George River Solo 2018
Day 9
Start Time: 7/23/2018 1:30 PM
Duration: 7:38
Distance / Total (km): 29.6 / 128.5
I had a rough night, mosquitos were getting inside the POD somehow, I was forced to turtle in my bivy but found it very unpleasant. At 3:00am, I could not tolerate it any longer and got up. Only a couple of options, burn coils all night or put up my tent. Erecting a tent INSIDE the Pod in the dark is an interesting task, the Pod is 9’ x 9’ and the Marmot is 7.75’ x 5’, the poles being much longer! It went surprisingly well and in about 20 minutes I was drifting off to sleep completely safe from any bugs. I woke up about 9:30, the Pod was thick with bugs so the first step was to light a coil and go on a bug kill.
It was clear and sunny outside and quickly warming up as the sun rose above the trees that had sheltered me from the worst of yesterday’s storm. I made tea, had a wrap and jam, smoked a bunch of cigarettes and sat around doing nothing much until noon. Time to pack up, load up and move on, at 1:30 I headed north, barely a ripple on the water and not a cloud in the sky, I made good speed past the mountain and into the channel between it and a large island. Here I found a lot of exposed rock shoreline with numerous potential camps just above the rock on open moss; it is a very scenic area. Ahead lay a 6km+ open crossing, about 1.5km on my left and 10km on my right, conditions couldn’t be any better but one still needs to be aware because a change in the weather can come at any time and there was beginning to be cloud moving in slowly on the horizon.
I was paddling north to the point where there is a narrowing and what is technically the end of the Smallwood and the beginning of Michikamats Lake, depending on water levels there can be current coming south at these narrows. I planned to gradually trend toward the western shore to look for a spot to camp. I ended up much further from shore than anticipated, I aimed for a notch in the shoreline where the real narrowing began. From a distance there appeared to be potential areas there but on arrival I found nothing. I continued along the shore but found only a small wall of driftwood backed by obvious swamp.
The breeze from the south gave me an assist, it was well after 7:00 when I reached the narrows, I had seen nothing good and it was only getting worse with wide swaths of grass and bushes along the shore that were fully in the water. There was no current at the narrows and it was very sandy and shallow, I passed through and continued with my search but there didn’t appear to be any dry land anywhere. I was now quite concerned, the sun was rapidly sinking towards the western horizon, my maps showed no signs ahead of contour lines that might reveal something that might at least be dry ground and the next marked campsite was several hours distant. As darkness approached the nearly full moon began to rise in the east, I began to ponder my options, I could continue on until sunrise at around 4:30am, I could simply have a floating camp in the canoe although the bugs would likely be unbelievable. All the while, I continued paddling with hopes that as often happens a spot would appear.
At 9:00pm it was getting to be almost impossible to see the shore clearly, it would only be another 10 minutes at most before only the moon or my headlamp would be providing any light, I decided to make a bee-line for shore and accept what I could find. I crashed through the outer layer of bushes, got out of the boat and pulled it though another few metres until there were hummocks of grass that I could stand on out of the water. I crashed through the brush in search of any dry spot big enough to pitch the tent, what I found was not good, extreme lumpiness with small soggy pools in the low spots. The mosquitos were incredible here; I grabbed the tent and a few critical things, set up and dived in bringing hundreds of bugs with me. First thing is kill the bugs, second get out of my river clothes, third set up my MondoKing™ sleeping pad (yeah it’s excessive but it really shined in this situation as the 4.5” thickness almost completely leveled out the lumpy ground). For dinner all I had was one granola bar and half a thermos of warm tea. I sent off a couple of messages and contemplated my morning plan. Most important in that regards was to escape this horrible camp and perhaps find a place where I could stop for a proper breakfast. What has been the best day of the trip so far ended with one of the worst (THE worst?) camps ever.
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