Dontgroandaddy, I enjoyed the humour and the precision in your writing. Excellent! Thanks for sharing. 

Ryanmorin, those smelt look good. Did you salt them before dehydrating? And were you happy with the taste and texture after this first attempt?

I KNEW some well-meaning Ontarian would correct me on that! But I got away with it for a little while, well, yes, 7, count 'em, seven whole minutes of being wrong...

I'm pretty sure, though, that Jimmy Buffet was once married to Bob Dylan's niece, Susan Sarandon. That would almost make them blood brothers, in a sense. Pretty sure about that, but I have been wrong before.

In any case, all that changes nothing. Just where did Rémi and Jay get to?


 

I don't know where Astorville is either. But I googled it and learned that it's got a bitchin' good Flea market the first weekend in May at the Community Centre. And on the second Sunday in August there's the Parish Picnic with "games, beans, and seapie". Sounds like a place with lots of folks passing wind.  And what's "seapie"? Enough! Where are Remi and Jay?

Paddlerunner: everything is possible! Ice, bugs, freezing nights, rain, sleet, snow and a killer heatwave. New, deeper ice forming to prevent access to portage put-ins and takeouts. Did I mention tornadoes? Damn, I forgot about them! But who would have thunk it? APP Interior closed till May 14 or 15?  In Park bulletins, phone calls, and emails the two dates seem to have happily morphed into some sort of bureaucratic two-days-in-one synthesis not unlike the half-man, half-fly in Cronenberg's movie, "The Fly". I agree, the original movie was better, but there I go again dating myself. Well, no one else will date me!

Paddlerunner, it sounds like you're engaging in the inevitable pre-departure ritual of last-minute additions. Isn't it fun? Nothing shall be subtracted during those final frantic hours before departure. Only additions are allowed. Today after much meditation and considerable see-sawing I bravely exchanged my 25-litre olive barrel for a gaping-mouthed 50-litre monster barrel to accommodate a few last-minute comfort items such as subsistence rations to ward off murderous hunger pangs and general lethargy, a proper frypan instead of the lame lightweight sticky thing I'd first opted for__it was too small to roast a mature chestnut in!__ a chunk of Stilton, a second container of whiskey, some more brownish-grey food I just took out of the dehydrator, and my Helinox chair (I was deluded into believing I could do without it for a 10-day trip. What was I thinking, anyway? I haven't tripped without a chair since 1994!

Ok, I'm going to be busting my ass double-portaging all this stuff into trout waters, risking life, limb, and whatever's left of my reputation as certified canoe-guy, and what is worrying me now? No flyrod! What?Goddammit, bring her along! What a shame to go all that way and not be able to cast a fly into those cold trout-infested waters. Settled!  Now, two rain jackets or one? Cliff Jacobson says two. On the other hand, I'm not Cliff Jacobson. We

Swift Fifteen: I would like to be as optimistic as you are. How do you manage to maintain such a rosy outlook about APP opening day in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary: snow, sleet, flooding and sub-zero temps. Haven't you noticed? It's fook-ing Armageddon out there!  What's your secret, sir? Is it daily yoga classes?  Zumba with mall-walking on alternate days? Or is it something much simpler like, say, shortbread cookies with your tea?   Fool that I am, in a demented moment of wishful thinking in mid-winter I chose May 5th. And I stubbornly clung to her as the ice around me grew ever thicker and more permanent. Men, as  your noble captain, it's only fair that I announce my intention to go down with the ship. Ice as far as the eye can see, and yet, the band played on...

"Eyes are bigger than stomachs", that's for sure! Especially so when gazing at maps during the winter. I've gradually come to the conclusion that one can spend numerous wonderful days out solo tripping and cover very few kilometres. A large part of ice-out trips for me is fishing. That means being generous with planning 2-day layovers in places where I want to make a proper effort to fish and not just troll a shoreline on my way to somewhere else. Why leave one beautiful lake whose treasures I barely glimpsed for another lake 25 k further along? If fishing isn't part of the trip, but the physicality of paddling and portaging is what you're after, you can still engage those muscles in paddling the perimeter of the lake you're camped on, or day-trip up creeks, through marshes, and into small lakes adjacent to your campsite. This approach, though, is an admittedly geezerly one, and is neither advisable, nor true, nor natural for youngsters. Young paddlers should go ahead and indulge their need to expend energy, to compete, and to rack up as many kilometers as they feel like racking up. And why not? But as we "get on" we begin to realize that "in the grand scheme of things" no one, absolutely no one, no parent, no friend, no guiding light, no omniscient author, and later on not even yourself could or even should really give much of a sh--  what distance you paddled on this or that trip. Try doing this: assume that no one is watching or recording or approving of your passage. Is your trip still a redeeming experience in itself? Is it still how you like to spend your time and mental and physical energy? Thinking about tripping in this way__a way that might appear a tad dark to some__ has influenced how I travel as I get older. 
On a less philosophical note, shorter itineraries in the spring offer other advantages:  when the rain turns to snow which turns back into rain again one can hunker down in a comfortable place knowing there's no rush and no need to soak those ex

Fantastic photos! These are very special times. Enjoy them!
Thanks for posting.