Day 2 - Mandy Mine to Boot Lake

Captain’s Log - Day 2 from Mandy Mine to Boot Lake:

I'm going to be all over the place here because I'm simply just exhausted. I just finally got the tent up and I’m in bed. I just finished the last leg of the portage from Phantom Lake into Boot and I’m wiped.

It was a beautiful morning, so I managed to enjoy the morning with a nice breakfast overlooking the water, but today’s travel began with a gruelling portage after Mandy Mine.

Breakfast at Mandy Mine

I knew it was going to be tough. I’m a solo canoer and what one forgets, is when you're with a partner, you have two guys carrying the same amount of gear. Now, I'm doing twice the loads. It started pouring rain this morning when I was done with about a third of the portage. At first I was a little disappointed but then I realized it really kept me cool and actually I didn't even notice the rain. When I was on my third trip back for the gear I was so wiped out that I would fall down on the ground and just lay in the wet grass and get a five minute sleep. The rain was pouring down and was wiping away my sweat and cooling me down. The bugs are horrendous and my face was full of mosquitoes and I was so wiped that I couldn't care less. I just needed to get some sleep on the trail. I did that for the last haul of the canoe over the trail. I'd walk about 400 meters and completely collapse with the canoe. I’d throw it onto the ground and just lay there. I was just so exhausted I would fall asleep for about five minutes or so. Never in my 30 years of canoeing have I gotten to that point of exhaustion. It wasn't dangerous exhaustion; it wasn't like heart attack exhaustion. I was just simply that tired and I was not used to carrying all those heavy loads and all the gear I’d packed for this trip.

Anyways, that was a little bit more than I was expecting. I knew this part of the trip was actually going to be one of the toughest parts and to start out with this type of heavy hauling and the number of kilometres I put in walking today was … it was overwhelming. I wasn't actually expecting it to be that tough. I'm very glad that I didn’t have Taiga with me on this part because I'd be hauling her dog food and dog supplies as well, so that was really a blessing in disguise.

Some of the good parts of the day: I got to cross an area where I grew up as a young lad. In my early teens, my brother helped me run a junior trap line. I know a lot of people don't want to hear me talk about on a traveling blog, but this is kind of what young guys did growing up in Flin Flon was you got into the trapping scene to make a little bit of extra money. For us it was just to be able to get out into the bush and enjoy the bush. I don't do that sort of thing anymore, but I was walking across the trails that I grew up trapping on and then later on in the day I was carrying my canoe across areas of the Flin Flon Ski Club where I ski and grooming trails. So that was kind of kinda neat to see. I wasn't expecting to be hauling a canoe across where I groom trails.

Another note of interest was that I found an old exploration side geophysical signage, high voltage signage with some of our geophysical wire wrapped on a tree from way back in the day, probably from both 2001 and 2002 when I was doing geophysics. Actually, this whole area that I crossed today, I covered hundreds of kilometres doing geophysics work way back, so it's not new ground for me walking, but mostly the walking was in the wintertime on snowshoes and now I'm dragging a canoe through there. Anyway, that brought back a lot of memories of running crews looking for the “hidden big one” that they say it's still below Phantom.

OH! Another neat thing as I was going down Phantom Lake was when I came across the island that we stayed on for my very FIRST canoe trip in grade six. Like I said, it was a horrible canoe trip. It was pouring rain when we left, the wind was howling and blowing for the two days that were out there and it was just miserable. We were soaking wet, we couldn't keep the canoes straight and then the tent leaked! I’ve actually never been back to that island since grade six, but I had someone point out this winter (when we're skiing past there) that it was the island that the teachers would take the kids out canoeing to. Mr. Belfrey was the teacher that got us into canoeing and he took us to this island. Anyway, I stopped there today. It was sunny. The rain had stopped. And I had to get out. It HAS to be one of the most beautiful campsites on all of Phantom Lake and probably in most of the area around Flin Flon! I thought of Mr. Belfrey wanting to take his grade six class to show them this incredible island and it was just bad luck that it poured rain. I was so happy I stopped there to remember that very first canoe trip.

Also today, the paddling across Phantom Lake was just gorgeous. When I can get on the water and just paddle the day just flies by, but these portages just killed me. I knew that there were going to be some bad swampy spots on the Boot Lake portage from Phantom Lake, but I thought it would be mostly dry. It was not. One portage was close to about 800 meters long and it went through a lot of deep swamp where I was up to my knees and I could hardly walk.

Day 2 on portage crossing ski trails I groom in winter!

When I got there it was one o'clock and I thought, “I'll only be a couple hours on this one.” Well, I didn't get done until 830. I actually stopped halfway through on this one and had to cook supper at five o'clock because I was falling asleep on the trail again. Every time I went back for another pack, I would just fall down. All I was thinking was, “I can keep going today.” I was really wanting to get the Mystic Lake today because I gotta be at Alistair Calgary’s cabin Sunday, so if I didn't make it to Mystic I was feeling I might not make it to Alistair’s, but I also had to listen to my body and my body was screaming at me that I better stop. I actually stopped for two hours for supper to just relax and sit back in a chair. With supper I made a coffee and I've never had a coffee taste THAT good. I made my famous dirty sock coffee with my jet-boil. I take a pair of Sara Lynne's pantyhose and cut the foot off and then you fill it up with a little bit of coffee. You put that in the water and you let the water boil. After it has boiled you let it soak for about five minutes and then you pull it out and you got your coffee. Anyway, I always call it the dirty sock coffee trick which keeps you from getting all the coffee grounds. I was so exhausted I poured a pile of sugar in there for energy. Before I made supper I just sat and drank some coffee and the caffeine helped perk me up. I still had to go back for my canoe within the trail and I was looking forward to that. I actually thought I wasn't going to get the canoe. I thought I'd leave it back there because I was so wiped out. But I put up my tent and then I thought if I want to get on the water early tomorrow I’d better go tonight.

So, I just got back to camp not too long ago and sent out a message to facebook saying how gruelling a day I had, but there were some highlights. Traveling through my childhood, took me back to stories of trapping and skiing. Despite some of the downtimes today I still feel I'm up for this, but again, I knew this was gonna be a torturous couple of days. And, well, it's proving itself right.

Anyway, I digress. I am now rambling because I'm super super tired. I thank everybody for their support. I know everybody's looking forward to seeing me at Alistair’s tomorrow and I sure hope I can make it. I know everybody will be disappointed. I'll be disappointed. But, I just couldn't push more today. I hope that tomorrow is better.

God bless. Have a good night.

Over.