bar between them. And on the right hand side was some leafy vegetation. The water was filled with little minnows and small jumping fish. It was a nice peaceful spot. We didn't go much farther than that because we realized that the sun would be going down in awhile and we still had to go and get our sleeping bags set up and have supper. So we turned around and headed back. On the way back we noticed a site with an RV on it and they had a satellite dish set up along the road side. That isn't too uncommon for sites with RV's. But what drew our attention to it was the fact that it had the site number written in the corner of it. We wondered if the campers brought their own satellite dish and wrote their site number on it or if the park rented these out. We had intended to ask at the park office, but we forgot and never did find out. Our mom and dad were supposed to go out west later on in the summer so we kept an eye out for some good sites for their RV that they might like to reserve. Site 237 was a good one for tenting but site 364 was an even better one for an RV. We took a slightly different way back to our campsite and as we rounded a corner we saw a neat little information center. There was a picnic table situated under the sign where I guess they usually have someone sitting to answer any questions people may have. But since it was closed for the day no one was there. On the bulletin board of the information center was a poster that caught my eye. It talked about Fall camping at Pancake Bay and how you could camp for 30 days there for under $20 per night. Now if I had that kind of time, I would love to go camping for 30 days! It's something to keep in mind for the future when I retire. The closer we got to our site the more and more kids started whizzing by on their bikes. They were not accompanied by any adults and they ranged in age from about 4 to 7 years of age. They had no regard for traffic at all and we were so worried that one of them were going to get hit by a car. One lady driving in a car past noticed our horrified looks on our face as she tried to pick her way through the kids that were weaving all over the road. Our eyes met and we all shook our heads and gave that look of "if those were my kids....." But they weren't so there wasn't much we could do about it. When we got back we jumped in the car and made a quick trip to the office to buy some wood. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the price of wood was cheaper by about a dollar here than in most other parks. However, the wood was a little wet so I guess you get what you pay for. When we got back to the site it was starting to get dark. The elderly couple across the road from us had an RV and they had set up some flashing disco lights on it as well as on their picnic table. I think they had their grand daughter with them so it may have been for her sake more than for their own. We went about setting up our beds and making a fire and getting supper made. It was going to be another chilly night of about 9 degrees Celcius but we were happy to know that it wasn't going to go down to zero degrees Celcius.
After we ate supper we headed into the tent and played a card game called Squarrels until about 11:30 pm. And with the sound of the transports going by every few minutes we drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow we head home. I woke up at 6:30 in the morning with my feet and lower body freezing like blocks of ice! It was so cold and I just couldn't get warm. When you are backpacking you don't carry a lot of extra stuff like an extra blanket. So I opted for a towel to wrap around me. That didn't help. By 7:30 I was still cold. So I resorted to putting on my jeans and wrapping back up in the sleeping bag. It wasn't perfect but it was warm enough for me to go back to sleep for awhile. We had wanted to be up by 8 and we had set a little wind up alarm clock that we had with us, but it didn't go off. So we ended up sleeping in until 9. I still had cold feet and even though the sun was shining it was still pretty cold out. Heather told me that she had been cold all night too. We found out the next day that the temperature had dropped to zero degrees Celcius during the night. No wonder we were so cold! We had a quick breakfast and then we packed up camp and headed back the way we had come the day before. We were aiming to stop for water at site P1 before heading to where we intended to set up a makeshift campsite just before the marsh. We hoped to be at our intended destination around 5 pm or later and maybe set up our tent at around 7pm. We figured most, if not all, of the day hikers would be off the trail by then. By 10:30 a.m. we were on our way back. It's funny how things look different when coming from a different direction. The sea of driftwood seemed even bigger. Although I hadn't used a walking stick the entire trip Heather and I each chose one from this massive collection of wood. It ended up coming in handy many times and I wondered why I hadn't looked for one sooner. There were many nice looking mushrooms near the bases of the trees. I know nothing about mushrooms so I never pick them. Some people know which ones are poisonous or not. I just assume that they all are just to be safe. Along the wooden bridge with the missing railing there were plenty of birds. I tink this was because we were so high up that we were close to the tops of many of the trees. This little Yellow-throated Vireo was kind enough to let me take his picture. It only took us an hour to hike to the suspension bridge. We stopped again for about a half an hour to rest and to enjoy the view. Heather wanted me to get a picture of the falls with no metal bridge in the frame. So I went to the middle of the bridge, got down on my hands and knees and took a few pictures through the holes in the bottom of the bridge. I am sure that if someone had come by at that time they would have thought I was bonkers. But it is a nicer picture of the water without the metal in the way. We picked up our packs and started hiking again at about noon. Heather and I started counting the day hikers as they passed us. We would stop to say i and casually ask if they were going in for the day or if they were in for the night or longer. We wanted to know so that when we got to our makeshift camp we would know how many people were going to pass us on their way out before we would set up our tent. We aren't technically supposed to set up camp just anywhere unless you don't have much choice. So we were trying to keep it as low key as possible. So far the only person we saw all day was one jogger. I don't think I would want to jog on hiking trails. You wouldn't able to enjoy the birds and animals because they would all be scared away, and there are a lot of roots and brush and slippery rocks that you could get hurt on. We went back through the pine forest where the wildlife camera was. Two college age girls passed us at the beginning of this section and they were on their way to the suspension bridge. They were going pretty fast and we were taking our time. So they ended up passing us again on the way out before we had even finished leaving the pine forest area. Now the pine forest area is pretty big and goes on for a long time, but they still had to be travelling fairly quickly to pass us twice. When we got to the first sign for the Mdaabii Miikna Loop we met up with a couple from Ohio who were going to the bridge. There seemed to be quite a few people that come from the U.S.A. to hike in this park. We were not tired yet when we got to the sign so we didn't stop to rest here this time. Instead we continued on to the second sign. We got to the second sign at about 1:30 p.m. and we did stop there and had our lunch. Heather pulled out the portable stove and boiled some water for some instant noodles. While we waited for the water to boil a man came by with his dog and we chatted with him for awhile. The man's name was Collin and he was from London, Ontario. His dog's name was Maggie and Maggie was 11 years old and was wearing a little doggie backpack. I thought that a doggie backpack was a great idea, but unfortunately my dog is 15 years old and would never be able to make a trip like this one anymore. After Collin left I looked around the area while we still waited for the water to boil. I really liked the deep blue colour of the berries on the Blue Bead Lily (also known as Clintonia) that were plentiful in this area. The Trilliums with their brilliant red berries were also plentiful in this area. Finally the water was boiled and we sat down to eat our noodles. As we were finishing up an older gentleman in his 70s came by and we chatted with him for a bit. He was wondering where the trail for the Mdaabii Miikna Loop was. We pointed out the little yellow ribbons because if you weren't paying attention you could easily miss where the trail was despite there being a huge sign there. It really didn't look like a trail at all yet. He thanked us and went on his way. We were on our way shortly after that too. It was almost 2:30 by then. We arrived at site P1 by 3 pm. We were amazed that we had gone 1.47 km in only 25 minutes. We usually take much longer than that but I guess since our packs were lighter and we weren't tired we had more stamina. We were happy to find that no one else was camping here yet because this was our last and only stop to get water. We hooked up the platypus filter and got as much clean water as we could carry. While we waited for the water to fill up we were visited again by a Gray Comma butterfly. We left site P1 at about 3:30 pm. Once again we went through the moss covered rocks that towered above our heads. It is such a beautiful section of the trail. By 5 pm we had made it to our destination. We put our packs down in the open rocky area and made it look like we were just stopping for a quick rest to the eye of any passers by. While we waited for evening to come we began to scope the place out and look for a good place to put up the tent. We had no bear bin here and the trees were not very suitable to climb and hang our food in. We weren't overly concerned about animals making off with our food because we were leaving the park the next day anyways. We knew we wouldn't starve if we had nothing left to eat. We ended up finding a rocky cliff area that you had to climb up to get to. There was only one way to get up to it and it was a cliff all the way around the sides. So we felt OK about leaving our food up there instead of in a tree. We found a spot where a dead tree was laying across the rocks and made for a decent barrier between us and people who may still be walking down the trail. We chose that spot as our "makeshift campsite" Next we began the task of gathering up suitable rocks and making ourselves a tiny little fire pit. It was just small enough to set a kettle on and not much more. We had no intentions of sitting around a fire for the evening. We didn't want to have to worry about accidentally burning down the forest because we didn't have a whole lot of water to spare, so we just kept it simple. Once that was done we just sat around and relaxed for awhile. There were a couple of mosquitoes and even a couple of black flies but they were not bothersome at all. There were much nicer bugs to look at too , like the bright green caterpillar of the One Eyed Sphinx moth. When we figured that all the hikers had gone for the day we went ahead and put our tent up. We started the fire for our supper at about 7 pm and ate at about 7:30 pm. Then we cleaned up and I climbed up the rock to put our food away.
It was such a nice night that we spent a few minutes watching the stars and the moon start to come out . But we wanted to get an early start in the morning so we went into the tent fairly early. We played cribbage until 9 and then decided that it was lights out. As I was drifting off to sleep I suddenly thought "Oh geez! We were worried about how to keep a bear from our food but never thought about other animals like foxes or mice! Oh well.... I am not getting out of bed to fix it now. We are leaving tomorrow anyways so if they get it then they get it." And with that thought, I tried to sleep but I kept listening for animals outside the tent that might be getting into the food. I couldn't help it. I almost wished for the sound of the rushing water of the falls so that I could not hear anything else and turn my thoughts to other things. Once I was satisfied that all I could hear was the sound of a Barred owl close by, my mind finally started to relax (at least a half hour later) and I was able to finally fall asleep. It was very cold when we woke up in the morning. It was 9:30 a.m. and the sun was up but the air was not warm. It had been a cold night all night and I hadn't slept the best. What we didn't know until a few days later was that it had dipped down to about 2 degrees Celcius that night. We had said the night before that we weren't going to light a fire this morning but we changed our mind and lit one anyways just to get a bit of warmth. We packed up and left at about 10:55 a.m. and said good-bye to our neighbours as we passed through their campsite to get to the portage trail. We only had only 1 km to hike to Hooks Falls. The portage hill that we were dreading having to climb back up was not nearly as bad as it was going down. I still wouldn't want to have to take a canoe over it though. When we got in to the trees where we were shielded from the wind started to warm up a bit and we could enjoy the sites. There were some colourful mushrooms nestled within the moss and leaves of the forest floor. Back at the top of the portage hill we came to the mail box again. This time I decided to write something in it since I hadn't the day before. There had been a song going through my head for the past few days so I wrote that down. "This is my Father's World And through my listening ears All nature sings And 'round me rings The beauty of the Earth" We went back down the other side of the hill and past the portage that we had sat at the previous day. We came to a bridge with no railings on it. At least not yet. Off to the side were some brand new railings waiting to be put into place. One thing I was particularly impressed with in this park is just how well they take care of the trail and all the bridges on it. They do a very good job of keeping things in good condition here. I think the trail between the portage and the Hooks Falls campsite is one of my favourite legs of the trail (although I still really like the marsh boardwalk). This section changes frequently and it's all very beautiful. Some places have flat open spaces under the cedar trees where you could sit and do some bird watching easily for hours. Other spots were your typical rocky hills. Then it turned into a sea bed of drift wood. The entire path was a bunch of drift wood that you had to pick your way and navigate through. I have never seen anything like it on a hiking trail before. We came to a large rock where the park staff had been kind enough to build a set of stairs. I am sure that without these stairs there was no way I would have gotten up that rock with my pack on. So I was grateful that they were there. Off in the distance we could see some misty spray from the rapids. Hooks Falls! we thought. The campsite must be close now. The spray from the water looked beautiful against the green of the trees. But it wasn't Hooks Falls. At least not the part of Hooks Falls where our campsite was. Instead it was just where another portage was. We continued on past some large old trees. We walked under some interesting old cedars that were leaning over like a canopy over the trail. The trees in this section really had some character to them. Just like the days previous there were sections where the trees lined the sides of the trail like walls. And again we had a carpet of green on the forest floor. At about noon we found the sign to our campsite at Hooks Falls. But more importantly we found the sign for the bathroom. Heather had drank a lot of coffee before we left and she really had to go. The outhouse was half way down the hill between the main trail and the campsite. Heather dropped her pack and ran inside. AS I waited for her I could hear her chuckling. She called out to me and said "There is a smiling face on the toilet lid!" Sure enough there was. The outhouse was pretty dirty with leaves on the floor and a layer of dirt on the seat. Someone had written Smile and drew a happy face on the lid. I said to her "That's because you are happy that you made it on time". Later on I added "You made it!" to the writing on the toilet lid. As I waited for Heather I noticed that there were people already on our site. I thought that they were the occupants from the previous night. In most places you don't have to leave a site until 2 p.m. and it was only about noon so we didn't want to rush them. They looked like they were packing up anyways. Turns out it was a family who had only just stopped there for lunch on their way through. We told them to take their time and we were going to go and explore the falls for awhile. We could see a jut of rocks over where the water was moving fast and we wanted to see if we could go rock hopping over to it. So we left our packs off to the side and started picking our way around the rocky edge of the shore towards the point. There was a nice flat area that made for a good place to swim. But we knew that the water was too cold for our liking and we had no intentions of swimming. We scrambled along the rocks and almost made it all the way over until we hit a section where there were just too many trees and too steep of a cliff to be able to keep going without ducking back into the trees for a bit. So we made a quick detour through the trees and came out on the other side right where we wanted to be. We were right at the edge of the falls where the water was running the fastest. Heather went to explore one end of the point while I went to explore the other. At my end there was a little mini water fall trickling down the sides of the rocks. There were different types of flowers and plants trying desperately to grow in an area barren of soil. We also saw quite a few dead crayfish parts. I wondered what was eating them since there are no raccoons in the park and we didn't see any large birds that would normally eat them either. We decided not to go over the rocks on the way back and instead we chose to go back through the trees and up to the main trail. Along the way we came across what used to be an old camp site. I guess they move them from time to time in order to let the area regenerate itself. And not far away from the old site was one that clearly was still being used. We assumed that this other site was HF2 (we were staying on HF1). This was a pretty nice spot for a tent too. We followed the main trail back towards our campsite. At the lowest dip between two hills we came across a log bridge. It was one of the few bridges we had seen so far that was not made of store bought lumber. I chuckled because it seemed more out of place than the other bridges when it's usually the other way around. When we got back to our campsite the family had left and we were able to start setting up camp. We set up the tent on the little platform area that was provided. It's not really a platform; just some logs in a square around a dirt area. It was up on a rock ledge though so it was higher up than the campfire area. The website said that this site was only big enough for about 2 people. But I am sure that you could squeeze a second tent on the site if you were to put the tent somewhere other than on this platform. There was some more space in the direction of the bear bin. You could probably get away with two small tents about the size of ours. Or even hammocks if that is the gear that you use. Only one door of this bear bin would open for us and the latches wouldn't close properly for us. But the doors did stay shut so we still used it. After we set up camp we went to gather some wood. Almost stepped on a little toad. I made sure to move him away from where I would be walking. At about 4:30 p.m., since I hadn't slept well the night before and was a bit tired, I decided to take a nap for a bit while Heather went exploring the area. The site was nice and quiet with nothing more than the sounds of chickadees and the rushing water. It was a great place to take a nap. I woke up around 6 p.m. to hear Heather starting the fire for supper. I knew it would be a bit before the fire got hot enough to boil water so I took the opportunity to go down to the shoreline and look at the flowers. Overall it had been a cloudy day with brief periods of sun. While I was down by the shore the sun decided to come out from hiding for a little bit. I wasn't the only one hanging around the shoreline. A couple of Daddy Long Legs were hanging out down there too. After supper we sat by the fire talking. We discussed where we were going to camp for the night tomorrow night. There really weren't too many places between here and the marsh that were suitable for putting up a tent. There were some closer to the falls but we wanted to get some distance tomorrow as we headed back towards Hattie's Cove. We decided that the best place to make a makeshift camp would be on the flat, open rocky area that we stopped for a break at on the first day on the trail. We knew there would be no water there so we planned to make sure we had enough water with us for that night.
With a plan in mind we sat around the fire and talked about other things until about 9:30 p.m. Then we headed into the tent and played cribbage until we finally went to sleep at about 11 p.m. It had rained during the night, but it was not raining when we woke up at 8:30 a.m. The sky was grey and it was a bit chilly but not too bad. The leaves were still wet with rain water that hadn't evaporated yet. We packed up camp and left at about 10:50 a.m. We had about a 3.7 km hike ahead of us today. We were headed to Chigamiwinigum which is located on White River. I found Chigamiwinigum too hard to pronounce so I just call it "Chig" for short. The trail was a bit wet but there were not too many hills and the ups and downs were at a minimum. During the first leg of the trail between Playter Harbour and Chigamiwinigum there are quite a few sets of little bridges. As we hiked today we were on the look out for a good place to make a makeshift camp on the way back. The reason for this was because we were not able to reserve the site we wanted for the trip back and the one we were able to get (site # PH2) was down the new loop trail called Mdaabii Miikna (purple lines on the map) which would make us have to hike over 9 km each day on two different days. We know that 9 km is a bit much for us in a day (we prefer 4 - 6 km a day) so we decided to camp off-site but still along the trail somewhere on the last night of our trip. Since we knew we were coming back the way we came we just scouted out all the different areas along the way. When we came to the sign for where the trail branches off into the Mdaabii Miikna loop it was about 12:10 pm. We stopped to rest for about 15 minutes. It was good to take the packs off of our back for a bit. The Mdaabii Miikna loop was newly made this year. It is so new that that it looks more like a deer trail than a hiking trail. If the big sign wasn't there then you would probably miss it all together. Once we were rested we put our packs back on and continued on our way through the trail bordered by many pine trees. Some spots had muddy ditches you had to climb through. When we got to a particular section of pines a little squirrel was not happy about it and let us know by chattering up a storm and telling us to go away. We came to the other end of the Mdaabii Miikna loop, which was marked by another large sign, at about 12:50 pm. Once again we stopped for about 10 to 15 minutes or so. The trail at this end of the loop didn't look like much more than a deer trail either. I am sure though that given some time with more hikers starting to use it the trail will eventually get packed down and look more like a hiking trail. We continued on through some heavy underbrush and out of the corner of her eye Heather spotted a grouse. She stopped still and pointed and whispered "Look! It's a Forest Chicken!" I looked and saw it weaving in and out of the undergrowth trying not to be seen. I tried to get a picture but all I could get was it's tail because it wouldn't sit still long enough. Not long after, we entered an immense forest of old, grey pines. They went on and on as far as the eye could see. We felt like Little Red Riding Hood going to see granny and wondering if there was the wolf lurking around the next tree. But it wasn't long before the ground turned into a carpet of moss. Again as far as the eye could seethe ground was just covered in it. It was so beautiful. And it was so peaceful and quiet. It was kind of surreal. Even some of the trees were covered in beautiful filigree moss. We met up with a couple on this part of the trail who were on their way out of the bush. They had taken a boat to the opposite end of the trail and had started at the other end and were working their way back. We had heard that it was possible to have someone take you in a boat either all or part of the way down the trail so that you didn't have to go both directions if you didn't want to. Since we were curious we asked them how much this would cost. We were floored to find out that it cost about $800 to take the boat! We couldn't believe it and we were glad we had decided to just hike it on our own. Near the beginning of this part of the trail we spotted the wildlife camera that the staff had spoken about at the Visitor Center. They had told us that unless they caught someone doing something illegal on the camera they usually erase or edit out any people that they catch on film. As the posted sign stated, they use this camera and the others like it through out the park to keep tabs on the various animals and to monitor how they are doing. The footage of the animals from these cameras are played on the screen int he Visitor Center. Since this area of the trail is so mossy, I was not surprised to see more Ghost plants growing at the base of the trees. These plants were rather plentiful throughout this section. The moss carpet forest went on for a very long time. It was all flat and easy to travel on but there was not much to see in the way of wildlife. You could hear the birds but the only ones that we really saw were some woodpeckers high up in the tree tops. And even the woodpeckers were not the easiest to spot. As we were nearing the suspension bridge we came upon an unexpected sight. It was a mailbox right in the middle of the forest. Inside the mail box were some papers and a pen. It was like a guest book where people left their name and wrote little blurbs. Within moments we could see the trees opening up ahead and saw the beginnings of some fencing. We knew that we had made it to the suspension bridge! We got there at 1:35 pm. We were pleasantly surprised that it had only taken us about 2 and a half hours to get to the suspension bridge. And we travel slower than most people so I am sure that others would have made it there in no time flat. The view to the right was spectacular. You could see all the trees way off in the distance and the rushing water and the rocks below. As we looked closer, we noticed that someone's blue kayak was wedged between the rocks and the rushing water. There didn't seem to be anyone around or in need of assistance. We were so far up above that it would have taken us quite some time to get down there even if they did need help. We just hoped that who ever the kayak belonged to was safe somewhere on dry land. To the left were more trees but there was a wide area that looked something like a rock quarry. The view was amazing and we really liked it here. We were happy that we made it to our number one goal destination. Far below our feet the water rushed underneath us. As we walked across the slatted steel and cables the bridge bounced up and down. If I were afraid of heights this might have been traumatic but it since I am not, it was kind of fun to bounce up and down across the bridge. When we got to the other side of the bridge we sat down and took our packs off and rested for awhile. We had considered staying a bit longer but we were tired and just wanted to go get our campsite set up. We decided to continue on and if we weren't too tired then maybe we would come back to the suspension bridge later on in the day and just hang out for awhile. I had been looking at the map the last few days and I had thought that our campsite we were going to (site # CH1) was not too far from the suspension bridge. So I was anxious to get going and figured it was just over the hill and right around the bend. But instead, all we found around the bend was a sign indicating more trail and a portage. The trail came to a T. We didn't know if we were supposed to go to the right and up the hill or to the left and down the hill. Down the hill through the trees we could see the beginning of the portage and some inviting rocks to sit on. So we headed down there to sit for a bit and check our map. The portage opened up to a nice view of White River flowing past us. Across the river you could see some driftwood logs perched up on the rocky outcrop beneath some pine trees. I wondered if the water used to once be that high and that is how they got there or if they were put there by people; perhaps left over from a logging project many years ago. To the right, in the direction of Hooks Falls there was a huge sandbar off in the distance. I thought that it would be a good spot for a bear to go fishing at. But we didn't see any bears. And to our left, off in the distance we could see the suspension bridge high above the water. It was interesting to see where we had just come from not all that long ago. I imagine we would have looked pretty tiny from this distance. So we sat at the portage for a bit and checked our map. It really wasn't very clear which direction we should go in to get to our campsite. As far as we could tell it was back up the hill the way we came. Of course if we were wrong then we would be travelling an extra distance more than we wanted to. So we made the decision to climb back up the portage hill and we crossed our fingers that we were going in the right direction. We knew that since it was a portage that the trail had to go back to the water at some point so if we were going in the wrong direction then we would just stop and have lunch at the other end of the portage before turning around. At about 1:50 pm we started off again. We wondered if the guy we had met on the trail the day before (the one we figured would be our neighbour at the site we were headed to) would be there before us or not. It was still pretty early in the day and he had farther to go than we did so we figured we would probably be there before him. Near the top of a hill just past the portage sign we came across another guest book mailbox. Inside this mailbox someone had left a piece of driftwood with some writing on it. It had been sitting there for over a year. It said " Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world. Leave all the thoughts of the world you know behind. Let your soul take you where you long to close your eyes and let your spirit start to soar and you will live as you have never lived before. - Erich Fromm June 2016 (Erich Fromm is a German philosopher and psychologist who wrote "The Art Of Loving" among other things) This portage turned out to be probably the worst part of the entire hike. It was all steep uphill climbing with tons of roots. It was difficult with packs on so I can't imagine how it would be for canoers who had to carry a canoe and all their gear over this terrain. There were a whole lot of big ups and downs on this portage. To make matters worse, since it had rained the night before, everything was very muddy and very slippery. There were logs laying across the path that were intended to act as stairs, however, they were just as slippery as the muddy hill and you couldn't trust them. All of a sudden Heather lost her footing on the muddy hill and fell down onto her butt and started sliding down the hill. For a moment or two she couldn't stop and she just kept sliding. All I could do was watch helplessly. If it weren't for the logs lying across the path she might not have stopped until she reached the bottom. By the time she finally managed to stop again she was covered in mud. Once I knew she was OK we had to laugh. But all of this was wearing on us and we were beginning to get tired and we just wanted to be at the campsite already. We dreaded having to go back up this muddy hill again tomorrow. For the rest of the way we grabbed on to saplings and plants along the side of the path and held on tight so that we wouldn't go sliding any further down the hill. After what seemed like forever we finally saw the sign indicating that we had come to the campsite and that there was a bear box ahead.. We were very happy that we had chosen the right direction and that we were almost there! After about a minute of following a short side trail we arrived in a big open area with a campfire pit. It was nice enough but it was completely surrounded by trees and had no real view and not much access to the water. And it was empty. Our neighbour had not arrived before we did. I knew from studying the online map before we left home that there should be two sites here and that we were on the furthest of the two sites. I had purposely chosen it that way so that we wouldn't be close to a bunch of people. So although this site was right in front of us we began a search for the other site. This site had many small trails all over it. After exploring a couple trails we ventured across a bear bin as well as an out house. We were disappointed to discover that there was only one bear bin and only one outhouse to be shared by two campsites. Unfortunately both the bear bin and the bathroom were close to site CH2 and not close to ours at all. Also, the bathroom door doesn't lock. We were not sure that we were going to like it here but it was only for one night so we would make do. It took us a fair bit of time to find our site because there were no signs anywhere telling you where to go. We had to go through to the other side of site CH2 and down a long path to get to it. Finally we found our site and it was much nicer than site CH2. It was about 3 p.m. by this point. This site was more open and less shady. We were quite happy with it (except of course for the lack of bathroom and bear bin) and our spirits began to lift again. As an added bonus, the previous occupants had left us a small pile of kindling. And off to one side was another small pile of dry wood. Most of it was drift wood. It was almost a shame to burn some of the pieces because they were nicely weathered. Tied up in the tree, above our heads, someone had secured a piece of driftwood that looked like the head of a duck or a bird. I imagine it may have been the same person who wrote the quote by Erich Fromm on the driftwood back at the mailbox. The site was situated on a rocky point that over looked the rapids. To the right you can see the swirling water of the rapids as it finishes it comes to the end of the rocky pass. If you walk through the trees you can climb down the rocks to the waters edge. To the left you can walk through the trees to a rocky cliff. This path does not easily go down to the waters edge; unless of course you were to fall down it. But if you walk out to the edge you get a fantastic view of the calmer part of the river and where the other end of the portage is. Straight across from here is a campsite that can only be reached by canoe. We began to set up the tent. It was still wet from the rain that we had the night before, but out on this rocky point it was very windy and the tent dried out in no time at all. It was so windy and rocky, in fact, that we couldn't peg down the tent and we had to find large rocks and bring them into the tent to weigh down each of the corners so that it wouldn't blow away. Heather and I had both bought new bedrolls from online before we went on this trip. These bedrolls are extremely light weight and are perfect for backpacking. They weigh only about one pound. You can blow them up in about 8 large breaths (yes, we counted) and they roll up very small. They come in a little bag and have a repair kit too. I was worried that they wouldn't be comfortable enough but, although your sleeping bag does slide off of it a bit, they are not too bad in terms of comfort. Since they don't take up too much space or weight, you have room for other tings in your pack. Once the tent was up and the beds were made we sat down to have a lunch of egg salad sandwiches. As we sat eating we noticed some very dark clouds coming in towards us. And they were moving very fast! We could see the rain coming towards us. We scarfed down our sandwiches and ran around gathering up everything that we didn't want to get wet, including a bit of kindling wood for later. Within 5 minutes the rain was upon us! We barely got everything in on time. As a matter of fact, Heather's coffee water was still outside boiling on the portable stove. We decided to play a game of Yahtzee while we waited out the rain. We hadn't been playing for more than 5 minutes when the rain stopped. It was a very short lived rain shower and it blew right by us as quickly as it had come in. The sun came out but it was still very windy and the clouds would block the sun from time to time. We finished our game and then went in search of fire wood. We gathered a bit more for ourselves but we also gathered a bunch for our neighbour who we were expecting tonight in case he came in late. We knew that it was possible that he might get lost considering that the trails did not have very good signs on them. This gave us a chance to explore the site a bit more too. There were lots of birds near the other campsite and there was a light green moss growing from the branches of the pine trees. I loved that you couldn't hear much more than the birds and the sound of the water falls. At about 7 p.m. we got a fire going and we started cooking our supper. It was not long after that when we heard a "Hello there!" coming from behind us. We turned expecting to see our neighbour but instead saw a different young man and his girlfriend coming towards us up the path. At first I thought he might be one of the rangers because he was dressed in the same colour and style of clothes that some of the provincial rangers wear. But with his next sentence I knew that he was not a ranger, but was just our actual neighbour. He said "I think that you are on our site." We had a discussion about how the sites were not really labelled and he tried to show me on his map that we were on the wrong site. I explained to him that on the website it shows the farthest site as being CH1, which was the one we were on. The map we had in hand didn't even show that were 2 sites at all actually; only one. The guy seemed a bit upset that we weren't giving in. The girl just stood back shyly listening to what everyone was saying. We might have considered switching but we had our fire going and our supper was still cooking and we were all settled in. Heather tried to be nice and offered them a spot to put up their tent near ours and we could share the site. But they declined and reluctantly went back towards the other site. As they were leaving he said "Well, I guess the rangers won't need to be involved over this. They probably won't mind if we are on the wrong sites". I am not sure if that was intended as intimidation or not (and we were thinking that fat chance that a ranger is going to be just wandering this far out here on a whim at this time of night anyways) but we just replied. "Sorry! Hope you have a good evening. Oh and we gathered some fire wood for you.!" So Heather and I went back to attending to our supper and discussing the situation. We were almost regretting that we had even gathered any wood for them. But it wasn't more than a couple of minutes when the couple returned again. We thought "Oh no, here we go again!" But we were surprised to find that they actually came back to apologize to us. They said that they looked at their map again and realized that it doesn't clearly indicate which site is which on their map either. From that point on we began having a friendly conversation. . We found out that they were from Wisconsin and had left the U.S.A. only just this morning and drove all the way to Canada and then hiked all day long (the distance that we had done in two days). They intended to hike the Mdaabii Miikna loop. They explained how they had wanted to stay on site P1 this night (the site we had been on the night before) but someone had already booked it for tonight so they were forced to go the extra distance and come here. I began to see what a difficult day they had been through today and they too had to go down that awful muddy portage hill to get here. They must be tired and somewhat disappointed like we were when we first got to this site. I felt a bit bad for them and a bit guilty that we were the cause of another one of their disappointments. And now I was back to being glad that we had gathered the wood for them after all. When we were done talking they went down to the river to get some water and then went back to their own site. We ate our supper and then cleaned up. We only saw them once more that evening when we had to go through their camp to get to the bear bin to put our food away for the night. I was glad that we were on friendly terms at that point. It could have been very awkward if we had to go through their site and they were still angry with us. When we got back to our site we sat around the fire and talked until bedtime. As the fire died down we enjoyed the evening and looked at the stars. Our neighbours had gone to sleep hours before we did and it was peaceful and quiet. At 11:30 p.m. we went to bed. Aside from a loud bird squawking for a minute or so at about 11:35 the only sounds you could hear was the sound of the rushing water. The night was chilly like an October night. I figured that it was because of the wind and the moisture in the air and the cold rising up from the water. I just wore a sweater to bed and bundled into my sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep,
We woke up before the alarm even went off, which was set for 8 a.m. Heather was already up and out of the tent while I just lay there for a few more minutes. As I lay there a raven flew down so low that it grazed the top of the tent and landed on the picnic table. It was nice and peaceful and you could hear the sound of the water running in the distance. The morning was misty and a little on the cooler side. But it wasn't raining and it was supposed to warm up during the day. The rabbit that we had seen the day before was still hanging around near the campsite. We packed up camp fairly quickly and headed over to the Visitor Center. We had been told that there was coffee there and Heather was anxious to get a cup. We parked in a spot that we figured would be fairly shady and then headed down a wide, nicely groomed path to the Visitor Center. The Visitor Center was like a little lodge nestled in amongst the trees and sitting on the shore of Lake Superior. Outside the Visitor Center were some bronze statues of a moose, a wolf and a caribou. We were told that these statues were fashioned after actual animals that had been seen in the area. The park ranger said "That is why the caribou statue has only one antler. It was made that way on purpose because the caribou that the statue represents is one that has been seen in the area with only one antler." We were told that the caribou are not normally seen in Hattie's Cove but that they are often spotted in the park much further up the trail on Otters Island. The inside of the Visitor Center had a cozy little lounge area. There was a projector screen on one wall where they would play a presentation of a compilation of pictures taken from campers as well as from the various wildlife cameras that they have set up in various places along the hiking trails. At one side was a felt covered table with wooden pieces hanging from the sides. I had wondered what it was for and then Heather figured it out. Each piece is a part of a 3 dimensional wooden map of the park. Throughout the place were displays of things like the fur trade as well as some First Nations artwork. Once again we tried to get a wifi connection so that we could tell our family that we had arrived safe. However, we were disappointed to find out from the lady at the desk that the park does not have, and can not get, an unlimited data plan. So by the time the end of the month rolls around their data is usually all used up. Since it was August 21st the parks data was probably all used up for the month. We also learned that the park did not have any raccoons. We were very surprised by this because we are so used to having raccoons in all the other parks we had been in. They figure that eventually as habitat for raccoons starts to disappear in other areas that they will eventually start moving into the area. But for now there are none living here. According to their observation board though, there is plenty of other wildlife to be seen. Once Heather had finished her coffee we headed out the door. On the bulletin board just outside the door was an interesting poster about an activity that I thought would be fun for kids (and kids at heart). On weekends they hide this toy beaver somewhere in the park and you have to go find him and take a picture of him. I almost wished that I would be around on the weekend so that I could look for him too. But today was Monday and we would be on our way back home before the weekend rolled around. Another bulletin board just outside the door let us know that there was to be a partial eclipse between 2 pm and 3 pm today. We figured that we would still be hiking at that time and that we might be able to see it if we were not in an area where they sky was blocked by trees. So at about 11 a.m. we finally started on our backpacking trip down the Coastal Hiking Trail. The trail head starts with a big sign that has a map that outlines the trail and a bit of a description of it. It also showed a picture of a couple of kids on the suspension bridge. The suspension bridge was the main feature that we had come to see. We were looking forward to getting to it. But the way we had the trip planned we would not be getting to it until the next day. Today we would be hiking 4.5 km to the first campsite at Playter Harbour. We were told it was one of the prettiest sites. The second day we were going 3.5 km to the site at Chigamiwinigum and would pass the suspension bridge along the way. The trail started off with a well worn, flat and wide path through the trees. If the trail was going to be like this all the way then we would be laughing. But we knew it would change. Especially if this was the 3rd most difficult trail in Canada. All of a sudden the trail opens up unexpectedly to a view of some old, dead, burnt trees. Despite the fact that there were so many dead trees, the view was still pretty. Then we came across the first of a couple of signs that explained why there were so many dead trees. In 2012 they had done a "prescribed burn" in this area. We had seen the signs about it at the office (kiosk) the day before but we didn't realize that it had encompassed all of this area too. Another of the signs showed the path that the fire had taken. It was fairly interesting to read about. In one spot they has a little spot where you could take your phone and place it on a shelf and take a picture to send to their research center. They collect these pictures and watch how the area changes throughout the years after the fire. We just wanted to get going so we didn't end up sending a picture. Besides, my phone was packed up in a water proof container in my pack and I didn't want to dig it out. Soon we came to the sign that reminded us that we were going into the back country and that this is not a looped trail. So what ever distance we did going forward we would have to do again coming back. We were beginning to feel like we were finally on our way and leaving civilization behind us. When you are backpacking you sometimes spend a lot of time looking down at your feet. For this trip I had just bought a brand new pair of hiking boots from Mountain Warehouse because my old pair fell apart. I didn't have much time to break these in so I was hoping that I didn't end up with blisters. I liked the looks of them and they were comfortable and looked to be fairly water resistant. So this was going to be a good test run for them. As I am looking down at the trail I spot some Monotropa Uniflora, otherwise known as Ghost Plant or Indian Pipe. I thought it was a type of fungus but upon further research I found out that it is actually a type of flower that is white and doesn't have any chlorophyll. But it's really a flowering plant-- in the blueberry family! These plants can grow in dark areas because they are not dependent on light for photosynthesis. Instead they are parasitic on the trees and use the trees photosynthesis process as their food source. (see more here: http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/oct2002.html) One of the first little foot bridges we came to was made of some cut logs and someone had gone the extra mile to cut some cross hatches in them for extra foot hold. You don't usually see that on a hiking trail. Soon we got to a section where you could see the "coastal" part of the Coastal Trail. It was beautiful. It was particularly beautiful with the grey morning mist rolling over water and the tops of the trees. The trail along the coastline was fairly rocky but even here they provided a boardwalk section over one of the crevasses. So far we felt like we were being spoiled on this trail. But just so that we didn't get lulled into a false sense of pampering, the trail would be sure to throw in some rock and root filled obstacles to make it more of a challenge. And the trail started to get narrower and less "groomed". One thing we noticed was that there was quite a bit of moss everywhere. It lined the sides of rocks .... ....and it hung like tinsel from the branches of trees. There were a number of little boardwalks throughout the woods. I imagine that in the spring it gets pretty wet here. Some of these boardwalks even had some stairs, which is also unusual compared to most other trails we had been on. By this point the sun had come out and the weather was nice and warm. It had turned into a beautiful day. We came to a quaint little bridge and we knew that we were close to the marsh. I don't know why there was a railing on one side of the bridge and not on the other. On the side with no railing the view was nice enough. But on the side with the railing the view was much nicer. You can almost make out the start of the marsh from here. I was getting excited because I love to go through marsh boardwalks. But we still had to go through some more trees first. There were lots of bunchberries (not edible) everywhere. And Purple Asters were a pretty common sight here too. It wasn't long before the trees cleared and the open sky of the marsh appeared. I was hoping that we would see some interesting birds or animals here. The marsh boardwalk was long and winding. We were warned during orientation that too much weight in some areas will cause the boardwalk to sink into the water as you walk over it. So, as suggested, Heather and I kept our distance from each other while travelling over it so that we wouldn't sink in to the water and have to do the rest of the day in wet hiking boots. We didn't really see much in the way of birds or animals. We figured that at this time of day there are probably too many noisy people passing through on their way to the suspension bridge and that most things are off somewhere quieter. We did see a beaver lodge though. And we did see some pretty pink water flowers. I think these are Persicaria amphibia also known as "Water Smartweed". When we got to the other side of the marsh and back into the tree line again I was surprised to come across some sort of cactus or succulent plant. I have seen cactus in the wild in Alberta, but I have not seen any in Ontario before. As we came over the top and down the other side of a hill full of tree roots we met up with a lady going the opposite directions. She told us that she was from Toronto and that she was 80 years old. She was doing well on the trails and I just thought to myself that I hope that I am just as active and in that good of shape when I am 80 years old. We talked to her for about 10 to 15 minutes before we went on our separate ways. There were many baby toads all over the place in this area. I was worried that we would step on them; especially going up and down the hills because they were so hard to see and it was already difficult enough climbing the hills without having to jump out of the way of a tiny toad. At about 12:30 pm we came to a rocky clearing. We decided that it would be a good place to stop and have lunch. While we sat a family came by on their way to the suspension bridge. They stopped to talk for a minute or two before continuing on. A couple of other people passed us as well. As we were packing up our lunch stuff and getting our packs back on a young guy was passing us by. We talked for a moment and from what he said we figured that he might end up being in the neighbouring campground the night after this one. So we said "see you tomorrow!" and he continued on his way. We carried on at a slower pace and stopped to look at the interesting things around us such as rocks growing out of tree stumps. And what I think may have been some sort of owl's nest up in the pine trees. It was getting close to 2 pm by this point and soon the partial eclipse was about to start. We hoped that we wouldn't be deep in the trees when it did happen. So we started to look for open areas where we could see the sky. But first we had to climb up and down a narrow but steep ridge. This was probably one of the steepest places we had to climb this trip and I was thinking about how I was not looking forward to having to climb back up it on the way back. But the view on the other side of that steep climb made it worth all the while. We went through a section where the rocks rose up like big walls on either side of us. And these rock walls were covered in bright green moss. It was like walking through a ravine of moss. Pictures just don't do it justice. It was beautiful. A little after 2 pm we could see that we were coming out of the heavy bush and into an area where we might be able to see the partial eclipse. We could tell it was beginning because the light in the trees and on the ground was turning to something like a silver sheen. We came to a spot at the top of a hill where there was a small rocky place to sit and rest and where we could see a small section of the sky where the sun was. We were pretty sure that our camp site was not too far off but we decided to stop and rest anyways. We new from being taught way back in grade school, not to look directly at the sun during an eclipse so instead I just held my camera up in the air and took a picture every few minutes without looking through the view finder. I had no idea if the pictures would even turn out at all. In the end it was rather disappointing and wasn't what I had hoped to see. No dark areas were visible at all. If you look close enough you can see one circle behind another circle. But mostly it just looks like the sun with rays of light coming from it and nothing more. Once we realized that the partial eclipse was not going to get any better than that we decided to carry on to our site. We continued down the hill until we reached the sign post for our site. Had we known it was that close by we would have just finished going down the hill and to the site to see the eclipse. It was 2:30 pm when we arrived. The first section of the site is a cleared area with logs under the trees that made me think of a parking lot. This would be where we would set our tent up. Our view from the tent was that of the cute little sandy beach area. It was a section of beach that was encompassed almost completely by rocks and trees which cut it off from the deeper and colder side. It was like having the deep end and the shallow end of the pool. In the water there were many little tadpoles. Some with just tails and a couple of them were already starting to grow legs. We were going to go swimming but when we put our feet in the water it was freezing cold. That was rather unexpected considering the water was shallow and it was a hot day. But later on we figured out why. We read in the parks brochure that this harbour is part of Lake Superior and that the average temperature of the water is only 4 degrees. No wonder it was so cold! So instead we just explored the area. In the water we found some floating green gobs of goo that looked like green grapes. When I got home I googled it and found out that these are actually something called "Ophrydium versatile" which are made by a colonial microscopic single-celled protozoan. The individual cells line up side by side in the “blob” and attach themselves to a jelly-like substance they secrete. They are symbiotic with microscopic Chlorella algae which live inside the Ophrydium cells and give the blob its green color. Walking straight ahead from where our tent was set up there was a large rock formation by the fire pit. This rock formation had a rocky ledge to it where we could put or packs down and leave things to sit, like our cups or plates. We found that it wasn't the most comfortable place to sit though because it was on a slant. So we sat on logs instead. If you climb up on top of the rocks you get a fantastic view. To the left you could see the treeline off in the distance across the harbour. That would be where we would be heading the next day. To the right was the direction from which we came. The water was a beautiful clear blue green colour. We set up camp and had a snack. We gathered water and filtered it through the "platypus" filter. On occasion some hikers would wander into our campsite because the signs were not very clear on which way to go and people got mixed up. We didn't mind too much. A little while later the family that we had met when we were eating our lunch happened to pass by our site on their way back and stopped for a rest at the far end of our little beach. We waved and said hello and offered them the use of our site to go swimming if they wanted but they politely declined. We talked to them for a bit as we shouted across the water to each other, and then eventually they were on their way again. We didn't see too many more people after that. We decided to go looking for the bear bin and the bathroom before it got dark. As promised the bear bin was nestled in amongst the trees a little ways away from the site. Someone had left behind a couple of items. I guess they either forgot about them or didn't want to carry them. Unfortunately on this bear bin only one of the doors would open. But we managed to get all of our food in there just the same. As for the bathroom, it was a little farther away than I would have liked. You had to go back to the main trail and cross over it onto a small path on the other side to get to the bathroom. The door didn't latch properly but that didn't matter too much since it was well off the main trail. Despite the door not closing properly, the bathroom was in good condition and was fairly clean and didn't smell too bad at all. On the way back to the site we saw a Gray Comma butterfly that was enjoying the afternoon sun. At about 6 pm we started a fire and cooked our supper of chicken and rice. We sat by the fire and talked all evening. Dusk turned to dark and we could hear the loons calling in the distance. Once it got dark we saw the strangest thing. Off to one side of us something was glowing. We got up to look at it and realized that it was a log that was glowing....the whole log. It wasn't very bright. I tried to take a picture but it just turned out black. But it was glowing faintly enough that we could see it standing out from everything else in the dark. We wondered what was making it glow like that. It didn't look like anything was spilled or painted on it. It seemed like a natural phenomenon. We never did find out what caused it.
We went into the tent at about 11:45 and studied the map for a bit to get an idea of where we were headed in the morning. While we were doing that we noticed that a wasp was in the tent. So I had to find something to catch it and throw it outside. After I ejected it from the tent I spent the next 10 minutes searching the whole tent to make sure that there were no more unwanted insects inside. Confident that there weren't, we eventually drifted off to sleep. I had heard about Pukaskwa (pronounced puck-a-saw) National Park from a co-worker who had said that there was a suspension bridge on one of the hiking trails there. Immediately I thought "that would make a great backpacking trip!". So I began planning the trip. My sister, Heather and I did our research and called the park to reserve our back country campsites. We planned a week long trip from start to finish with most of it being in the back country. It is about a nine and a half hour drive from where we live to Pukaskwa. My sister, Heather and I loaded up the car and left at about 8:45 in the morning. We stopped for a quick coffee break at the Timmies in Wahnapitae and then continued on our way to Sault Ste. Marie. There we bought a pre-cooked chicken dinner at the grocery store so that we could have a quick and easy meal for supper. We were going to stop in Wawa but we missed the turn so instead we stopped in White River at the Winnie The Pooh monument. We ate our chicken dinner at a picnic table near the Winnie The Pooh statue. The drive had been fairly nice but just as we were finishing up our meal it started to rain very lightly. We hopped that we weren't going to have much rain for the rest of the trip. After eating we got back into the car. It stopped raining after only a few short minutes. We didn't have too much longer to go by this point. Maybe another hour or two. Since we were not familiar with the area we turned on the GPS on my phone and followed it's directions. Let me begin by saying "DO NOT FOLLOW THE GPS TO PUKASKWA!". It will lead you in the wrong direction! We were following the highway and the GPS told us to make a right turn onto a dirt road. We thought it was a bit odd that there were no signs posted for Pukaskwa but we didn't think too much of it because sometimes parks just don't have good signage. After a few minutes of driving down a dirt road we found ourselves on an Ojibway Reserve. When we came to a fork in the road we stopped in the middle of the road and just sat for a minute or two. We didn't know which of the forks to choose and we began to suspect we were in the wrong place. We could see a house in front of us with a little bonfire going in the yard and we considered going in there and asking for directions. Before we could decide what to do a little girl about the age of 7 and her father came out from the yard and stood by the side of the road and waved us over to them. I drove up and rolled down my window and the father told us that the little girl had said to him "Daddy I think those people are lost. Let's go and help them." She was the cutest little thing and she was a little shy but in her quiet little voice she gave us the proper directions. "Turn back the way you came. Keep going straight. Cross the bridge and look for the sign". I talked to the father for a little bit and sympathized with him saying "You must have people showing up at your door step looking for Pukaskwa all the time!" He said that he did. We thanked them and then turned around and turned off the GPS and followed the little girls directions. Within a couple minutes we could see the Pukaskwa sign and a minute or two after that we came to the park office. When we pulled up to the office and got out to register, the lady at the desk, Sydney, was super friendly and super laid back. She explained that in order to go into the back country you had to do a mandatory orientation session. She was done for the day at 8 pm (it was now 7:40 pm) but that if we wanted to go into the park and choose a site and come back then she would stay a little past 8 to do the orientation with us so that we don't have to come back to the office in the morning. We thought that was really nice of her and so we got in the car and tried to choose a site as quickly as possible so as not to keep her waiting too long. The campground where all the sites are is called Hattie's Cove and it is not an overly big campground so we were able to choose a site fairly quickly. We chose number 64 and then headed back to the park office. We told Sydney that we would like site # 64 and we got registered and paid. We were very happy at the price. It was only $25.50 a night! Provincial parks in Ontario are over $40 these days. After we paid a few cars pulled up with people wanting to camp for the night so we decided to let those people go in front of us since it was getting dark and threatening to rain again. Besides we didn't know how long the orientation would take and we didn't want to hold everyone up. When one couple heard that we were waiting to do orientation they almost stayed to listen because they were curious about it. But they were tired and decided against it. While we waited for the other campers to register we read the signs outside the office that described how they had planned and carried out a prescribed fire back in 2012. Finally all the other campers were gone form the office and we were able to begin our orientation. We were impressed that the park did an orientation because in the provincial parks they did not do that. She began by asking the usual questions that they ask before you go into the back country. "Do you have any medical conditions? What colour is your tent? What colour is your backpack? How experienced are you?", etc. She told us that Pukaskwa's Coastal Trail is the 3rd most difficult in Canada. (Killarney's La Cloche Trail is the 2nd most difficult and the most difficult one is in British Columbia somewhere). When we told her that we had done some backpacking in Killarney she said that she had no worries about us on this trail then. She showed us a map and told us what to look out for in certain areas (ie where the bridges were out, etc). She told us that there were bear bins at each of the campsites. We were thrilled about that! The provincial parks do not provide bear bins in the back country trails. She told us that if there is an emergency (like a broken leg or something) the best thing to do is to write down an message and send it back to the office via any passing hikers. She gave us a "de-registration form" to fill out once we had returned from our hike. She explained that it was important that we fill it out and hand it in when we get back because they use these as a way to keep track of people. If they find that the de-registration form has not been handed in on your expected day out of the bush then they will wait about 24 hours and after that they will send people in to find you. It was comforting to know that if something happened to us that someone would be looking for us within a few days. That was pretty much the extent of the orientation. I really liked that they provided that for people. We finished the orientation at about 8:20 and headed off to our campsite to get set up before it got too dark. Along the way we saw a wild rabbit on the side of the road. Hattie's Cove is a very quiet, small little campground. There are only 67 campsites all together and you can not make reservations for any of them. It's all first come, first serve. I liked it a lot. The roads are wide and well maintained. There is a nice mix of pines and deciduous trees and there is plenty of privacy. As a matter of fact, most of the campsites have a very long driveway for each of them. So your site is nestled into the trees and not right along the road side. There were a few right on the road but not too many. I backed my car into the driveway and we set up our site in behind it. There was room on the site for our tent and if we had needed to we could have put another tent there too. The fire pit had a flat area where you could put a kettle or frying pan instead of putting them on the grates if you wanted. But since we had already eaten supper and we still had to sort out our food for our trip before it got too dark we decided not to start a fire. So we didn't get to try it out. Once we were settled we tried sending a text message to various family members to let them know that we had arrived safe, but the cell service here was next to non-existent. One of the other campers told us that the Visitor Center had free wi-fi and suggested trying there in the morning since it would be closed at this time of day. We went to look for water and to find the comfort station that we had passed on the way in. It was only two campsites over. On the way down the drive way I noticed a raven sitting in the tree watching us. The comfort station looked like a little cottage in the woods. On the side of the building was the water tap, which I thought was convenient. At the back of the building were two showers and off to the side was a building specifically for garbage disposal . And just to the side of the doors is a bulletin board where you can read about all the events that are taking place in the park as well as the weather forecast for the next few days. The weather looked as though it was going to be pretty nice for most of our trip. The inside of the comfort station had a dark, wood slat ceiling with recessed pot lights. The lights were on a timer in order to conserve energy. You just turn the dial when you go in and it will shut itself off. I have only ever seen this in one provincial park so far (I think it was Fushimi Provincial Park). The comfort station was small and cozy with the usual amenities such as flush toilets, hand dryers, mirrors, etc. But it also had a few things that you don't usually see in a comfort station, such as electric baseboard heaters. And a shelf filled with books with a sign underneath that says that you can borrow, exchange or donate books on this shelf. I thought that this was a lovely idea. The only problem with the comfort station was that the door wouldn't always stay closed and you had to be careful about making sure that it was closed properly behind you. On the way back from the comfort station I saw the same rabbit that we had seen earlier. This time though we weren't in the car so I was able to get a closer look at it. It sat there for a bit waiting for me to make a move. When it figured that I wasn't going anywhere it continued to eat grass and then eventually hopped away.
Heather and I sat and talked until about 11 pm. Then we set the alarm for 8 a.m. and went to sleep. We were really looking forward to starting our hike the next morning. |
AuthorOur family members have always been avid campers. It's in our genes. Rain or shine or sometimes wind and occasionally the odd snow fall, there we are with a tent and a smile. Thanks for taking the time to read about all of my adventures!
I hope you are out there having your own adventures! - Dana W. Categories
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