Day 5 - Isaac River, McLeary Lake, Cariboo River & Lanezi Lake

Today started with a portage along the Isaac River, which was about 1.6 km. We stopped at the waterfall for lunch; we were able to hike along the end of the trail and get pretty close to take some photos and enjoy a few bites.

Then we had a short paddle (0.5 km) and then another short portage (0.2 km). Then we were onto McLeary Lake. Adam was in the stern, and I in the bow. After a bit of paddling (1.5 km), the lake turned into the Cariboo River, which we paddled for 8 km.

Not that you paddle much on rivers, mind you. Many of our group say that Day 5 was their favourite day because it was so peaceful. The river currents pretty much just take you along, and you only have to do minor corrections to stay on the right path. There are a few times when you need to work hard to fight against the current, but they are worth the rest of the time on the river. You also cover a lot of ground on the river, because it's doing all the work for you - so it can go pretty fast.

One of the bow person's jobs is to watch for trees and logs and other obstructions coming up in the path of the boat. The stern person has to steer, and so they rely on the bow person to yell "deadhead" (large tree or stick coming straight up from the bottom) or "sweep" (a long-reaching item coming out from the shore) if they need to change course. This is even more important on a river since you're moving quite fast. If you get a hole in your boat, you're pretty much done for. On the trip we saw several destroyed/ruined/abandoned boats.

By the time we got to the end of Cariboo River, it had become quite windy. And not at our backs, either. We still had 4 km of Lanezi Lake to cover before we'd reach our campsite and we were fighting the whole way. It was exhausting!

Adam remembered that there was a shelter next to the campsite, and we were hoping to get there but once we arrived, we saw that it was taken by a bunch of young men. This was sorely disappointing since there were 14 of us and we surely would have utilized that space better than the 4 of them. Adam volunteered to go and check out the situation at the shelter while our group set-up camp. And who is paddling with Adam? You guessed it.

The waves were huge by this time due to that crazy wind and we were seeing some whitecaps. We had a very short paddle to do (the shelter was next door to our campsite but was separated by a creek, so we couldn't walk there), but it was tumultuous! It was, honestly, totally fun! That might have been the most fun I had in a canoe in the whole trip. When the waves are bouncing you around like that, you have to stay really loose in your hips and counter-balance your weight. It was a little mini ab-workout! The short trip was fun, but I can't imagine what it'd be like to paddle in that all day.

So Adam & I approach these guys who are in the shelter area, and they are not terribly forthcoming, but neither are they unfriendly. We scope the area out, confirm that they are using up the whole space (d'oh!), and head back to our canoe - choppy waves to be conquered yet again. Strangely, those guys show up at OUR camp not too long later - a couple of them are just wandering around, looking at our stuff. This rather bothers Doug, who approaches them with an axe in hand, and demands to know what they were looking for. They answer with "a piece of wood that might have floated down here" or something else as ridiculous. Some of us are convinced that they were sussing out our camp to see if there were things to steal. Nothing came of it, though, and besides, we grossly outnumbered them. And they don't have Doug on their side!

Each of us on this trip was asked to present a workshop during the trip. The workshop could be on any topic related to this expedition. Doug gave us information about Bear & Cougar Safety, Penny forwarded information about the History of Bowron Lakes, etc. My workshop of choice was Beginner's Photography Tips. Given that most of the people on the trip had small, point & shoot cameras, I gave a few suggestions about composition, how to manipulate the flash, how to focus (depth of field), what makes a photo interesting, basic technical tips, and showed a few examples. I think it went well enough, although if you know me, you know that I hate presenting because I get terribly nervous. However at this point people had seen me at my worst, so really... how much worse could it get? ;)

Then Ed did his presentation on compass & mapping. Soon afterwards we headed to bed, because we were leaving uber-early to avoid the headwind the next day. I think the wake-up call was to be 5am or something almost as painful. After we got in our tents and invested some time in killing the mosquitoes who managed to join us, we drifted off to dream of another amazing day on the water!



(Day 5 photos here.)