Lake Superior 1999

Sometime during the winter of 1998-1999, I decided that I really, really wanted to get to know the Algoma area better. After all, I grew up there - yet I'd spent time going to all sorts of places, but I had *never* been on Lake Superior. I think the closest I ever got was a few visits to Gros Cap, a drive from Wawa to the Sault when I was 12 or so, and a daytrip to the Salzburger Hof for lunch followed by a flight over the area in a chartered floatplane (cool outing my mother treated us to one year in my early teens). But - if you don't count a few minutes bobbing in a floatplane - I had never been on Superior.
I had, however, been told by numerous people - some who knew, some who had only heard other people say it - that Superior is not to be treated lightly, that this wasn't some warm lake in Algonquin where the biggest waves are about two feet high and I could swim to shore no matter what happened. SO - I decided that 1) I would go with an outfitter and 2) I would learn to kayak so I could do it in a sea kayak. In February, I booked a trip with an outfit called Experience North, who at the time were going into (I think) their second year. And early in the summer of 1999, I took a couple of kayak workshops at White Squall.
The trip started with a briefing at the Experience North store (at that time on Queen St. in the Sault) on a Tuesday night in August. There were so many people registered that they split the group into two, and half of us (my half) would travel south to north instead of the usual north to south on this route.
We got taken to our put-in point (Sinclair Cove) by van, with a knowledgeable driver who told us all kinds of cool details (like where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down and challenges faced by the Trans Canada trail network). Then, we were on the beach with our boats and a HUGE pile of gear. I was in a very conservative packing mode, so all of my gear - including sleeping bag and thermarest - fit into two 15L drybags. I felt pretty smug about this fact - except I was also really envious of all the cool luxuries everybody else on the trip had! Fortunately, the best luxury of all was a 20L See bag chock full of tasty treats that Rick and Gayle brought to *share*. Yippee. And the huge mountain fit into all the boats somehow
	Our first day out was good weather - we paddled to see the pictographs at Agawa Point, and I got that funny feeling like when you're floating because Superior is so clear and you think you could drop straight down. Then we stopped at Barrett Island, where I saw the biggest blueberries of my life. I filled a small ziploc in about five minutes. Also saw a bear, but I figured the blueberries were tastier than I am.
Our first night was spent on a beach south of the Sand River (the three pictures above). The rain hit just as we were coming in, but dinner was tasty and there were a couple of tarps. We had some free time, so I went exploring on the Coastal Trail while the guides built a cozy fire. After dinner, three of us paddled back out to Barrett Island for more blueberries just as dusk was hitting. The wind picked up on the way out, and I thought about being scared - but Bruce, the guide, was paddling beside me and HE didn't seem concerned, so I figured there was no point (wow, guided trips are cool, no responsibility). The driving rain bugged me, though... but my tent was all set up and dry, and when I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of a (very) dark night I just didn't bother putting on anything that would get wet ;)
Day 2 dawned wet and windy (and once again, I liked the guided trip thing - no decisions on whether or not to paddle). To my surprise, though, I was perfectly happy in the waves and dindn't have any trouble pushing it and controlling the boat. Then again, I was the youngest non-guide on the trip, so that probably explains why I felt perfectly okay with the effort required.
We had packed up wet, and we were paddling into the wind, and by Katherine Cove, one of our group members was very very cold - so we stopped for a quick fire, hot tea, and Rick and Gayle's marvelous snack bag (I think the guides had brought snacks, but we shunned them throughout the trip - Rick and Gayle's were better). We had a break, and continued on until we hit Coldwater Creek. In the picture above left, we had just landed and the sun was starting to come out. We stopped to dry out tents and other gear and eat lunch (there was a lot of eating on this trip), and by the time we were ready to leave, we had the weather seen in the picture on the right. That's Baldhead Mountain in the background of the second picture.
The wind died down too, and we paddled merrily along at a comfortable pace, except the last 25 minutes or so when I really had to pee and Bruce said it was okay to get a bit further away from the group because the site is "over there". I turbo-paddled to Beatty Cove, which has both a cobble and a sandy beach in a protected cove (who'd have figured?).
		I really liked Beatty Cove on this trip - it seemed to have it all, water warm enough to swim in, a cool sitting rock (you can see it in the picture on the far left), nice tent pads away from the sand... I've been back since, and the site now looks like it gets far too much use, but on that trip, it was paradise.
		To nobody's surprise, we ate well... Rick and Gayle even pulled some wine out of their magic high-volume kayaks (they had *everything*). The only thing I didn't like about Beatty Cove was that we had Red River for breakfast the next day... and I just don't feel like I'm on a paddling trip if I don't start the day with oatmeal.
Rhyolite Cove was yet another snack stop. I liked the red rock, but I don't think I'd want to go barefoot on it...
Day three was right out of a fantasy about the perfect paddling trip - great weather, great winds, great snacks! Bruce even decided we didn't have to stick to shore on our way to Devil's Warehouse Island. This was where I discovered that, on Superior, objects aren't nearly as close as they appear.
There is an old cave on the south side of the island at the base of the cliffs - I think I heard ochre mine, but I'm not sure. We paddled around the back to the northeast side, where there is an inlet and we ditched the boat and some of us bushwhacked to the top. Wow!
	The plan was to spend that night at Warp Bay, but the winds had picked up again and Bruce wasn't sure we'd be able to make it to Gargantua Bay by the time our shuttle was supposed to pick us up the next day. It was a weekend in August, though, and all the sites in Gargantua were taken. We camped on the beach, more snad.
	All in all, I was a very happy camper on this trip - I fell in love both with Lake Superior and with kayaking (I wanted some of those luxuries too!). It was fun for me, paddling with people I didn't know and not having any responsibilities (except, of course, making sure that snack bag wouldn't need so much room in the boat anymore!)

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