Pukaskwa - Backpacking the Coastal Trail - Day 5

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.