June 23, very cloudy with strong wind and rain all night continuing this morning and all day, with heavy downpours periodically. Arising at 4 a.m., I dress and go outside to find that it is too cool and windy to be at all comfortable eating under the tarp shelter, so have breakfast in the nylon tent, using cold water as it is not practical to have a pot of hot water in this tent. If I had the canvas Tent and stove, would set them up here at Camp 7. From my journal: "Well ... I said it would be ironic if I needed the canvas Tent and stove after I portaged them to the next camp. Thought about leaving them but decided not to. Well ... meet irony! Aie!" After breaking camp, there are three loads to take across the 1600 metre portage to the next campsite, plus the 150 metres from Camp 7 to the trail. I will leave the two heavy grub barrels until tomorrow. From my journal: "The bandage on my foot has not helped yet, it throbbed all night. Will see how it goes walking."
Near the upper end of the portage, two Canada geese, "local" ones that nest on the big lake. It seems that waterfowl greet me at every lake, large or small.
After the first carry I set up the canvas Tent and stove, having to cut poles and stovewood. The soil is sandy and easy to dig for the stove base and an insulating layer inside. Splitting kindling from some pine roots, I use Vaseline® impregnated cotton balls to start the stove, as there is no birch bark nearby. With water boiled in my aluminum travel pot, I eat lunch in the Tent. Then back to Camp 7 for the second load, adding more stovewood before going for the third and final carry of the day. My foot is not bothering me much on the long walk. After I get started, the pressure on my foot seems to alleviate the pain. On one trip I see a snowshoe hare on the trail. After the last trip, the closest place for a moss "fridge" is 100 metres off the trail near shore, which is 50 metres from Camp 8. With all my damp clothes hanging in the Tent to dry, wearing only my rubber shoes, I go for a bath in the lake, under the watchful eye of a snowshoe hare near the Tent. Without the warm Tent, the bath would not have been practical in the wet 10℃ weather, especially as the large lake is a lot colder than the small lakes used until now. Before bathing, I clear out all the branches in the lake at the landing so that I can dip water for drinking from shore. Chancing it, I go to bed by 7 p.m. without burning a mosquito coil. Luckily no mosquitoes show overnight. The rain continues all night. From my journal: "At midnight I woke and added wood to stove, damper open only ¼". There weren't enough embers to ignite the damp wood right away. Spent ½ hour blowing through damper to get wood to ignite (damper wide open, stove door ajar, top damper open). Whew ... close! Don't have any tinder or kindling."
June 24, up at 4:30 a.m., still raining, continuing all day. All clothing is dry and warm. My boots are somewhat dry, having sat on the stovewood pile by the stove overnight. Sure glad I have the Tent and stove. Would be very miserable without. Cut spruce boughs for a doorway mat and find and saw stovewood. At 6:40 a.m. I eat breakfast of scotch mint, one-half freshly baked cinnamon bannock, Parmesan cheese, bacon crumbles and hot water ... mmm good! From my journal: "21 days for 50 km, an average of about two km per day, a far cry from 16 km! C'est la vie. I 'should' have lots of time. Depends on how hard to get up and over the height of land to head downstream to the Churchill River."
On the walk back to camp 7 to post-portage one of the heavy barrels, I find a big cylinder of birch bark and set it on the path to be picked up on my next trip. I load the first barrel on my back by setting it on the other barrel. Back at camp 8, I empty the kitchen barrel in the Tent to carry empty to camp 7, stopping to place the birch bark in the barrel. At the lower end of the portage, I pick two servings of fireweed and place in the empty barrel, storing in Ziploc® bags which I keep on hand in my utility belt bag. Loading the last heavy barrel from the empty one, I find that is easy to carry the (almost) empty barrel in my hand so do not have to make an extra trip just to retrieve it.
Not looking promising with the rain, I pre-pack in preparation for canoeing tomorrow. It continues to rain during the night.
June 24, up at 4:30 a.m., still raining, continuing all day. All clothing is dry and warm. My boots are somewhat dry, having sat on the stovewood pile by the stove overnight. Sure glad I have the Tent and stove. Would be very miserable without. Cut spruce boughs for a doorway mat and find and saw stovewood. At 6:40 a.m. I eat breakfast of scotch mint, one-half freshly baked cinnamon bannock, Parmesan cheese, bacon crumbles and hot water ... mmm good! From my journal: "21 days for 50 km, an average of about two km per day, a far cry from 16 km! C'est la vie. I 'should' have lots of time. Depends on how hard to get up and over the height of land to head downstream to the Churchill River."
On the walk back to camp 7 to post-portage one of the heavy barrels, I find a big cylinder of birch bark and set it on the path to be picked up on my next trip. I load the first barrel on my back by setting it on the other barrel. Back at camp 8, I empty the kitchen barrel in the Tent to carry empty to camp 7, stopping to place the birch bark in the barrel. At the lower end of the portage, I pick two servings of fireweed and place in the empty barrel, storing in Ziploc® bags which I keep on hand in my utility belt bag. Loading the last heavy barrel from the empty one, I find that is easy to carry the (almost) empty barrel in my hand so do not have to make an extra trip just to retrieve it.
Not looking promising with the rain, I pre-pack in preparation for canoeing tomorrow. It continues to rain during the night.
The view along the portage trail through deep reindeer lichen up to an esker, and then from the esker across the forest of jack pine.