Connecting with the Land

We actually set a wind up alarm clock to make sure that we got up on time for the Chickanishing hike. Setting an alarm for a camping trip is something we almost never do. Usually it is just sleep in until it either gets too hot or too noisy from our surroundings. But we didn't want to miss this.  

Our campsite neighbours told us that they had seen some Pileated Woodpeckers in the nearby tree that we just missed before we got up. I hoped to see them before we left. I have only seen Pileated Woodpeckers once many years before in Driftwood Provincial Park and I had been amazed by the size of them. They are about the size of a large crow.  Instead, on this morning,  I ended up seeing just a small red headed woodpecker. 

Our campsite neighbours headed out on a day of canoeing and kayaking and we hurried with our breakfast and headed on our way to our hike. You actually have to drive out of Killarney Park and down the road to get to the entrances of a number of the hiking trails for this park. The  Chickanishing trial was one of those, so we drove a kilometer down the road and then down a long winding back road until we got to the parking lot of the trail. We made it just on time. 

The group that gathered there consisted of a family of 5, Howard and his wife and their dog Daisy, another young couple who were spending their vacation going from park to park, a wonderful older lady named Winnie (nick named Windy) who came all the way from Florida (but had been to Killarney many times because it is her favourite park), and of course my sister Heather and myself. Our band of merry men was lead by two guides Rachelle and Ian. 

Before we began we all went around and introduced ourselves in turn and told everyone why we had chosen Killarney as our place to camp.  The common sentiment that we kept hearing from the various people we met on this trip that had visited Killarney before was that this was their favourite park. With this group of people it was no different . Everyone said that they loved it here and had plans to visit again. We weren't sure exactly what to expect on this interpretive hike and was pleasantly surprised by how well we connected to the people in the group and we began to swap stories and get to know each other as we walked. 

The hike was all about connecting with the land. One of the first stops for us on the trail was at a rocky clearing that had some very nice views of the surrounding scenery. 

We were asked to close our eyes and describe what we smelled. Then we were asked to describe what we heard. Finally were were asked to spread out and find something in nature  that symbolized a memory or had some significance to you. 

Someone chose some pine needles because it reminded them of tea from back home. Someone else chose blueberries because it reminded them of summer. I chose a rock because it reminded me of when I used to go rock collecting on the shores of the beach with my grandmother and we would bring them back to her house and put them in her driveway so that she would have a driveway full of beautiful colours instead of boring old grey gravel.  And finally it was Winnie's turn and she reached down and put her hand lovingly on the pink granite rock we were all standing on and said that she had also chosen a rock. But hers was the rock in it's entirety. She said something like "I chose this rock because it is full of cracks and is weathered and shows its beauty and strength  in its age. These cracks are the rocks wrinkles , just like mine."  I thought that what she had said was quite beautiful and profound and I felt connected to her from that moment on.  

You could tell that she just loved the beauty of the granite we were walking on and that she just loved this park. She would often point out the various colours of the pinks and the white quartz as well as the  beautiful changes in the formations of the stone as we went along. 

At one stop along the way you could look down the side of the rock face and see a little river or waterway below which connected with George Lake.  

It was the perfect place for canoeing and kayaking. It was protected from the wind and the waves from the lake (and it was pretty windy that day) and I am sure there was lots to see. I think on a future trip to Killarney I might like to do some canoeing there myself.

Every stop we made along the trail was nicer than the previous one. Rachelle was even nice enough to take pictures for each of us with our various cameras. Killarney Park is one of the main places that The Group of Seven used to do there artwork. Looking at the landscape around us you can definitely picture in your head where they may have sat and sketched and painted. 

So when we got closer to George Lake Rachelle and Ian had each of us sit quietly for awhile and either draw something that we saw, or write a poem or do something artistic. I saw this beautiful blue damsel fly and decided to draw a quick sketch of it.  Heather wrote a poem about the different colours around her. But the most unique was the song that Howard made about his dog Daisy. It was to the tune of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"  but the words were "Daisy on the Bay with Lichen". Soon we were all singing the chorus together and swaying back and forth tot he song. Other hikers going by probably thought we were crazy but we were having a good time. 

Soon we continued on and along the way we came across a plant that looked like cotton balls on the end of a stalk of grass. We asked each other what it was but no one seemed to know (I had to Google it when I got home). Turns out it was  some Tussock Cottongrass; also known as Hare's Tail.

At the half way point of  the trail we crossed over a little foot bridge and reached the shore of George Lake where we all stopped for lunch. It was the end of the guided part of the trail but we were welcome to stay for lunch and continue back with Rachelle and Ian.  Almost everyone else left but Heather and I stayed with Winnie and ate together. Winnie shared her stories as well as some wonderful Brie and Sweet Potato Triscuts with us. Sweet potato I am usually only 50/50 on but those Triscuts were delicious! I highly recommend them. 

When we were done eating we joined up with Rachelle and Ian and the 5 of us finished off the trail together.

We had an excellent time on the trail and were glad that we had gone. I don't know which I liked better, the hiking or the people we were with. We heard some interesting tales about a place called Topaz Lake which is a dead lake that is named after the colour of the water. When you swim it the water is so blue with nothing in it that you can't tell how deep it is. Could be 10 feet or it could be 200 feet. I don't kow where this place is but I want to look it up and check it out. We also heard about Acid lake which is another dead lake that you can actually get to from the La Cloche trail in Killarney Park. And we heard more about hiking "The Crack". Heather asked Rachelle where the best place to see bears would be and she said that most sightings are either on the side of the highway when you are coming in to the park or at the very top of The Crack which is like a big rocky mountain side. Once Heather heard that she might be able see bears up there, that sealed the deal. Tomorrow she wanted to hike The Crack. So we put that on our list of things to do for the next day. 
For now though we headed back to our camp site. 

After the long hike we thought we might want to take a nap, but instead we got a second wind and decided to look around the park a little. There are two beaches at Killarney and we headed over towards the secondary one because it was closer to us. Along the way we found the entrance to the Cranberry Bog Trail and thought we might hike that on the Wednesday just before leaving the park. 

The first thing that we noticed when we got to the beach was the sign that said "Radio Free". Actually there was no excessive noise allowed anywhere in the park in the first place but this whole end of the park was designated as Radio Free. So the entire trip was very peaceful and enjoyable. 

The other sign we noticed was one that said "Caution Uneven Lake Bottom".  I thought that was a bit peculiar since I have never known any lake bottoms to be very even in the first place. But I guess there must be some extreme drop offs in the swimming area for them to have to post signs for it. I am not really sure how the bottom was because we never went in. It was way too cold for the entire trip to want to go swimming. The weather felt more like autumn weather than summer weather.

The sandy part of the beach was a little bit narrow, but the water was clear and clean and  the view across the lake was quite beautiful. It was definitely a nice little beach. 

At the far end of the beach was a little foot path. Not a hiking trail by any means, just a little path that lead up to the top of the rock cliff where there was a look out that gave you a yet another gorgeous view. We remembered that as kids we had come to this very spot on a couple of evenings to watch the sunset. It would be nice to do that again while we were here, but the weather was not really co-operating with us for that to happen. 

After sitting for a bit and enjoying the view we continued down the path and past a couple of empty campsites which were only about 2 sites away from ours. We had come full circle. I did a quick comparison of the other sites to ours and found that they were nice and big too and would make an excellent choice for future trips. Number 79 would not be the best though because although it looked big, the roots on the ground would make it difficult to put a large sized tent on the site without having difficulties pegging it into the ground. But sites 76, 77 and 78 were prime pickings.  

Soon enough we were getting hungry and it was close to supper time. Once again the sky became over cast and it started to rain a bit and the temperature took a dive.  I saw a single red maple leaf lying on the wet ground and thought "No! Not yet! It can't be that cold out ....Come on, it's only August!"  

Inside our dining tent even this big ole Orb Weaver spider was taking refuge from the rain. 

We weren't going to let any rain stand in the way of our supper though. Tonight we were having hot dogs and sausages and the part we were both looking forward to..... bannock! 

We started up the fire and found a couple of roasting sticks. I had pre-mixed all the dry ingredients for the bannock before we cane so all we had to do was mix in the water and a bit of melted butter. 

If you have never heard of or made bannock before, it is a type of bread that originated in North America with the First Nations (there was a European version that came from Scotland and used oatmeal, but this is not what we used). The bannock of The First Nations people was made of corn and nut meal, and flour made from ground plant bulbs. There were many variations of bannock depending on what region they were from that included different types of flour, and the addition of dried or fresh fruit. There are different ways to cook bannock. Many people just use a frying pan, but we like to wrap the dough around a green, hardwood stick and toasted it over an open fire. We had to throw a couple of flat rocks over the grill to try to keep the rain from dousing out our fire before we were done cooking. 

In case you are interested in trying this yourself, here is the recipe for it:

Bannock

3 cups  flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups water

Cook until it is a golden brown and not doughy in the middle.


It's that simple. The trick is to not to put the dough on the stick too thick or it won't cook all the way through. When it is done you take it off the stick and add some butter and eat it. Or you can do like Heather did and use it as a bun for your hot dog or sausage. It tastes very much like a tea biscuit. 

Next was dessert. We had decided to have the traditional campfire treat of S'mores.  We had bought the perfect cookies for this and in fact had two different kinds. They are Leclerc's Celebration cookies and come with the chocolate already on the cookie. One kind was plain chocolate and another kind had caramel. I was looking forward to trying out the caramel because it would be a bit of a twist from your normal everyday S'more. 

But first, knowing that it was almost time for the raccoons to appear, we decided to clean up the food and wash the dishes. 

We had just finished the last of the dishes when it was starting to get dark. It was also starting to get pretty cold. Cold enough that you could see your breathe. We sat around the camp fire for a bit in the light rain drinking a hot chocolate and trying to keep warm. Sure enough, it wasn't long before we heard the raccoons. I am pretty sure there were two or three of them. Since we put the food in the trunk of the car already, we thought nothing much of them when we noticed one of them in the dining tent just behind us.

Then it hit me....wait a minute! We didn't put ALL the food away! We had left the marshmallows and cookies out for the S'mores! Oh No!!

I jumped out of the chair, flashlight in hand,  and raced over to the dining tent yelling "The marshmallows! The marshmallows!" Heather realized our mistake at about the exact same moment as I did and she jumped up with her flash light too. 

But it was too late and the raccoon already had the entire bag of marshmallows in hand. When he realized we were making a bee line right for him he grabbed the bag and dashed under the wall of the tent and straight into the woods. We ran after him in hot pursuit shining our lights this way and that.  Finally our lights landed on him and there he was calmly eating one of the marshmallows. We ran after him again yelling at him "Come back here with our marshmallows you evil raccoon!". He saw us coming and grabbed the bag and ran off with it even further into the woods. Once again we found him and he was once again just calmly eating one marshmallow at a time waiting for us to catch up before he took off again with the whole bag. By this time I am sure we were the talk of the campground. The neighbouring campers were all laughing and it looked like a scene out of a comedy movie. The chase finally came to an end when the raccoon disappeared over the edge of the ravine and we could no longer find him anymore. 
 

We made our way back to the site, a little disappointed that we no longer had any marshmallows for the S'mores. That's when our neighbours from the next campsite over came to our rescue. They showed up at our site with a bag of their marshmallows to share with us. We laughed with them about what had just happened and thanked them and took a few marshmallows. We were all set for making the S'mores! 

So Heather and I each made one regular one and one caramel one and put them over the fire to cook. We were just finished eating our first one when we heard the raccoon in the dining tent again.  Oh No! The Cookies!!!  We had figured that the bag of marshmallows would take him awhile and that us yelling at him would have kept him away for a bit. But either he was back or one of his friends was. Either way, the chase was on again. This time for the box of the caramel cookies. The raccoon took off with the whole box dropping a trail of cookies behind him as he ran. Our chase was only half hearted this time because we knew from experience that we would never catch him. And even if we did, what were we going to do? Take them from his hands? .... Not likely. That would be a really bad idea.  The main purpose of this was to try to keep him from wanting to return by making a big fuss and maybe, just maybe rescuing a cookie or two as the dropped. But the cookies that fell were a lost cause so we gave up this chase pretty quickly and instead focused on protecting the last remaining box of cookies just in case there were more raccoons waiting for us to leave some goodies unattended. 

We made sure that our last box of cookies was put safely in the car and doubly sure there was nothing else lying around. By this time it was pretty dark and we were busying ourselves with setting up the light in the dining tent and setting up a game of Dominoes. We had just sat down to play when we heard the raccoons were back again. Perhaps to see if they could find any of the cookies they had dropped on our last chase. But we had nothing left for them to find. That didn't stop them from looking though and they weren't shy about it. At one point Heather was sitting at the picnic table and looked down to see one of them sitting beside her right at her feet. 

Eventually they gave up and continued on to the next campsite. We could hear them trying to get into things but our neighbours had learned a lesson from us and there was nothing available from them either. 

So we played dominoes in the freezing cold (I heard that it actually snowed on the other side of Sudbury that night.... not sure how true that was but I certainly could believe it) until about 3 in the morning. As we crawled into our sleeping bags we talked about our plans to hike up to "The Crack" the next day.  We were looking forward to another day of hiking.