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A few things that I believe:
I make mistakes
I can (try to) not repeat the same mistake twice.
The greatest thing about mistakes: I can be reminded to be humble… and to treat my favourite place - solo my canoe - with respect — in the sense that screwing up can result in amusement but potentially in a very dangerous predicament.
So… what’s been your greatest bit of backcountry stupidity?
____
My greatest (worst).
On an enormous lake, I pulled my canoe up onto the site’s little sand beach. I unloaded a pile firewood. I did pull the canoe WAY up into the sand. It wasn’t even touching the water… but I did not flip it, I left it upright on the sand. I was looking forward to going for a paddle in a while
Pulling it up so far seemed a bit wise but not really…
I completely forgot to go back partly because a hell of a storm came through.
I battened down the camp but forgot about the canoe.
I got into my tent to ride out the downpour that blew sideways.
Apparently, a 40lb prospector (very flat bottomed) canoe can be blown across sand and out into the lake.
Remember?… enormous lake?
I was incredibly lucky.
I was on Opeongo.
A water taxi turned up just after the storm ended. “Is this your canoe?”.
Seriously humbling.
Amazingly lucky that I was even on the only lake with water taxis.
The kindness of that water taxi driver was extremely appreciated…
…without it, I did still have an out (Zoleo wife, have her phone water taxi to hire one to retrieve us and find the canoe)..,
On any other trip, I would have been in very big trouble.
Especially since I do most of my trips in the shoulder season and, especially in the fall, it’s common for me to not see anyone for days at a time.
**A MASSIVE SHOUT OUT TO ALGONQUIN OUTFITTERS… I stopped by on our way home to thank them in person and spent some money in the store.
—/
So… anyone else?
🤪
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My buddy and I camped on an island for the night. I did no tie down the canoe (lightweight Grumman aluminum IIRC).
Some time later we we sitting on a log drinking coffee at our campsite, looking out over the lake from slightly higher ground, when we saw the boat slowly drift by a few feet off shore.
My buddy was quicker than me; he scored a long dead sapling which he managed to toss out onto the canoe while holding on to the end. But we both got wet.
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I hung up the food bag with a slip knot. Apparently racoons know how to untie a slip knot. Had to drive off about 4 racoons in the morning. We were living on half-rations for the next 3 nights.
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solos wrote:
I hung up the food bag with a slip knot. Apparently racoons know how to untie a slip knot. Had to drive off about 4 racoons in the morning. We were living on half-rations for the next 3 nights.
I was having a conversation with a friend on my last trip to the park, neither of us have ever seen a raccoon in the back country. Can't swing a cat without hitting one at a car campground. Weird.
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We had a racoon do a tightwire act to access our pack one night on Burnt Island Lake. They enjoy white bread.
I've related the story previously of my first trip to Algonquin when I was roughly 10 years old in 1977 where a similar mistake befell us. We camped on the elevated Hayes point site on Lavieille in mid-May. Rainy day coming in over the Dickson-Bonfield, cold, hungry & tired. The first few days were rain and wind but the wind shifted the second night and one of the four canoes that had been tied to a tree along shore went for a float sometime overnight.
We noticed it missing in the morning and made a plan for the remaining three canoes to fan out over the lake to search. That afternoon one of the canoes comes upon two guys with a motor on their canoe coming out of Thomas Bay who said they saw a canoe down at the far end of the bay. That thing had floated over three miles in the breeze!
Technically, since I wasn't the one who didn't tie the canoe, it wasn't my mistake. My mistake was taking a 17 foot aluminum Michicraft canoe (75-80 pounds) over the Dickson-Bonfield in my late thirties. Remarkably stupid.
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