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Message |
fireman
Member
Post Number: 196
Registered: 08-2009
| | Posted on Friday, January 20, 2012 - 8:12 am: | 
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I just returned last night from four days in the Sunday Lake/Tall Pines DogSled area of the Park.
We were a group of 30 from the high school in three groups of ten, each with a Craig MacDonald Tupik tent, woodstove, reflector oven, et al.
Craig's equipment is extremely well made, sensible and, most important of all, reliable.
Not a lot of moving parts, definitely no printed circuits.
The students had never set up the tents before, nor pulled komatiks with over a hundred pounds of gear on them. But these are good kids who love life.
The Park, beautiful as ever, had had some storms blow through and there were trees down everywhere.
On the second day, Tuesday, it started to snow and it did not stop. Almost ten inches fell over about 12 hours. We were in our mostly warm tent, burning some pretty wet firewood, having a good time. Late at night, the temperature plummetted and we awoke to a clear sky and somewhere south of Minus 20 C. No problem. Pack up and let's go. The trails were all snowed in and I expected it would be a lot more work sledding than we were used to. Some years, the trails are like groomed cross country ski trails with a solid ice base and a nice layer of packed snow...not this year. Soft trails that had been groomed once, maybe twice by snowmobile and not very fast.
but none of that mattered to us because as we left our campsite on Zenobia Lake, we hit the lake surface which was eight inches of fresh snow of soaking wet slush.
If any of you have ready any accounts of arctic sledding, eg-Franklin, Ross, Back, etc., you will recall those stories of poor British Tars making less than a mile in a day, freezing in the white nothingness.
well, let me tell you. Maybe not that bad, but four beefy teenage boys and me could not budge those sleds once that slush froze to the runners in the cold. We unloaded and tried to chip the ice off as best we could. In the end, we made about three kilometers in five hours and came into camp beat and broken. With two hours of work still ahead of us setting up the tent, cutting wood and gathering balsam for our beds.
the only reason we made it that far was because Craig himself arrived on his snow machine and groomed the trail to our campsite and gave us some good general advice on other matters that helped us out as well. Later, once in camp, Craig showed up again to photograph us setting up his tent and believe me, ten minutes of advice from a guy like Craig can save you hours of heartache and make for a much more comfortable experience. Given that the temperature was predicted to dip below minus 25 C that night, I was worried. All the wood blown down was still green AND an ice storm had preceded the snow so all the wood was coated in ice. A bit hard to get a cheery blaze happening unless you really know your stuff. I am not quite that guy yet. I did manage to keep the kids warm, waking every 50 minutes throughout the night to pile on the wood in a stove that was glowing orange and making me, a firfighter after all, a little worried. The idea of evacuating ten people into the cold night as a cotton tent goes up in flames is not a nice picture and when the wind blows and you see that chimney rocking, well, you get the idea.
Craig helped me with the fire, advised me on where to find some hardwood stashed by another gentleman in the area, Craig Lawrence of Forest Adventures, and generally checked in on us to make sure we were OK. We had an amazing night, out till almost eleven p.m. looking for better firewood and finally finding a dead hardwood log about nine inches in diameter that saved our bacon, or at least helped cook it. It was just what we needed and it was frosty work out there under a starry sky, but the kids got out of their sleeping bags, donned their gear and, as you can imagine, we never stopped laughing or joking. It makes the rest of the world go away and the moment is everything.
We had a gourmet meal of chili and the best bannock I have ever tasted. Cups of hot chocolate and Turkish Coffee. And, throughout the trip, a reading of Lost in the Barrens, which this generation of FaceBooking/texting of seventeen year-olds could not get enough of.
the trials of Jamie and Awasin seemed a little more believable after the morning of being stuck in the Barrens, as it were.
My point in writing is really to thank Craig Lawrence and particularly Craig MacDonald, or as we call him, Yoda, for their care and consideration and help. Knowing those guys are around makes these trips a lot less worrisome.
Anyone who has not spent a night in a trapper tent owes it to themselves to get in touch with Craig Lawrence at www.OntarioForestAdventures.com and arrange a trip. He can take you there by dogsled if you want, although you can arrange to use his tents which are set up around the area and are for rent. Craig MacDonald has redefined what a true gentleman is for me. His patience and calm is something I can only hope to emulate but never achieve. In our world of instant everything, Craig possesses wisdom gained the old fashioned way. It is a honour to call him friend. Sorry about the verbose posting but it was quite a trip, particularly the drive home through snow squalls in a schoolbus full of exhausted students. Finally, winter has come to Ontario. Cheers Everybody. |
grncnu
Member
Post Number: 160
Registered: 08-2010
| | Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 7:32 pm: |
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very entertaining description as always! and i hope you get plenty of appreciation for what you do, it's very important that kids get this kind of experience. |
preacher
Member
Post Number: 173
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - 2:07 pm: |
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Great story! Wrong link? http://snowforestadventures.ca/ |
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Temagami general