Hamilton Harbour 2003

The weather was nowhere near as good as the forecast had let me hope it would be earlier in the week. It was maybe 12 degrees at the warmest time, and the sky and lake were a uniform shade of grey - but it wasn't raining, the lake was pretty calm, and I love hanging out with Sarka. So paddling we went, heading out on what, to me, was a first: urban paddling. Hamilton Harbour in November. Doesn't exactly cue music of birds chirping and visions of gentle breezes that smell like ancient rock and stately pines, now, does it?

Hamilton Harbour is separated from Lake Ontario by a baymouth bar. The sandbar has the QEW, another road, a hydro corridor, some industry, and a small community that faces the beach on the lake side. Hamilton Harbour has, on the south side, Stelco and Dofasco and other heavy industry. On the north side is Burlington and residential development - and LaSalle Park, which is where we launched.

To get from the Harbour to Lake Ontario, you have to go through the canal - you pass over it every time you take the Burlington Skyway, it's just past the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters. I'd driven over it, but I'd never paddled through it. It's big. It has to be - the lakers full of ore and coke for the steel mills have to go through here. And they do. Very frequently in the fall, actually, because Sarka says they have to stockpile all the supplies for the mills before the seaway closes.

Sarka has had a bad experience with freighters in the canal, and to avoid this, we hung out in the Harbour watching the lift bridge go up and down - as long as traffic was going over that road and the bridge was down, we'd be okay to get through. We watched one of he big ships come through, and then, when the bridge started going down, made our way through. I thought it was cool, because there was a lot to look at. There all sorts of weather gauging instruments on the harbour side, and some of them are powered by their own solar panals. There is also a radar research station, and Coast Guard vessels.

When we got onto the Lake, we were surprised by how calm it was. The wind was offshore, and there wasn't much of it. We discussed where we should go, and decided to paddle along Hamilton Beach until we got to the beach place that sells fish and chips and all the other greasy delights you associate with working class beach communities.

Hamilton Beach intrigued me. Living on the beach would be fantastic- especially one that has a biking/running/rollerblading path all along it. Living on a narrow sandbar underneath a hydro corridor with a huge highway at your back and the steel plants beyond that, I'm not so sure. The bar is narrow enough that the hydro towers are built right on the beach, in a wind event, the waves would be lapping at their base.

We paddled to the site of the greasy snacks, and yielded to the chips.. The whole scene kept evoking an 80s pop song that had the line "another holiday town in the rain" in my head. It wasn't raining, but it had that same sad, drab feeling. But then, it's November. And I wasn't sad, just too used to Georgian Bay shores.

We decided not to sit inside, opting instead to take the greasy lunch to one of the rock jetties that helps anchor the beach. We topped the grease off with leftover Halloween chocolate bars from Sarka's kayak (she'd also packed a healthy lunch, but the fries won out).

We didn't linger - we couldn't, the days are so very short now that we had to start paddling again to get back to the cars before dark. There was a weird platform a bit out from shore - Sarka said she thought it had something to do with water intake, but wasn't sure. We paddled out to it, and set a good pace to warm up again.

We fell into a good cruising speed - you know, when the rhythm clicks and your strokes get very efficient, and you just enjoy paddling for its own sake. I love that. I especially love it in my new boat. With little chatter, we headed back to the canal, and through. We stopped to gawk at some of the Coast Guard vessels and another chocolate snack, and then beelined to the cars as darkness started to take over.

It was far more satisfying than you'd think, the urban paddling on a grey day in November. For me, it was a total novelty, and there was so much to look at. And it's pretty hard to not enjoy it if you're doing something you love with a great adventure buddy. All told, we put 20km on our boats, ate some incredibly fattening treats, and laughed a lot. What more can you ask for, really.