TIME FOLLOWS ME

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN SOME RIVER STORIES

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

SOME RIVER STORIES

Thought I would stop in and see my old crew boss from the previous year when I was a Junior Ranger. Found A.P.'s house and met his parents. They said he was out at their camp on the Winnipeg River. He was leading the Junior Rangers again this year.

I heard there had been a lot of forest fires much more than average this year and the Ministry was pulling people off the street to fight the fires. You could smell the smoke lingering in the air as a fire had passed quite close to Kenora. Went out with the parents to the camp to wait for A.P. who was on a canoe trip with the Rangers back to Kenora. Up north, "Cottages" are called "Camps" and this is what it was.

The Winnipeg River is wide and meandering. The previous summer I had been stationed up there for the summer planting trees and learning other forestry jobs as part of a youth program. When you stayed all summer, you were given room and board and Five-Hundred dollars if you stayed to the end of the summer. It had been a mixed bag experience. Near the end of the summer we got to go out and use backpacks with water to put out smudges at the perimeter of an already finished fire.

We were a camp of unruly seventeen year olds from all over Ontario. I remember the second in command of the camp made us get up at 2am. and go for a jog down the road because we wouldn't keep quiet in the cabins. He loaded us all into a van then drove about three miles away from camp and made us jog back to our cabins, which we did. It was kind of a boot camp atmosphere.

We had to find our own fun which amounted to a drive into Kenora once a week and stopping at the ice cream and burger stand for two or three hours of civilization. We walked around town like a pack of mangy dogs and then went back to the camp for another week of work. A couple of the slicker guys tried to pick up the girls from the Burger Joint, a couple girls were really good looking. I heard they scored with these two.

But that was another time. I am back on the river where the previous summer I had had a close encounter with some rapids above the White Dog Dam. A buddy and I decided to canoe to the furthest limit of the lake and enter the river that flowed above the White Dog Dam. We were both experienced canoeist and were just looking for a little fun and excitement running the rapids.

The rapids were fairly large and fast depending on how open the White Dog Dam gates were, so we had the good sense to put on our life jackets before descending into the frothy white inferno. We thought we might take two or three runs, and then head back to camp. We had left without permission, as we knew we wouldn't have been allowed to go.

On our first traverse through the white water we got about half way down, when we got into a deep funnel of water like a sleuth and were riding it out, when a big boulder appeared before us. I was in the bow, and tried to steer around it using my paddle as a rudder. The current was too fast and we capsized all of a sudden. We both knew to hang onto the canoe and were talking to each other. We thought we would ride out the rapids using our feet firmly planted ahead of us to fend off the rocks instead of crashing our heads against it.

This was going to work until we came to a stand still in the middle of a huge whirlpool. We started to go 'round and 'round in circles and we could feel the canoe being sucked underwater with us on top. I could actually feel my shoes being pulled off my feet but they stayed on. Buddy and I knew we were now in some real danger. We got to one side of the canoe and kicked with both feet trying to get out.

"Keep kicking, if we can break the circle we can get into a backwater where it is calmer."

"Ok, together once more, kick hard!"

We somehow managed to break out of the whirlpool and drifted into a calm back eddy. It was unbelievable the tension and then the release we felt.

"That was a close one," I said.

"Ya, little more excitement than we bargained for."

We both knew this was the end of the adventure. We used the bowline and an extended rope to walk the canoe back up the rapids from shore. As the sun arched over the afternoon lake we paddled in perfect unison without a word back to camp. When we got there we found we had been gone six hours. We got into a pile of shit from our supervisor A.P.

AP.'s parents had a sauna beside the river, so I sat in it, then went for a swim off the rocks to cool off. I could see the tents pitched across the wide river where this year's Junior Rangers were staying. It was relaxing in the sauna and the swimming. I haven't done much this summer. Later I saw the flotilla of canoes make their way across the river to our camp. Greeted A.P. and he was happy to see me. Met the other J.R.'s and they were an all right bunch. That night we had a celebration B.B.Q. and we cooked up huge steaks and had corn on the cob.

I don't think I had tasted anything so good all summer except for the fish fry celebration in Montana, which was something. Later that night I got a splitting toothache and a headache. I think I got fever as well. I don't think I was used to eating and digesting this kind of meat. Chewing it might have done something to my mouth. Don't think I had been taking really good care of myself with long periods of fasting or little eating and my toothbrush I can say rarely saw toothpaste and water. The date was August 30th and someone gave me a couple of aspirins for the pain.

The next day I was better and joined the group working the stern of one canoe paddling back to Kenora. The lift was needed to get up to the raised lake level of Lake of the Woods. It was built so boats could travel from the river and up to the lake in both directions.

These ancient rivers and lakes were systems used by the early fur traders, and natives for trade. It was their highway. Now it lined with camps and instead of portaging between different lake levels, there was the Kenora Lift into Lake of the Woods.

Arrived at the Ministry of Natural Resources base that was a hub of activity. There was a twin Otter Beaver Aircraft taking off loaded with a crew to fight the many fires. I was immediately hired but hoped I won't go out on fires. It made sense to go home with a bit of savings maybe even a couple hundred bucks. They hired me as a truck driver to drive supplies out these obscure roads to fire crews in need of pumps, hoses, food and water. The trucks were all brand new Green "Chev" Crew Cabs with extra large wheels and the biggest engine they could put in a Pick Up, a 454 V8.