Dragonfly Rescue At Gervais Lake

I woke up at 8:30 a.m. to a gorgeous, sunny, morning. My back was feeling much better. Not perfect, but still good enough to travel. On my way to the bathroom, I noticed a toad that was enjoying the morning sun just as much as I was. It's so nice to have the sun out and not another rainy day. 

A sparrow watched us as we packed up camp. 

We said good bye to the loons and they waved good bye back to us. 

We left camp at about 11 a.m. and headed off to Gervais Lake. We were now far enough into the back country that we were not seeing a whole lot of people and finally I felt like my world was peaceful. And a Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly seemed to think so too. 

There were still quite a few muddy areas along the way. 

In fact, it was so wet that in one place the trail itself was a creek and people had just made a new trail along side the original one in an attempt to keep their feet from getting soaked. You could avoid the water for the most part, but it was more difficult to avoid the mud. 

As wet and muddy as it was, there were still many interesting and beautiful things to see. The roots of some of the trees twisted and turned leaving you to wonder how it got that way. 

Brown fuzzy caterpillars of the St. Lawrence Tiger Moth were on a journey of their own to find food and perhaps a safe place to make a cocoon. 

Blue damselflies darted about and rested from fern to fern in the late morning sunshine. 

When we had traveled a little over 1.5 km we stopped for a rest at the Tern Lake portage. While we rested a lone hiker came by and we chatted with him for a moment. He asked if we knew how far it was to Tern Lake from where we were. We told him it was "815 meters that way" and we pointed in the direction that he needed to go. He thanked us and continued on to Tern Lake. He was probably wondering how we were able to be so exact with our distance in our directions. What he didn't know was that we could see a portage sign with the distance written right on it.

​ He was on the other side of the tree so he couldn't see it. I was somewhat amused by our fake fortune teller abilities and I smiled to myself about it. 

As we rested I sat back and looked up at the sky. It was after noon by this point and yet, the moon was still clearly visible in the daytime sky. 

Heather and I took out our map and had a look at where we were and how far we had to go. Today we were hiking almost 6 km to get to Gervais Lake.

Our map was well used and all the rain from the days previous had left it in a bit of a rough shape. Part of it had ripped away, so Gervais was literally "off the map". 

After a short rest we continued on. The mosquitoes were still bad in a lot of places but we found that whenever we were near a lake we would get some wind and the mosquitoes would diminish. 

There were some rocky areas that were rougher to travel on but nothing to cumbersome. My back was doing ok and the pain from the previous day was almost all gone. The more I hiked, the better it felt. I guess the muscles just needed to get moving and get warmed up. 

On some trees grew the brightest red fungi that I had ever seen. They were so red that when the sun shone on them, they reflected the red colour onto the bark of the tree. And they grew in a spiral pattern all around the tree. 

At one point we came to a little board walk bridge that crossed a marshy area. It was quite lovely. 

White-faced Meadow Hawk Dragonflies were particularly plentiful here. I stopped and spent some time here just drinking in their beauty and enjoying the peace. 

I was so enthralled with the marshy area that I hadn't looked ahead at what was to come. If I had, I would have noticed the giant hill that was right in front of me that we had to climb. It was huge! I slowly made the climb and when I reached about half way up, I turned around to see how far I had come. I could make out the wooden bridge far below that now looked so small. 

Knowing I still had to get to the top, I continued my climb upwards. If the climb itself wasn't bad enough, there were a large number of very tiny toads also making the climb up this hill, and so I also had to keep an eye out for them. I was afraid that I was going to step on one if I wasn't careful. They easily blended in with their surroundings. I eventually made it to the top of the hill with no toad casualties. 

We traveled through the woods for a few more kilometers. Eventually we came to a stream where we had to jump from stone to stone to get across. Growing along the edge of this stream were some purple Narrowleaf Gentians that that hadn't quite opened yet. These flowers are somewhat rare to find. 

In order to get a picture of them I had to balance myself precariously on a rock in the middle of the stream while using my walking stick for balance. One false move and I would have fallen into the stream. But I managed to get my picture and keep my boots dry. (The things we will do for a photograph, right?) 

Finally I arrived at the last wooden foot bridge before the Gervais Lake site.

The water was clear and yellow water lily flowers were growing just above the lily pads.

Frogs were enjoying a rest on top of the lily pads. 

​ I didn't know this was the last foot bridge to cross before I got to the camp site, at the time though. Heather was up ahead by this point and I could just see her across the water. I thought that she was just resting and waiting for me at another portage or something. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the orange sign for the camp site and realized that we had reached our destination for the day. 

It was about 2:30 when I arrived. I was more than happy with the site. It was wide open, right on the lake, and was the best site we had camped on during this trip so far. 

The camp fire pit was well laid out with log benches all around. ​There was a continual breeze here so that meant that there were no mosquitoes. Heather and I came to the conclusion as we were hiking that day that every time we felt a breeze come up, that was God giving someone a reprieve from the mosquitoes somewhere. 

However, since there was a continual breeze, someone had taken some of the stones from around the fire pit and built them all up to one side in order to shelter the flames from the wind. The rest of the stones were scattered about the campsite, presumably used to weight down tents and tarps. 

I left the stones built up on the one side because our flames would need shelter from the wind too. But, I gathered up all the scattered stones and attempted to rebuild the other side of the fire pit. It wasn't the best, but it was better than nothing there at all. 

Even the thunder box was freshly dug and newly built. I checked it to make sure no one had tangled up the chain like the last time. Heather called this toilet "Rick's toilet" (from Rick and Morty). I never watched the show so she explained how Rick has a special bathroom on a planet all to himself where he can just sit and be alone and enjoy the scenery. 

I understood what she meant. The view from "Rick's toilet" here at Gervais was the nicest view we had for a toilet so far. You could sit and do your business while looking out at the lake. 

To one side of the campsite is a tree with roots that are well above ground level. Heather explained that this tree had been growing on the stump of an old tree. As the stump weathers away, the tree  is left standing on its own by its roots. She said that last year when she had come through here, there was more stump left than there is now. Eventually the stump will be completely gone. 

In some places in the pine needles were strange little fungus  growing up from the moss. I had never seen these before. When I got home and researched them I found out that they are called "Earth Tongues". 

We didn't go in swimming at Gervais despite there being a perfectly good place to swim. We were tired of being cold and wet and having to dry our clothes. So we decided to just sit and enjoy the lake from dry land instead. 

It was nice to just sit back and stretch out my legs and enjoy the sun for a bit. As we sat, we talked about how this might be a good place to see a moose in the morning if we got up early enough. (I knew that we would never wake up early enough for that. We aren't early risers. But we could still hope to see one). 

Sitting quietly was also a great way to have the birds come and visit. When you are sitting still and doing nothing, that is when they like to come. There were quite a few Chickadees around.

There was also an American Redstart...

... and a Magnolia Warbler.

Normally we wait until dusk to put our food up in the tree. But, Heather and I both planned to leave the campsite to go exploring in opposite directions so we thought it would be wise not to leave the food at ground level unattended.  Unfortunately, Heather's process of using a pot to get the rope over the branch back fired on her once again. For a second time, in two days, the pot swung around and hit her in the forehead. Dangerous things those pots! I took a try at it. I am not as good as Heather is at getting the rope over the branch but I did manage to do it without getting hit. (Came close a couple times though). 

After getting the food up in the tree, we both went to explore the area. I back tracked a little to where the trail split and headed towards West Otter Paw Lake. I liked the name and I was curious to see what the closest campsite on that trail looked like. The campsite on West Otter Paw was only about a 2 minute walk. Unfortunately, there was someone on that site so as soon as I realized it, I turned around and left before they saw me. I didn't want to disturb them.

So, instead I headed back to the wooden foot bridge that we crossed to get to our campsite. It is only about a one minute walk away from the site. There, I saw the most unusual Crane Fly I had ever seen. It had white feet, like it was wearing boots or something. I learned later that it was an Eastern Phantom Crane Fly.

The water level of the lake is held by an old beaver dam. The old logs that line the perimeter are a great home for frogs and minnows. 

I stayed by the foot bridge for quite awhile. Eventually I realized that the sun was getting lower on the horizon and that my stomach was telling me that it was supper time. So, I headed back to find Heather. 

We started a small fire to cook our supper (and to burn our garbage) and we ate the last of the cheese that we had gotten as a thank you from our guests Frank, Alex, and Roche back at Weed Lake. 

We were hoping that we would be able to see a spectacular sunset on this lake since we had a nice, clear view. But the sun sank behind the trees and there were no pretty colours to go with it. Heather said that we should write a strongly worded letter to the park and let them know that we were going to rate their sunsets as a 2. We had not seen a good sunset on this trip yet. 

With the sun gone and dusk upon us it wouldn't be too long before it was completely dark out. That was when I noticed a dragonfly out on the surface of the lake. It had somehow fallen into the water and was trying desperately to get out again but was not having any luck. I knew that, at this time of day, it wouldn't be long before either a fish grabbed him or he drowned (and then a fish would grab him...either way he was potential food). So, Heather passed me her walking stick and I hugged a tree that was leaning out over the water and reached as far as I could with the stick. All the while, I was hoping that I didn't slip and fall in the lake. The walking stick only barely made it to him, but I managed to get him on it and I pulled him out of the lake. Dragonfly Rescue!

​   I took him off of the stick and onto my hand and let him dry off a bit. But he didn't fly away. The problem now was that it was too dark out for the dragonfly to fly. I had to figure out some place safe for him so that he didn't get eaten by an owl (that whole destined to be food thing again) and far enough away from the water that he didn't fall in again. This brought up the question ..."Where do dragonflies sleep, anyway?"  I didn't really know.
   I ended up putting him on a bush that was relatively close to the lake, (but not too close) and just hoped that he would be safe through the night. 

When it got dark enough, Heather and I watched for meteors falling again. We only saw a few. So, once it started getting chilly we headed to bed. We slept with no tarp over the tent and nothing but the screen door between us and the great outdoors. Just before falling to sleep we heard the loons getting really loud and  and rowdy. They called back and forth to each other, non-stop, for about 3 minutes straight. We were wondering what in the world was going on out there.  Finally they calmed down and went back to normal. We  would hear only the occasional  call from them. The last call I remember hearing before drifting off to sleep was that of a Barred Owl. 
  I really liked this site. I wished we could have stayed for 2 nights instead of just one. But in the morning we would be heading off to Brown Lake.