Ontario's Woodland Caribou Provincial Park - A Different World for Canoe Travelers

The Story of a Solo Canoe Trip Through Ontario's Woodland Caribou Provincial Park
By James Hegyi

CHAPTER 9
The Eagle and the Sky

It looks like rain again as I wake up, so quickly the tent goes down and I just make it onto the water as it hits. The next three portages are slippery in the rain, but I travel slowly and soon see the long, ugly shores of Telescope Lake. Each bay of the lake is larger than the one before, just like the segments of a collapsing telescope. To follow the shore would double my traveling time, so I scoot from point to point. I pause at the third point, because thunder is rumbling from the southeast, and I don't know if I'll get caught on the open water when lightning hits. I decide to go, and I almost make it. A downpour hits me when I'm a few hundred meters from shore, and I pull hard to get off of the water.

There's a cabin up ahead, on a point of land that I'll pass on my way to the portage. I hear voices, far away. Someone laughs in the cabin. Maybe a card game has gone well, maybe an old story has been told once again.

The rain continues as I steer my canoe into a narrow winding channel. Tall plants block the view ahead, and I travel slowly, in case a moose is also up and about on this rainy day. Ahead I can see hills scoured clean by the fire - high ground that the portage must pass through. The water tapers off and I splash through the last few meters to land the canoe. The plants near this portage path have taken advantage of the slight open space, growing at a tremendous rate. So thick is the vegetation that I can't see my feet as I feel my way along the narrow trail. The landing is difficult, with areas of water to pass through, and the inevitable motor boat cached on the next shore. I will find cached boats at each landing for the rest of my trip.

Now each portage makes me more and more fearful of taking a fall. I've been lucky so far, traveling in the rain when conditions are bad. Loose rocks, small hills of slippery mud and puddles of water with unseen bottoms raise my anxiety. My only defense is to slow down, and step carefully. Even so I take small slips now and then, my foot skittering for a heart stopping instant before catching hold. Soon there is only one portage to go, but I know I'm too worn out to chance it.

Again I pass point after point, island after island, and nothing looks fit to camp on. To the north another cabin appears, and I finally find a shore with a half level spot, not far from the cabin. The landing is terrible; large rounded boulders make unloading difficult. I'm about to haul up my pack when I notice fish bones on the ground. I look for more and find them. This place is loaded with fish bones, some from very large northern pike. Bear? I don't think so. The skeletons are mostly intact, a bear couldn't be that careful in his eating. Still, after being growled at earlier in the trip, I'm reluctant to take a chance with so much carnage around. The weather is changing again, the sun begins to shine, making the air hot and sticky.

Back on the water, the only other landing is near the cabin, on a peninsula that was clear cut when the fire went through. Everything comes out of my pack to dry on bushes or rocks. My tiny tent, now too hot to enter, goes up between stumps and fallen trees.

I'm moving slowly now, worn out and tired, beaten down by the tension and labor of the day's travel. There's a place on the rocky shore that fits my back. I lie down and close my eyes.

A terrible screaming shatters the silence. It's coming from the carcass covered shore that I left a few hours ago. Somewhere, a tremendous battle is being waged. The screaming continues for a few minutes, then stops. Suddenly there's a flutter over my head, and I look up to see an eagle fly over me, carrying half of a large northern pike. Here is the reason for the battle, and here is the winner taking his victory roll as he flies over his territory.

Minutes go by and I again close my eyes. I'm drifting now, half aware of the smells and sounds around me. I'm thinking about tomorrow, the last portage, the end of my trip...

The sun shines through my eyelids, filling my vision with bright red light. I think back to lazy summers long ago, lying in the sunshine, feeling the warmth on my skin, feeling the wind as it rustled tall grass around me, dreaming of what I would do when I grew up... There's a drone in the distance, getting louder, getting closer. A float plane now flies overhead, not very high, but higher than the eagle. The plane circles to fly low over the cabin, then off into the distance.

An hour later, I'm restless. I'm wondering about my family, my son and daughters, my two grandchildren. Are they well? Is everything all right? I pace around the peninsula, but there's nowhere to go, nothing to see, nothing left to do. There's something else bothering me, making me tense, but I just can't pin it down, can't make it go away. As I pace the shore, a loud thundering roar comes racing from behind me, and a moment later a jet fighter plane flashes above, flying low, rolling into a turn, twin engines screaming as it too passes into the distance.

I'm coming back into the world. For a while I was as free, going wherever I wanted to go, master of my small patch of forest. Now I have a schedule, like the pilot of the float plane. I have to be somewhere soon, keep an eye on my watch. Soon I'll be back in the high technology world that the jet pilot lives in. Each flight he makes is a mission, flown according to plans made by others. Does he sometimes envy the eagle that floats slowly below him?

I crawl into my tent, and leaving the rain flap open to get some air, fall into an uneasy sleep. A disturbing dream bothers me after only a few hours. I'm walking past a building that I know, Children's Hospital in downtown Milwaukee, a place I remember because I spent my first night alone there when I had tonsils removed. The building though, is different, the walls crumbled with large open holes, the wards inside visible, but old and decayed. There are people inside, but not children, these are old people, old and sick and helpless, some moving feebly, some still and grotesque. Somehow I know that the people are there because all of their years are gone, used or wasted, but gone.

I wake up to twilight. The sun is down now, but darkness hasn't fallen yet. I don't understand the dream, and I'm still uneasy as I again drift off to sleep.

Eight hundred miles away, my daughter Jeanette drives home from her job at a Milwaukee bank. The sky looks strange, and she stops to look to the west. Hurrying home, she tells my wife Judy, and they travel to a clearing to gaze at the sunset. So beautiful are the clouds, so golden is the sun, so radiant the light that Jeanette is brought to tears. If there is a heaven, here before her is the gateway...

Later that night, Kim Markhausen stands on the shore of Red Lake, gazing at the most amazing aurora he's seen in twenty years. Curtains of colors stream across the northern sky, bringing wonder to all who are awake to see.

A few miles away, the brilliant ghostly light rains down on a small, patched tent, washing out all fear, clearing away my disturbing dream. I see no heavenly sunset, no beautiful aurora. I'm sleeping peacefully now, dreaming dreams that I won't remember, dreams of fire scarred shores, primitive trails, of roaring waterfalls, calm winding channels, misty lakes filled with majestic islands, and quiet forests of smooth green moss...