Hitchhikers

After the summer solstice, the weather warmed enough to allow thick swarms of mosquitoes and black flies to enshroud our campsites. Armed with bug jackets, one of the top ten greatest human inventions, we survived their battalions with few bitten wounds. Often times, they were so persistent that we would resort to eating our meals inside these impenetrable jackets, although several would always sneak their way through a 2-inch tear at the side of my jacket. Duct tape solved that problem quickly. As we paddled away from the shore, swarms of them would follow us out onto the lake and travel with us for kilometers. We aptly named these pernicious creatures “the hitchhikers.” Luckily for me, they were quite fond of my husband leaving me to canoe in peace. Just a reminder to others, when choosing a paddling partner, make sure they attract the bugs more than you.

Fog Magic

Many days were spent canoeing through thick fog banks that made it hard to see the shoreline beside us and impossible to visualize what lay ahead. Most often, we hugged the coastline weaving ourselves around the shoreline but we were sometimes compelled to cross at the mouth of deep bays to further our progress which gave us a good chance to hone our navigational skills. We used a techniques called dead reckoning to help us find our way across through the fog, which when completely surrounded by it and with no land in sight, made us question how the term 'dead reckoning' came to be.
The fog seemed to us to be a powerful curtain that enjoys playing tricks on the minds of those with active imaginations. Everything seems dream-like and mystical as if we could be transported back into an ancient place where anything was possible. While rounding a cape through the fog, three black heads popped-up beside our canoe making a very distinct hissing noise. Immediately, I jumped back thinking that three-headed sea serpents do truly exist. Silly me. Coming out of the fog-like trance, I quickly realized that it was a family of three otters trying to protect their territory. We canoed away from the otters thankful that we didn't have to ward off any sea serpents with our paddles.

Beach Combing Mystery

The myriad of brightly coloured rocks found on Lake Superior's cobblestone beaches keep us entertained at each campsite. Beach combing for the perfect rock has become our evening ritual. In our search, we've discovered sparkling agates, pink daisystones and, to our surprise, small white coloured plastic pellets known as nurdles. For about one hundred kilometers of coastline, we found hundreds of thousands of these noxious plastic pieces scattered across beaches along the north shore. Used in the plastic manufacturing industry, nurdles are known to wreck havoc on marine life since they are often mistaken for food. Concerned, we are left puzzled in our attempts to find out how these nurdles ended up in the water. Could it have been in a train derailment or perhaps a shipping mishap? Maybe we will never know.