Until this past weekend, I had never spent a night alone in the backcountry. I wanted to get past that - but I was and am essentially a chicken. There are noises in the night. Boats can flip. Very bad things might happen. Never mind that these same bad things can happen with somebody else there too, it just seemed that much scarier if bad things happened when I was alone.

So here was my plan, suitable for cowards: I'd meet Elke and Sue in Massassauga Park (Site 326) on Saturday sometime, but I would paddle out there by myself on Friday. And (gulp) spend a whole day and night all alone. Of course, the site was only a 10km paddle from the put-in (Pete's Place Access Point), and none of that route is particularly exposed. I called it my "solo lite" adventure.

What I didn't know was that it would also be backcountry lite: this area is infested with cottages. Some of the cottagers fly planes to their rustic 5-bedroom retreats. The park map shows lots of green (park) areas, and interspersed with that are yellow bits that don't jump out at you at all. Those are non-park.

The legend for the yellow areas, though, might as well read "cottage lots with suburban building density". And a footnote might point out that you can count on a minimum of one powerboat per cottage. If you were astute, you would also realize that some of these people will bring fireworks on a long weekend - and that radios can be run on batteries.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. On Friday, after procrastinating half the day, I paddled out to Sharpe Island in the rain. I felt truly hard core - I was alone, on choppy water, and it was cold and wet. Camping makes you feel virtuous if it involves hardship. Not too much hardship, though - note my lovely tarp, and the site had both privy and picnic table. And that's hot chocolate in my coffee cup. And I'm actually pretty happy in those pictures. And not wet at all.

The gloomy, rainy evening suited me fine, actually. I hung out under the tarp reading my book, and between periods of rain I went on exploratory walks. Since it was a cold, wet evening, I didn't feel like I was wimping out when I retreated to my (warm, fluffy) sleeping bag in my (dry) tent when it got dark. There were no spooky noises, just the patter of yet more rain on the fly.

And the next day, shortly after noon, Elke and Sue arrived. Getting company was good already, but this company had stuffed their boats with goodies. Forget hot chocolate, I now got to mooch wine, beer, Grand Marnier, some maple syrup-whiskey hybrid... and I'm not forgetting the licorice, soy nuts, chocolate mint things or cinnamon buns either. And that's just part of the list of treats.

Sue and Elke had just paddled in, so needed to spend some time setting up tents (and giving me more treats!), the sun came out - and my belly was too full to want to do any paddling. We spent some time snoozing in the sun with our books. I did entirely too much of that this weekend (I did entirely too much of many fun things) and I now have the sunburn to prove it...

We had a great site. It had a sandy beach, but room for tents in the woods behind. It had good sitting rocks. It was protected from the wind. Best of all, the water in front of it was shallow enough that powerboats had to veer off within 100m. I have no idea what was so interesting that they all seemed to beeline straight for the site and then peel off to one side or the other at the last minute.

On Sunday (after a decadent breakfast courtesy of Sue - this followed a decadent dinner courtesy of Elke the night before) we decided to paddle to Wreck Island.

Wreck Island has an interpretive trail, though the parks people aren't on the ball enough to have any signs up or pamphlets there for the May long weekend (doesn't stop them from charging full fees, though!). So we decided to interpret as we saw fit.

We interpreted the geologic history of the truly cool rocks everywhere. We were satisfied with our own explanations - they involved words like gneiss and basalt, very scientific no? And that is a snake in the third picture over. We didn't know what kind, and lacked sufficient confidence in its not being a rattler to investigate further.*

Wreck Island turned me into a picture-taking fool. Of course, shortly thereafter, it turned me into a fool who snoozes in the sun without sunscreen after lovingly nuzzling a beer. I figure, if you have to keep seeing the powerboats, you might as well enjoy some of the pleasures they are no doubt having too. And Sue and Elke provided!

After Wreck Island, we headed back to Sharpe Island for (you guessed it) some more food and drink. We hit some pretty cool waves on the way back. Then we lounged about in the sun while consuming various things, and then we finished the evening by lounging in front of the campfire while consuming more things. My body was pretty confused by this new camping diet. It didn't, however, send any signals like "stop" to my mouth, so it was business as usual on Monday too.

On our way out, we stopped at the Calhoun Lodge site on Blackstone Harbour. It's supposed to be an interpretive centre, but again, the parks people don't seem to equate fee charging with services, and all was locked up tight. I thought the dock looked cool, because it really illustrates how low the water is this year.

Sue and Elke went on a hike, I decided to spend some time with my book. While I read and they exerted themselves, the winds really picked up. I thought that was pretty fun, but I also only had a 2km paddle to my car. Elke and Sue ended up opting to take out at my car, and I shuttled Sue back to get her car at Woods Bay.

There was no hardship at all on this trip. There wasn't really any of that "backcountry" feeling, either, but maybe that's a good thing on a trip when the water is still very cold. Massassauga is a lovely park, but if you go - don't book any sites that are accessible via open water and have deep water access. They will be full of people with powerboats - and they will bring many coolers and noise-makers of all sorts. The backcountry sites in this park are very close together, so having neighbours who are under the impression that they're 16 year old boys who got their hands on a few cases of beer and are now car-camping can detract from your own experience. Fortunately, this didn't happen to us - but we passed enough sites on Captain Allan Strait where that clearly *would* have happened that I think we got very lucky. We had a lovely little weekend getaway. I wonder if my wetsuit still fits...

* I asked Rolf what kind of snake this is, and he told me it's most likely an eastern water snake. Also: "They are quite common and can be fairly aggressive, especially when they are about to moult. You can tell the snake is about to shed its skin by looking at the eyes. Just before they shed their skin, the eyes take on a milky hue. The snake can't see very well at this time and is more inclined to be aggressive to keep things away from it." So, while I didn't try to gaze into its eyes, I'm glad we kept our distance all the same!

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