This is another story from the collection Along the Way by John Wiens.
More stories from Along the Way:
LOST IN ALGONQUIN
(John Wiens)
About fifty kilometres south of North Bay on Highway #11 is the small town of South River, a favourite haunt of the famous Canadian artist Tom Thomson. A road called the “Chemical Road” runs to the west of the town. It is a scenic road winding its way through the picturesque hills and valleys of the Almaguan Highlands and along the banks of the meandering South River. Along the road are small lakes with cottages on their shores. Eventually the road runs past the park ranger station on Kawawaymoc Lake. However the last few miles of the ‘Chemical’ may not be fit to drive on by car. The road here, the last stretch of the thirty kilometres to the Algonquin Provincial Park, may be less than a bush road. It would be rather risky to drive over the old wooden bridge across Johnson Creek; also one may hesitate before driving through a flooded road caused by beaver dams blocking small nearby streams.
Our oldest son Robert, at the time being thirteen years old, and I had risked driving our pickup truck across the hazardous bridge and the flooded roads. We then had parked our vehicle within a few kilometres of the park boundary. I myself, as a youth growing up in the wilds of Northern Ontario had enjoyed nothing more than when my dad had taken me and my brother Walter out with some of our friends on wilderness hikes; now it was my turn to take my oldest son on a wilderness adventure.
We were going on a three day hike, and so were carrying heavy pack boards with us: an inflatable rubber dinghy including short paddles, our tent, sleeping bags, and our food supplies. It had excited Robert as we were making plans still back home in Leamington. Perhaps I too had felt some excitement as well. Our plans were to drive all the way from our home in Leamington to our South River hunting camp where we would stay for our first night, then the next day drive on the Chemical Road to the Park boundary and then hike on to Wabanah Lake, a small beautiful lake, surrounded by high hills and having the highest elevation of all the lakes in Algonquin Park and its surrounding area.
It would be a ten kilometre hike from where we had parked our pick-up truck. I had been to this lake before with my friends Henry and Rudy and my brother Walter. This was an excellent small lake for fishing speckled trout and lake trout.
Entering the park, the road is really nothing more than a trail overgrown with wild raspberries, tall grass and brush. At one time this extension of the Chemical Road into the park served as a forest fire access road; now it is being used as nothing more than an occasional all terrain vehicle or hiking trail.
The weather was fair and not too hot, making walking conditions actually quite pleasant, except for the heavy packs on our backs. At one point on the trail we noticed where the wild raspberry bushes had been trampled flat to the ground. I immediately warned Robert to be alert. I knew what was going on here. This had been done by bears feeding on the berries. Sure enough; shortly after approaching a hidden curve in the trail, we almost collided with two bear cubs. We had surprised them as much as they had surprised us. They snorted, jumping up, each one shimmying up a tree on either side of the trail. Robert and I found ourselves right between them and the mother bear, several hundred feet ahead of us. She could be dangerous if she felt that somehow we were a threat to her cubs. Robert and I looked at each other, both of us realizing that we were in a spot where we had to be cautious. I told Robert not to make any fast moves, although he was fully aware of that. He had seen wild animals before, including bears.
I further suggested to him: “We’ll remove our back packs and hold them in front of us, then slowly move backwards. At the same time we’ll keep our eyes on the old bear. If for some reason she decides to come after us we’ll be able to cede our packs to her. Better she gets them then us.”
The mother bear now was sitting in low brush ahead of us, watching us with her ears alert and doing some low sound grunting, which I interpreted as; not really meant for us, but rather her way of communicating with her cubs. The cub to our right was perched high up on a poplar tree, the other one to our left, much lower, about twelve feet up, where the tree at some time had broken off and lost its top, leaving only a high stump. Suddenly the little cub decided it did not like its low perch. It scrambled down and then, almost close enough to brush us, crossed the path in front of us and shimmied up the same tree that its sibling was perched on. That caused a few tense moments, as we were trying to back ourselves away from this precarious situation. The mother bear again grunting, began coming toward us, but then angled off the path but still coming closer. The cubs suddenly came down and ran off to join their mother and, with her, disappeared into the bush. Robert and I now breathed a bit easier. Then a few moments later, assuming the path ahead of us to be clear again of any major hazards, put our back packs back on and resumed walking.
The path we were on does not actually lead directly to the lake, but rather passes by a short distance from it. The lake can easily be missed. However, eventually we noticed some light reflections through the trees to the right of us in the area where I assumed the lake to be. We walked towards it and, as the treetops opened letting in more light from the open sky above us, we knew we had arrived at our destination and finally found ourselves on the shores of Wabanah Lake.
It now was late in the afternoon, and though we were tired and hungry from a long hike, we inflated the rubber dinghy and paddled to a small nearby island, which we chose as an ideal spot to camp on. With birch bark, and a few dry sticks, having made a fire I boiled some lake water for tea. Robert was drinking ginger ale. We dined on canned pork and beans, sausages and bread. After we had eaten and pitched our tent, feeling again a bit more invigorated, we tried some fishing. However we were experiencing a problem: our live bait wasn’t live any more; maybe it had gotten too hot in the back pack or maybe there was a lack of air in the plastic margarine container. Also, having used fly repellents we may have contaminated our lures with DEET. Anyway, the fish weren’t interested in our offerings. Being tired, we returned to our tent, crawled into our sleeping bags and went to sleep.
There must have been a wolves den somewhere near by. Early the next morning we were awakened by yelping wolf pups. Even at night I had heard them several times. Eventually I would rise, dress, get my boots on, and start a fire. This morning the skies were overcast, but did not look like rain. I strained some lake water through a coffee maker filter. From earlier experiences I knew that this water, out of a pristine wilderness lake with speckled trout in it, is not like our polluted Lake Erie water back home, but is pure and drinkable. Then mixing it with powdered milk, we had something for Robert to drink and for our cereal and my coffee.
After breakfast we got into our dinghy and again tried some unsuccessful fishing. From a nearby shore we noticed an open spot on a hill side, where some years earlier a fire had swept through, and left the area with high burnt off stumps and a profusion of new growth vegetation. After having beached the dingy and gone exploring, we were pleasantly surprised by a crop of plump luscious raspberries. Then gorging ourselves we again saw signs where the bushes had been flattened down by bears. Once aware of their possible presence we were on the alert for them, however not realizing that at the same time, that we had lost sight of the lake and our way to get back to it. Then looking for our way back, we realized our confusion.
Animals; particularly wild animals, do not get lost. They have reliable instincts. We humans have instincts as well, but they certainly are not reliable. The moment we believe we can rely on them for direction is when we can be sure to go wrong. We humans have been given intelligence or common sense instead. The problem is: we tend to forget that. This morning Robert and I certainly had. First of all we left our compass in the tent; then before getting too far away from the lake, we should have made some mental observations such as wind direction, the land slope of the ridge we were on, or any other reference point or prominent land marks. Well we didn’t. All we were interested in was the luscious wild raspberry patch we were discovering. Now it was dawning on us that maybe it would not be so simple to find our way back.
We checked a dead, high, weathered old tree stump to see on which side its bare gray wood had been bleached into a lighter shade by the sun, which gave us a clue to its southern exposure. However, once having established a sense of direction, it still seemed to be of little use to us, because we had not paid any attention to what direction we had walked in. We still did not have a clue in what direction to walk out. We had another idea: by climbing one of a cluster of tall evergreen trees about a quarter mile away we should be able to see the lake. After we had chosen one of the highest trees, and Robert had climbed up on it as high as he possibly could, he announced to me: “Dad, I can’t see any signs of the lake.”
I tell him: “Ok. Robert. Be careful coming down.”
Once he was down I told him, “Robert we’ll sit down and figure this out. To keep on walking into an unknown direction, of which we are not sure of, doesn’t make any sense. In fact, we would risk getting ourselves into a panic and getting even more lost than we already may be. We must stay right here and calmly think this through. To start with; let’s think back; just how did we get here?”
“Dad, getting here, we were walking mostly up hill. To get back to the lake; we should be walking mostly down hill”
Actually that was a smart observation, but not enough to give us an accurate clue. We already had walked to far away from they original slope that we had come up on.
Although we both had strong inner urges to get up and get going, rather than just sit and seemingly do nothing, we stayed. At that point we knew we still did not have all the right answers to our dilemma. We remained sitting in silence. It is at moments like this, realising our own helplessness, that we are led to seek guidance from some greater wisdom than our own, and feel the need for some kind of Devine intervention.
Then suddenly; as if getting a direct answer to our prayers, I thought I heard something. “Robert did you hear what I heard?”
“No Dad. What did you hear?”
“I’m not quite sure if it really was what I think it was. Let’s be quiet and listen. We may hear it again”
Yes, after a few moments we heard it again and recognized a familiar sound: the cry of a loon. Then we heard the answering call of a second loon. We now knew where the lake was. To stay on course we chose a designated tree a short distance ahead of us; then , before getting to it, we chose a second one and so on, till suddenly we saw a welcome sight: the lake ahead of us, and then we spotted our bright coloured yellow dinghy on its shore.
That night, in our tent after having bedded down in our sleeping bags, not only did we again hear the yelping wolf pups, but also the mournful howling of adult wolves somewhere across the water. Then early in the morning before sunrise we were awakened by a loud crash near our tent. “What was that?” Something big must have fallen into the lake. Like a tree. Yes, of course. That is what it was; a large poplar tree. The work of beavers; earlier during the day we had seen signs of their work where they had cut down other trees.
After breakfast we took our tent down, packed up and left the little island in our dinghy. On the main shore we deflated it and packed it as well, then got our packs on our backs and left Wabanah to hike out of the park to our pick-up truck. A note had been stuck behind the windshield wiper. The park warden had left it for us, notifying us that we should have stopped in at the park ranger station at Lake Kawawaymog before entering the park. This was news to me. At previous times I had entered the park on the Chemical without any official notifications. Of course the ranger office was something new on the Chemical Road. We disregarded the note and drove back to South River and to our hunting camp. The next day we again were on our way back to Leamington and home.
Obviously, Robert had enjoyed the adventure. To this day, every year, he and also his brothers will go on wilderness hiking and canoe trips. However , too seldom do they take their old man with them. Perhaps the old man in the mean time has simply gotten too old.
