Wet and sweaty after the long rainy muddy portage, the stove is welcome. To the left of the large boulder is the small fireplace made to drive away blackflies and to provide coals as an easy way to start the stove.
Steady rain forces me into the Tent to saw stovewood.
Spruce boughs fetched from the tops of trees felled for Tent poles to create a doorway mat, piled inside out of the rain so I can trim them with the pruners.
The two heavy barrels placed near where I later tie them to spruce trees. The Tent poles ultimately get stored beneath one of these large trees after breaking camp.
Canoe parked in a patch of flowering Saskatoon berry bushes.
June 11 at 18:40, steady rain all last night and today.
June 12, rain stops and I can saw stovewood outside.
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Summary:
Distance travelled 10½ km, including muddy rainy 870 metre portage. Drying out with the stove. A very late supper and bedtime after missing lunch again. Working in the wet outside sans clothes. Sawing stovewood in the Tent out of the rain.
June 10:
Yesterday evening at camp 5 I prepacked with the intent to move on the next day. That includes dumping out remaining water from all pots except the travel pot so they can be packed in the Kitchen Barrel. Awaking at 03:00 to heavy rain and strong wind that started earlier, I stay abed until 05:00 after going outside to check weather. Eating breakfast to include hot water in the travel pot heated on the stove, I unpack and collect and place new water to boil. I activate the SPOT at 06:10 to let my contacts know I am staying another day here. But after checking the sky again, I am thinking of repacking! Aie! I decide to check the weather again after breakfast, not that I am any good at predicting weather. If I do leave, at least I have had hot water to drink and sleep gear aired in the heat of the stove. At 07:15 I decide to move on, so pour out the freshly boiled water and start to pack, for better or worse, maybe just being a hopeful forecaster. The wind has lessened to moderate and there is some sunshine with fewer clouds. Canoeing past an island where perhaps the large canoe party camped, I get too close to shore and ground on a boulder just beneath the surface. After repeated mad paddling, just swiveling around the boulder, I finally acknowledge that I have to step out of the canoe onto the boulder to shove off, getting water inside one boot. Aie! I have not even reached the muddy portage and am getting my boots wet, not a good portent. There is no sense changing socks as I know they will get wet on the portage anyway. Paddling into a brisk headwind the last two km, I finally reach the trail at 11:00 and start the SPOT. My contacts will figure out that I am portaging when I also send a message after completing the portage, and finally again when I arrive at a camp site. It is raining so I decide to forgo lunch, becoming a bad habit. Stowing wettable gear packs under the canoe, I head off with the first load (37 kg) which contains the tools, though I do not expect they will be required. Only one birch tree has to be moved off the trail. Dropping the load off on rain-dampened ground to the side of the long shallow narrow channel at the end of the portage, I cover it with the large Tarp. Someone placed two long poles on the grassy soggy bank, I think to be able to help support them to unload their canoe; must have been a heavy load with a deep draft to not be able to go farther in the channel. It takes a bit of hard poling against the bank to free the canoe when I leave. Completed by 15:00, there are seven carries ranging from 34 to 46 kg. I have finished drinking a one litre canteen and started the second, but I know I am probably not drinking enough, leg cramps later in the night prove it. Blackflies are a bit bothersome but not worthy of hat scarf or headnet. Gear and my sweaty clothes get rain-dampened during the portage, and my boots, socks and lower pant legs wet and somewhat dirty from the muddy footing. I am glad that I cleared the trail to avoid the worst spots.
Paddling with a welcome tailwind to the end of the small unnamed lake at the portage, I reach its exiting creek. Thankfully someone used a chainsaw to cut out a very large poplar felled by beavers across the stream, at least 18 inches diameter. It would have been a challenge to portage over that; the water is too deep to stand in and very wet and boggy for a long way to either shore through thick reeds and cattails. Arriving at the target site, where I camped once before a few years ago, it is 16:50, surprised that I made such good time, thinking it would be at least 18:00. I am weary and glad to stop. From my journal: "Hah ... and my younger self said we would have enough time to canoe another 13 km [to a different location, four more hours at least]." Distance travelled is 10½ km, including the muddy 870 metre portage. There is a good rock face shoreline with straightish edge deep enough to land broadside for easy unloading after tying up, one end to an old log just strong and heavy enough to hold, the other end up the knoll to a branch on a dead tree. Carrying required gear to the Tent site, I cover with the medium tarp to protect further wetting in the light rain. Other gear goes to the canoe parking spot to place beneath the canoe over Saskatoon berry bushes. I can find no evidence of the moss 'fridge' previously used so make a new one to store the butter coolers. The Tent site needs to be cleared of some dead branches and a few new poplars pulled up or cut off beneath the surface with the pruners. Blackflies are very bothersome so I make a small fire against the nearby large boulder, scrounging a few rocks to make a fireplace. Standing in the smoke from the fire, the bugs disappear. I will use live coals to start the stove later, forgoing the need for birchbark tinder and splitting kindling. It is necessary to keep feeding the fire as it dies down. A second 50 foot rope is required to suspend the Tent all the way to a largish birch at the back (a big spruce at the front). There are still old Tent poles standing under a nearby spruce tree which will serve for the new Tent except for the two longer vertical poles which I must fell and trim new ones (very crooked ones, not an issue). As I erect the Tent, the roof tarp must be tied down at the corners right away to keep it from blowing off in the strong wind. Luckily there is enough soil for the stove from my last time camped here, though I do remember where I found the supply revealed by a downed tree, checking it when I search for stones. After getting the stove running, I can extinguish the fireplace, moving the bigger rocks aside to cool to be used to anchor the sod cloth poles. The larger rocks take a long time to cool, leaving them until morning to use because they would melt the polypropylene cloth now. Rain, sweat and mud dampened clothes and gear are hung up to dry overnight. Then wearing only Crocs™ sandals and bear spray, I rinse my wet socks in the lake, fetch more bailer water, and store the wet stove bag and tarp under the canoe, to be dried later. A very welcome very late supper at 21:30 is macaroni and cheese, protein bar, hot water plus almonds and Mini Babybel™ cheese from my missed lunch. I did also intend to eat the remainder of my lunch but am full, maybe due to being weary and long past lunch and supper times. I would like a bath, but settle for a washcloth in hot water. Laying on a bed sheet by 22:00, wearing only my 'bedtime' undershorts and socks because of the warm stove, I sleep fitfully in the rattling Tent, getting up twice in rainfall wearing only the Crocs™ to adjust the stovepipe and to better anchor the roof tarp against the strong wind. It is easier for my skin to dry than to dry clothes.
June 11:
Up at 05:30 to rain at 13°C which falls steadily all day, making the stove very welcome. As anticipated, last night I had bad leg cramps, unable to extend one leg for several minutes, groaning and rubbing it like crazy. I make several trips outside wearing just Crocs™ to fetch water, butter, stovewood poles, spruce boughs, put one newly filled canteen under canoe, activate SPOT, place cooled rocks on sod cloths, pick fireweed salad. The salad greens are tastier when wet with rain. Instead of erecting the Tarp shelter to saw stovewood and split kindling out of the rain, I do so inside the Tent, rolling back the floor tarps to make a work area and jury-rigging a sawhorse. My neck is still aching. I update journal and maps, and do several puzzles. From my journal: "Yay ... solved a hard sudoku, but only after making an educated guess about one square when the usual math checks failed ... and it worked." To bed with stove still on.
June 12:
Up at 05:00 to a misty rain at 11°C, after a fitful sleep, contributed to by my bed sloping sideways. By lunchtime rain has stopped and there is some sunshine through the clouds, warming to 19°C. I have to get clothes on to find, fell and limb some dead dry balsam fir stovewood poles, which I can saw outside now to the accompaniment of a drumming ruffed grouse nearby. Balsam fir is not the best firewood, but all that is readily available nearby in the mature bush. Hearing a loud crash in the bush I investigate but find nothing suspicious, probably a tree or branch falling. My boots finally dry, possibly all the way through, I remove two burning sticks from the stove and let it die. Thunder rolls around me but bypasses camp. To heat water for supper I have to start a fire outside. There seem to be more spiders than usual crawling inside the Tent, but fortunately it is seldom that they ever crawl over me while sleeping. However one tiny mosquito inside a tent can bother to no end, hence the fly swatter as part of my gear.