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The Cabin A Search for Personal Sanctuary by Hap Wilson “But you love Temagami more than you love me,” Hap Wilson’s wife tells him in The Cabin. He doesn’t answer out of the fear of his own words. There is no doubt of his love for Temagami among the fans he has garnered through eight illustrated books and his guided backcountry trips. The only more famous Temagami guide is Grey Owl. Ironically, Hap served as a technical advisor on Grey Owl filmed by Richard Attenborough. This is his first non-travel book and you won’t be dealt that perfect National Geographic image. Hap exposes some callouses and axe wounds. He is, and always has been, artist, outfitter, guide and writer, the vocations of those who are beholding to no one, for better or for worse. You will discover a free spirit, looking for freedom from his spirit. It is not a complete memoir, but he touches on all the major periods of his life. He takes us through some crazy adventures and hair-raising misadventures, most of which are set in Temagami, all focused around some cabin — though this may be an overly generous description of some — he has built or moved into. And Hap has had many. The book is slow going until page 41 when the reader is introduced to the underground cabin. Then, a teenager, Hap builds it on private property — not his — in a stand of trees belonging to the neighbourhood’s Voldemort. He plays hooky to do the work. Amazingly, he manages to finish without getting caught. Of course, when Voldemort does find it, Hap gets a visit from the local police. You would think this would discourage him from illegal occupations. The next cabin he secretly constructs is on Crown land on an un-named Temagami lake. This is a no-no with Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. Hap then goes to work for the same ministry. Unfortunately, it finds the cabin and launches an investigation to find the owner. This guy is devoutly devoted to assisted suicide. There are funny moments. Stephanie, his future wife, becomes infatuated with him. He is less intoxicated with her and decides to test her outdoor skills by asking her to take a piss in a canoe, thinking she would be stumped. He is wrong. I will let you read the book to find out how she did it. There is lots of action and a few revelations. In 1992, there is a forest fire on the Lady Evelyn River in the heart of Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Wilderness Park. It is officially attributed to an unattended campfire. Fortunately, fire crews managed to stop its progress, limiting it to 771 hectares. Hap, who is at his cabin on the Lady Evelyn River just 10 kilometres downwind of the blaze, is forced to evacuate. During the Temagami Wilderness Society-led defense of the area in the 1980s, there had been plenty of local barroom threats to turn it into a “black forest” if it was preserved. Hap learns that the fire was started by Elk Lake residents determined to keep that vow. The Lady Evelyn River cabin is the only private property in the park, pre-dating its creation. Perched at the lip of Cabin Falls, it is probably one of the most idyllic and stunning wilderness cabins in eastern Canada. Driven to spend the winter in his sanctuary, he drags along his wife, their infant and toddler in 2001. No electricity. No running water. Firewood for heat. Their only communication with the outside world is a finicky satellite telephone. With ice conditions slushy most of the winter, skiing out or a snowmobile coming in is not an option. Their only safety link is by ski-outfitted bush plane that can land at Divide Lake. You will find yourself taking one side or the other on the wisdom of taking his family with such young children. We all have an imaginary sanctuary. Hap through sheer force of will has stepped beyond the imaginary and conjured up his dream place, more than once. You can’t read this without being shocked by his chutzpah and impressed with his determination. Paperback: 175 pp, $24.95 CDN, $19.95 US Publisher: Natural Heritage Books (2005) Availability: Bookstores and Chat Noir Books, New Liskeard
— Reviewed February 21, 2006 by Brian Back |
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Winter on Diamond An Encounter with the Temagami Wilderness by Soren Bondrup-Nielsen "Now is the time to live your dreams, while you still have the freedom to do so," Vagn Peterson said in the book. This is the story of the fulfillment of Hap Wilson and Soren Bondrup-Nielsen's dream of wintering in Temagami. The 22-year-olds arrived at the Temagami train station in January, 1974, planning to squat for the winter in the old Murphy logging camp, which was then still standing, on Diamond Lake. While in town they intended to keep a low profile, so as to avoid tipping off the authorities. But that was nearly spoiled at their first meal when they entered the Busy Bee Restaurant in mukluks and heavy, winter clothes, and sat next to a perceptive Lands and Forests official. Actually, they had a plan within the plan to stay in the logging camp while secretly completing the construction of a second cabin on a nearby lake between Diamond and Small lakes. But nothing works as badly as a well-laid plan and the winter for them lurched between highs and lows. There was a period of cabin fever that turned their sunny relationship into a blizzard. A mid-winter guest who accidentally torched one of the cabins in the camp. An angry rescue pilot who landed after an SOS was tramped into the snow for a non-emergency. A near-death for Soren when he broke a cardinal rule of winter survival. Some questionable backwoods ethics. And a coyote that refused to share the comfort of an outhouse. Rugged solitude is like an fiddle of introspection and Soren plays tunes for us. "When you struggle like we did, your focus narrows and becomes internal — you lose perspective. It is your struggle against the elements. I was not one with nature anymore, as I had felt when I had been sitting on the wanigan out on the lake. I struggled against nature and that was a hopeless battle. With the predominant philosophy that we humans are separate from nature, we think that it is nature we have to fight. This is of course wrong. We are a part of nature and our struggle is with ourselves." There are plenty of adventures, surprises and humility in this easy read. If you ever dreamed of packing up a toboggan, strapping on snowshoes and heading out across the ice, here's a story for you. Maybe it'll still, or stir, those lingering regrets. Paperback: 261 pp, $28.95 Publisher: Res Telluris (2004) Availability: Publisher and Chat Noir Books — Reviewed January 11, 2005 |
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BOOK Hap's Canoeing, Kayaking & Hiking Temagami The backcountry bible just keeps getting better First, let's get the cliches out of the way: publishing sensation of the year, masterpiece, gem, must-have. If you plan to canoe, kayak or hike in Temagami, Chiniguchi, Wanapitei or on Timiskaming, this is the source — and has been since its first edition in 1978 (then called Temagami Canoe Routes). |
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BOOK Deep Waters Courage, Character and the Lake Timiskaming Canoeing Tragedy The drowning of 12 young students and a teacher 24 years ago on Lake Timiskaming was one of the worst canoeing tragedies in Canadian history. This is a touching and sobering story told by James Raffan. Included with the review are photos taken in the aftermath. REVIEW BOOK Ontario's Lost Canoe Routes Kevin Callan has written his sixth canoe-route guidebook. Not a cut-and-dried Frommer's Does Ontario by Canoe guidebook. No, this one has got attitude, the same attitude that have made his books so popular. Ontario's Lost Canoe Routes contains 15 Ontario routes, three of which are in the Temagami region: Chiniguchi (chih-nih-GOO-chee) River, Thunderhead-Bob lakes and Marten River Park. These Temagami routes are not as well known and, particularly in the case of the Thunderhead route, not well used. His goal for this book was to find and publish out-of-the-way routes before they are lost. And here is the dilemma. "How can a route be 'lost,' or better yet," he says in the introduction, "protected, if some wilderness pornographer like me writes about it in a guidebook?" This is the same dilemma Hap Wilson faced back in 1978 when he published Temagami Canoes Routes. In the end, both Hap and Kevin came to the same conclusions: use it or lose it. Publicizing them and getting canoeing traffic back on these old nastawgan puts the onus on the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) to protect them from industrialists and canoeists. (We won't get into the huge chasm between MNR's and the wilderness canoeist's concept of protection.) Those who write up canoe routes have been criticized by some canoeists who see them opening up their private utopia. But I disagree with them because, sadly, reality is a harsh teacher. Kevin's route books are fun to read and he doesn't gloss over his own misfortunes or mistakes, often with self-deprecating humour. On his Chiniguchi trip, he dropped his canoe on a portage and soaked his first-aid kit. To bandage a cut he "had to resort to holding a piece of gauze over the cut with a strip of duct tape." Ouch. The book has plenty of photos and every route is clearly mapped with interesting features, portages and campsites. Fortunately, he maps an extension of the Chiniguchi trip through Evelyn Lake, but unfortunately doesn't flesh it out in the narrative. (Just can't get enough of this guy, I guess.) There are a few minor factual errors in his research of some Temagami features. He attributed the Wakimika Triangle old-growth trails to Friends of Temagami, when they were built by Temagami Wilderness Society and Earthroots. This book will help gain recognition for the 15 routes and provide some great choices off the beaten path. Even if you aren't intending to put your paddle in the water any time soon, the stories of his travels are so interesting that you will probably change your mind. Routes: Wabakimi Park (Smoothrock-Whitewater route) Steel River Loop Chapleau and Nemegosenda Rivers Wakami Lake Loop Ranger Lake Loop Bark Lake Loop Nabakwasi River Loop Four M Circle Loop Tatachikapika River Chiniguchi River Canton lakes (Thunderhead-Bob lakes) Marten River Park South River York River — Reviewed April 18, 2002 Ontario's Lost Canoe Routes by Kevin Callan Paperback: 166 pages Publisher: Boston Mills Press (April 2002) |
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Temagami: A Journey Through Rites of Passage
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VIDEO Film reveals a hidden side of Temagami Every summer teenagers and young adults go to Temagami for an education, not in canoeing or camping, but in life. The canoe-tripping camps and the outdoor-ed programs quietly offer this experience, but few know about it or understand it. A new film has done a remarkable job of demystifying one of Temagami's great assets, this unique education. Temagami: A Journey Through Rites of Passage tells the story of a group of city teenagers on a three-week canoe trip at Northwaters Wilderness Program. It begins with their unfocussed, angst-ridden lives in the city, and follows their personal travails and, sometimes tearful, emotional transformation in the wilds of Temagami — their rites of passage. "If you don't have that adequate rite of passage where the wisdom of the culture and the wisdom of the community are transferred or given in some way to the youth," says Barry Williams in the film, "nothing can happen. He or she remains caught in a kind of eternal adolescence." The film is the project of outdoor educator David Knudsen, director of Northwaters, who is in the film during the canoe trip. He is passionate about bringing ritual back into the lives of young people and about Temagami. And Temagami is captured on many levels. Virginia McKenzie of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai speaks from the heart about the environmental threat. "It hurts me to know that maybe my grandchildren won't be able to feel the freshness of the land and the freshness of the water and the trees. What are we teaching our children by not caring for something that gives us life?" There's a scene where the trip comes across a moose feeding at water's edge. The moose hesitates, uncertain about the intrusion. Everyone sits silently, floating in their canoes, watching, drinking in the moment as the moose stares back. It reminds me of one of the great lines in the film: "This is a holy place. It's worth treating as a holy place." This film deserves to be on the shelf of everyone who is truly passionate about Temagami. It is available on video from Great Atlantic and Pacific Film Company. — Reviewed January 8, 2002 Temagami: A Journey Through Rites of Passage Format: VHS, $20 plus shipping Run Time: 53 min. Producer: Great Atlantic and Pacific Film Company Box 2733 Morin Heights, Quebec J0R 1H0 514-223-2757 or 450-562-3200 BUY THE VIDEO: Temagami Films |
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MAP Chrismar's Temagami 1 Temagami 1 - Northeast, a new canoeing topographic map by Chrismar, covers an area bounded by Latchford, Diamond Lake, Maple Mountain and Spray Creek. (Chrismar reports it will publish two more maps of Temagami.) It includes portages, campsites, the new conservation reserves, and at least one route that has not been published before (Thunderhead route). It is an ideal map as it is waterproof and has a comfortable scale of 1:80,000. This can easily be a replacement for 1:50,000 topos. If you were doing the Mowat's Landing, Lady Evelyn, Maple Mountain, Mendelssohn, Mowat's route, it would save the purchase of three topos. At $14.95, this makes the map a bargain. Christine Kennedy, the co-producer, says the map was produced directly from aerial photos rather than government data. We know that government topos are riddled with small errors, as they often used summer students in doing aerial-photo interpretation. Kennedy made clear that their map is "accurate." I would be cautious. There are a number of errors. The two portages between Lady Evelyn and Willow Island Lakes show an open body of water along the eastern portage. The tiny creek is overstated on the map and could mislead anyone looking for the trail. Two campsites at Ferguson Mountain are mispositioned. Another in the Lower Narrows of Sharp Rock Inlet does not exist. The uppermost falls on the South Channel of the Lady Evelyn River was misnamed Twin Sisters. It is Cabin Falls. All this was found with only a quick map inspection. It is available at bookstores, outdoor stores and Temagami outfitters. — Reviewed September 10, 2001 |
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Maps and information herein are not intended for navigational use, and are not represented to be correct in every respect. All pages intended for reference use only, and all pages are subject to change with new information and without notice. The author/publisher accepts no responsibility or liability for use of the information on these pages. Wilderness travel and canoeing possess inherent risk. It is the sole responsibility of the paddler and outdoor traveler to determine whether he/she is qualified for these activities. Copyright © 2000-2008 Brian Back. All rights reserved. We do not endorse and are not responsible for the content of any linked document on an external site.
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