A River Journey

About four in the morning they were suddenly awakened as a torrential downpour hit the camp. Fortunately, the tent was

slightly higher than its surroundings and stayed mostly dry. Enough water seeped into one corner to soak the sleeping bag at

John’s feet but he was able to curl up and keep his feet away from the soggy area.

The sky was brilliantly lighted as thunder and lightning echoed all around them. At times the lightning lit up the tent to such

an extent that it was as bright as daylight. Within an hour the storm subsided and everything was once again quiet.

“Whew, I’m glad we had a good tent over us,” Jerry exclaimed.

“Yeah,” echoed Kevin.

In the morning, when the boys emerged from the tent, the sun was shining brightly and no traces remained in the sky. Joe

and John tried to coax a fire from the wet wood the storm had left behind. To their dismay Kevin and Jerry discovered that

the raft had filled with water. They were given the task of bailing it out while the two men prepared breakfast and broke camp.

They soon realized that the storm was to have a longer lasting effect on them than merely dampening a sleeping bag and

soaking their wood pile. The river was about a foot higher than it had been and was a café au lait color. The rapids Jerry

had walked the raft through were now a churning cauldron.

“It looks like there was more rain upstream than we got here,” Joe commented “It should settle down in a couple of

hours. In the meantime, we can take the opportunity to dry out our wet gear.”

After saying this Joe sought a level place in the sun and spread the tent out. bottom up. John did the same thing with his

sleeping bag and a pair of socks. The only other item that was wet enough to bother with was Jerry’s cutoffs; he had left them

out on a rock to dry overnight. Jerry shrugged when he saw how wet they were then wrung them out and draped them back

over the rock.

“They’re only going to get wet again as soon as we get back into the raft,” he quipped.

By 11 o’clock the river flow had abated enough that Joe suggested they move on. The almost dry gear was packed into

the raft and the journey resumed.

“As soon as we sense any speeding up we’ll pull ashore and check things out ahead o us,” Joe said. “The water is going

to be more turbulent all day and some of the sections that would normally provide an easy float may have to be portaged.

One thing for sure, we're all going to work harder and we’re all going to get wet.”

As Joe had predicted the raft moved much more rapidly down the river than it had on the first two days. All four were

soon wet from head to toe. The raft shipped so much water that Kevin and Jerry took turns bailing each time they reached a

section calm enough for them to stop paddling. It was a tiring and nerve wracking experience, but also exhilarating.

Shortly after a brief lunch stop Kevin added more excitement to the trip when his paddle wedged itself between two rocks

and instantly threw Kevin overboard. His first reaction was the right one, he grabbed for the raft’s guy rope. When he missed

the rope he was propelled downstream at such a rate that he could not stop himself or slow himself down. As a result he

arrived at a calmer section well ahead of the raft, which was slow moving because of all the water it was carrying. When the

raft caught up with Kevin he waved one half of his paddle in the air, the other half had disappeared. After the others had

hauled him aboard Kevin looked at them and with chattering teeth said, “That’s one swim I don’t recommend. It was scary.”

A half hour later, at about three o’clock, they reached a long, slower stretch of river and John suggested they call it a day.

“We’d better get Kevin dried out and warmed out before hypothermia sets in.” Joe agreed.

Luck was with them, one hundred yards downstream they came to a small feeder stream alongside a low bluff that

looked like an excellent campsite. Joe soon had a fire going. Kevin stripped his clothes off and sat by the fire while the

others set up camp. By four o’clock Kevin had warmed up and put on clean, dry clothes.

That evening was a long, leisurely one. The water was still too high and murky for the fishing to be any good. Also, each

of them had expended so much energy during the day that none were up to expending any more.

When time for the evening meal arrived Joe took the easy way out and opened a large can of beans. That, together with

pan-fried bread and hot chocolate was their supper. After they had eaten and cleaned up they sat around the fire and talked.

“I’d estimate that we’ve come about 40 miles” Joe stated. “That leaves about 60- 65 miles to go, which shouldn’t be any

problem unless we have more rain. The water flow should be back to normal by morning and from here on the river will be

slower and wider, except for one set of rapids which we should reach the day after tomorrow. The only thing that will slow us

down is the prime fishing water we’re coming to, but that’s what this trip is all about, isn’t it?”

“We can always take an extra day,” said John. “If we want to be more leisurely in some sections we’ll do that. We’re not

trying to see how fast we can make it to the end.” The others agreed to that.

Before they all crawled into bed John took out a harmonica he had been carrying in his pocket and played a number of

tunes, new and old.

Once more Joe’s prediction was correct. In the morning the river was clear and back to its normal flow. The sun was

shining brightly as it had each morning.

While Kevin started a fire Jerry went to the river to get some water. In a few minutes the others could hear Jerry yelling

but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Joe ran to him followed bu John. As they got closer the words became more

distinct. Jerry was repeating over and over, “The raft is gone, the raft is gone . . .”

When the men reached the river they could see he was right. The raft was nowhere in sight. “How can that be? Asked

John. “I thought I tied it securely to a tree. You or Kevin didn’t come down here and disturb it, did you Jerry?”

“No Dad, we didn’t go near it after we unpacked.”

Joe checked the tree where the raft had been tied and discovered one end of the rope still tied to the tree and a ragged

end where it had been chewed through. Joe held up the rope for the others to see. “I think we had a porcupine visit us during

the night,” he said.

“We’ll have to go look for it,” John replied. “Jerry, you and Kevin get some breakfast for yourselves and put something

aside for Joe and me. Then pack everything and be ready to leave when we return. Joe and I will go down the river and look

for the raft.”

More than an hour later the men found the raft wedged between two rocks. It took them another two hours to haul it back

to the campsite. Then another hour was needed to repair a hole which had been made in one of the compartments and to

reinflate it. Break-fast for Joe and John turned out to be a late lunch as it was then almost one o’clock. The boys grabbed a

quick snack and repacked the raft.

The morning’s problems cut this fourth day of their trip short. It was four o’clock before they reached a long stretch of flat

water which Joe described to them as they were on the water. “This is one of the greatest fishing runs on the entire river,”

Joe enthused. “We have to stop here even if it makes our day a short one.”

“Fine with me,” John replied. “I’m ready for some good fishing.”

A large tributary entered at the head of this stretch. Immediately below this tributary was another beach and campsite

similar to the one where they had camped the first night. Below the beach the river was studded with boulders for as far as

they could see. Below each boulder was an eddy and a hole. Joe was certain each hole contained at least one lunker trout.

After the beached the raft and secured it with two ropes instead of one Joe and John each took a fly rod and waded out

until they were within range of several boulders. Kevin and Jerry used spinning rods, Jerry walking upstream to the pool

where the feeder stream entered and Kevin downstream to another large pool.

In an hour of fishing each of them caught a number of large fish, the men whooping and hollering each time one of the

trout rose to their fly. At the end of that time they were four happy, satisfied fishermen.

That night trouble continued to plague them. Shortly after they went to bed Joe heard an animal moving around outside

the tent. He opened the tent door and shone a flashlight around to find out what was causing the disturbance. There, not six

feet from him was a large black bear.

The bear was as startled as Joe was and, instead of running off, ran towards the source of the light. Fortunately, before it

reached Joe the bear tripped over one of the tent ropes, causing the tent to collapse. This startled the bear even more so

that it veered off and headed into the nearby forest.

“What’s going on?” came a smothered cry from John.

Joe replied, “We had a visitor. Apparently a bear was rummaging through the fireplace eating some grease we spilled

there. When I shone the flashlight in his eyes he panicked and ran into the tent rope.”

By this time everyone was awake, with Kevin and Jerry listening wide-eyed to every word.

“Did he damage the tent?” John asked.

“I don’t think so,” was Joe’s response. “It looks like the only damage he did was to break the rope we had tied to the tree,

the one that had our wet clothes hanging on it.”

It took only a few minutes for Joe to tie the two broken ends of the rope together. This pulled the tent back into

reasonable shape so they could all return to their beds.

In the morning, when they looked around, no other visible damage was evident. They were able to pack up and continue

on their float early. The bear was a subject of conversation all morning with both Joe and John relating some of their other

back-country bear experiences.

The morning float was a leisurely one, with either Jerry or Kevin in the bow directing Joe past the many boulders they

encountered.

Late in the morning they stopped at the confluence with another medium sized stream where the river was slow moving

and rather placid. This became an extended lunch break when they decided to try the fishing and found more than an hour of

fast and furious action. The men fished spoons and spinners in the main river again while the boys fished the feeder stream

with flies. John hooked one large fish which immediately went deep and tried to wrap the line around a boulder. After he

maneuvered the fish away from the boulder he fought it for more than ten minutes, then suddenly the line went limp. When he

reeled in his lure was gone.

“I bet it was a pike,” Joe commented. “There are a number of them in the river that come up from the lake. They usually

don’t come up this far, though. From now on, however, we had better use a wire leader on our line. Pike can bite through

these nylon leaders.”

The journey was resumed shortly after two o’clock and continued to be leisurely for the next hour. At this time they

reached the rapids Joe had described to them two days previously that would need to be portaged.

Once again Jerry was given the task of lining the raft down to the foot of the rapids while the others carried the gear by

hand. This set of rapids proved to be quite different from the previous set. Instead of a rock-studded run with no clear,

straight channels these rapids were short and steep, more like a series of cascades in a continuous line from top to bottom.

When Jerry saw this alignment he decided, without saying anything to any of the others, to ride this roller coaster rather

than walk it down. He climbed into the raft and released the remaining spare paddle, pulled the rope in behind him and

pushed off with the paddle. It was the thrill of a lifetime for him, short but exhilarating. The raft shot down through the shoot

into the pool in a matter of seconds. He then pulled to shore and was waiting there when the first load of gear arrived.

John looked at his young son in surprise and then asked how he got there so quickly.

“Simple,” Jerry explained. “I rode the roller coaster. Next time it’s your turn.” His dad merely shook his head and trudged

back up stream for another load.

As it was now past four o’clock camp was set up about fifty yards downstream from the pool and all four went fishing.

Joe had a heavy strike on his first cast and soon horsed in a 30 inch pike. Each of the others caught several pike during the

next two hours and also many smaller trout; some of these were kept for dinner.

The night passed quietly for a change. In the morning it was considerably colder than the almost balmy, sunshiny weather

they had experienced so far. The sky was a dull metallic gray.

“I think we’re going to have a storm,” Joe predicted. “We had better keep some warm clothes and ponchos at hand.”

Joe was right again. About ten o’clock it began to snow, lightly at first but soon more heavily. As they continued on their

downstream course the snow began to build up in the raft. It soon became necessary to use their bailing pail to scoop out

the snow. The visibility became so poor that it was almost impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.

“As long as we go slow we should be okay,” Joe stated. “This is a fairly easy stretch; there aren’t any rapids, just a few

boulders and we’ll bounce off them if we don’t see them in time.”

In an attempt to stay warm they had donned warm clothes and wore their ponchos to stay dry. With no gloves to wear

their hands were soon cold and handling the paddles became difficult.

About 11 o’clock the snow stopped and a weak sun shone through the clouds. This brought a cheer from Kevin and a

raised fist from Jerry. An early lunch stop with a roaring fire and hot soup did much to restore their body warmth and improve

their lagging spirits.

The afternoon continued cold but the storm seemed to have broken and by four o’clock the sun was again shining,

although not as brightly as it had the first part of the journey. An hour of red hot fishing after they had made their camp for the

night restored each of them to a happier mood.

The next day dawned dark and dreary. As it was the seventh day of the trip they were scheduled to arrive at their pickup

point by mid-afternoon. Joe and John discussed this as they were preparing breakfast.

Joe was doubtful. “I don’t think we can make it today. We still have about 20 miles to go and the last five miles will be

quiet water at the head of the lake. After we reach the lake we’ll have to do some hard paddling.”

“Can we make it to the lake today?” John asked.

“I think so, but it may be late.”

“Let’s play it by ear then. If it’s getting late we’ll stop for the night wherever we are and do the final leg in the morning.

How does that sound?”

“Suits me,” said Joe. Then he announced, Better dress warm, we might have another storm.”

At this the two boys groaned.

The day was cold and wet. It began to rain about ten o’clock and continued without letup all day. Most of the time it was

a light drizzle but on a few occasions the sky opened up and they were subjected to a hard downpour. By the time four

o’clock arrived all four were wet and miserable.

They had still not reached the lake when a beautiful beach appeared on their left. With tacit agreement they paddled to

shore and set up camp. Joe got out a large tarp he had been saving for the occasion and set it up as a leanto close to the

fire. Here, they were able to sit in luxurious warmth with the reflected heat from the tarp soon drying them out and raising their

spirits.

The sun was once again shining when they arose in the morning. About an hour after launching a first glimpse of the lake

came into view. What they saw dismayed them. A strong headwind was blowing and there were whitecaps on the lake.

“It might not be raining but we’re going to get wet anyway,” voiced john. “And we have to paddle in that? It could take all

day.”

“Three or four hours anyway,” Joe replied.

As things turned out, it took almost five hours of steady paddling to reach the takeout point where Don was waiting for

them with the van. After a quick lunch while Don started packing some of the gear the packing was completed and they were

in the van moving slowly on a narrow, rocky road. The van pitched and slewed frequently. At times they came to a complete

stop before negotiating a steep dip or pothole.

Four hours later, after 40 miles of what John said was the worst road he had ever seen, they arrived at the main highway.

Less than two hours later they were back in Kapuskasing. After settling their bill with the rafting company and having a

gourmet dinner at a local restaurant they said goodbye to Joe and rewarded him with a good tip. They then pulled into a

motel for the night. What a luxury to once again sleep on a mattress.

The next day saw them returning to their home in upper New York state. John had three more days respite before his

school year began. The boys would return to school a week later than John.

END OF STORY.