 |
 |
||||
 |
|||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||
|
|
|
|
14 | (continued) The next morning was not like the first; the air was warmer, there was not a breath of wind, and my sunrise shots from Casimir Island put the previous ones to shame. Eventually, I loaded the canoe and paddled to the far western end of the lake, where I sat in the sun at the mouth of Little Bob Creek, studying the map. Black Lake had several cottages on it then—a few more now, the map shows—but only a mile away a smaller lake called Digby (name since changed by fed.gov.com for reasons unknown) showed a few small islands and only two cottages (soon found to be empty shacks). A true backwoods destination! I strapped on my pack and set off to see if there was a portage trail. The map showed none, but I found the map to be laughably wrong. And not for the first time, I’m afraid, especially in the matter of back-country trails and portages. The aerial photographs from which topographic maps are derived are taken in mid-summer, when the trails are most difficult to see from above. And cartographers no longer place much value on such insignificant details anyway; correct me if I’m mistaken. An Ottawa civil servant at the Sportspersons’ Show told me that no profit has ever been made from any such map. The production costs are too high, and the market is far too small. In 1976, they were $1.50; now (2001) they’re about $12.00. And a provincial cartographer once reminded me that his profession is conducted in offices: “If nobody tells us what’s out there, how are we supposed to know?”
If it hadn’t been for some of the rock outcroppings, I could have driven a limousine through the woods from Black to Digby Lake. The portage had been established centuries ago by Natives, then widened by “settlers” (invading Europeans) in order to drag their fat aluminum boats across; several of these were chained to trees at the end of the trail. After a two-trip portage, totaling three miles, surrounded by barren but close-grown trees under the mid-day sun, I felt sweaty for the first time since I’d started out. I hadn’t bathed in two days, so I decided to take my first wilderness skinny-dip in Digby Lake. In late May. In the Haliburton Highlands. In Canada.
Well, I was determined to finish my dip, and I wasn’t going to let a little cold water stop me. Me? Canoeman? Master of the Untrodden Wild? No way! I walked back down the rock to the very edge of the water. I forced myself to believe that it was not as cold as it felt, like Mark Twain assuring his readers that Wagner’s music is not as bad as it sounds. Then another thought flashed: if your nerves are numbed by cold, it could be enough to kill you, and you’d never realize it. I had only recently heard of hypothermia at the time. I wasn’t even quite sure what it was. But I knew what it would mean to have your body heat sucked out of you so fast that you could do nothing to save yourself. And the lake was absolutely deserted. But the idea of going on a canoe trip and never going in the water was ridiculous—like driving across the Sahara and never getting out of the car because the sand is too hot. What kind of a wimp am I? I put the toes of the running shoes in the water. This is it, I thought. Just walk down that (slippery) rock and dip your head under to rinse off the sweat, then out. OUT! Leap out, if you can, but for God’s sake, do it! |
||
|
|
|
Shedding my shorts and tee-shirt, I blithely sauntered down a sloping rock face—into the coldest fucking water I have ever felt in my |
|
||
|
|
|
