Barry and Steven 2013 - Companionship and more

It was GREAT to have son Steven's companionship over this 10 day trip.  We have not been canoeing together for many years; work and other commitments can make it difficult to schedule.  We arranged this trip for when I came out to resupply at the end of July.  It's great to have help with chores, but sharing the experience is the best. 

Steven and I talked unfettered by electronic devices and other distractions, like we wouldn't if back in "civilization".

We had quite good weather, a bit of everything (sun, wind, rain, forest fire smoke, bugs, lots of fresh air).  We had good meals and ate fresh fish almost every day.

We saw lots of small wildlife - bald eagles, pelicans, cormorants, loons, spruce grouse, ravens, red squirrels, kingfishers, warblers, ducks, beavers.  Something neither of us have seen before, was a bald eagle swooping down over the trees along shore skimming the lake surface after a mallard duck, the duck madly flying and weaving to escape.  The duck managed to get away.  A special treat was seeing a family of otters several times around an island where we camped and fished one day.  They are so curious, "standing" up in the water to look you over better.  You cannot help but smile when you see them.  I was sitting near shore on the last morning before leaving our campsite, and a weasel ran across just a few inches in front of my outstretched legs.  I've seen several weasels in the winter when their coat is all white except for the black tip of the tail, but this is the first in summer coat, sleek dark brown with the black-tipped tail.  Definitely brought a smile to my face.

Barry and Steven 2013 - Water

Barry and Steven 2013 - Fishing

Fishing from the canoe is usually much more productive than from shore.

We usually catch pike. 

Filleting the pike.  I still have to remove the "Y"-bones.

Fried pike, seasoned with cornmeal and Montreal Steak spice.  Fresh from the lake to the pan in just a few hours ... mmm ... good.

Barry and Steven 2013 - Camps

Barry and Steven 2013 - Chores

Sawing firewood.  In many campsites, the easiest way to get adequate firewood is to saw it into small enough pieces about two feet long.  This 24 inch bow saw is indispensable for such work, which includes sawing supporting poles for the tarp, for my canvas tent which I use for extended and cold periods, for making and clearing portage trails.

Unfortunately, a part on my bow saw broke that holds the blade, and the saw became useless. This makes it more difficult to gather appropriate-sized wood, and would be disastrous in cold weather when I use the wood stove in my canvas tent.  Because this is so important, from now on I will carry a spare saw.

Washing dishes.

Barry and Steven 2013 - Meals

  

 Preparing three bannocks.

Baking the bannocks.  Using medium heat takes about 20 minutes to bake, doing one side then the other.  In cold weather I place the pan in Dutch oven on the wood stove.

 

  

Dutch oven for baking the cinnamon bannock.  Hot coals at medium heat are used underneath and on top of the oven.  (Make sure to scrape away old coals where the oven is to sit.  I once used nice dead coals.  *GRIN*  I use a cast aluminum oven that is lighter than traditional cast iron.  I now consider the Dutch oven indispensable.  Great for frying fish.  I also use it to make cinnamon bannock on the wood stove but have to flip the bannock to bake both sides.

Butter, the special ingredient in a cinnamon bannock.  Canned butter no longer available in Canada.  This is my only extra-expense food item, ordered from U.S.A.  All other foods used are off-the-shelf grocery store products.  For my first three months in the spring I use ordinary 1lb Canadian butter blocks.

**********************************

Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me;
I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air!

(That bannock's raising nicely, pal; just jab it with your knife.)
Fine specimens of manhood they would reckon us out there.
It's the tracking and the packing and the poling in the sun;
It's the sleeping in the open, it's the rugged, unfaked food;
It's the snow-shoe and the paddle, and the campfire and the gun,
And when I think of what I was, I know that it is good.

Ah, yes, it's good! I'll bet that there's no doctor like the Wild:
(Just turn that bannock over there; it's getting nicely brown.)

(Just turn that bannock over there, that's propped against the log.)

Heigh ho! I'm tired; the bannock's cooked; it's time we both turned in.
The morning mist is coral-kissed, the morning sky is gold.
The camp-fire's a confessional -- what funny yarns we spin!

 - From "While the Bannock Bakes" by Robert Service

Barry and Steven 2013 - Shelter