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Published: September 23rd 2007
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There are some things in life where the harder something is, the better you feel about it in the end. It's the feeling of accomplishment, the rush of trying something new, or knowing that you went outside your comfort zone that does it for you.
After finishing a rocky, mile-plus long portage twice over--once with an 80-pound pack and then my own personal pack--I coudn't help but feel very good about myself despite how much I hated it while doing trying to climp up a rock with the food pack on my back. I wouldn't necessarily want to do it again right then; nevertheless, it seemed like something I could be proud of, knowing that I pushed myself on only the second day of our trip. It really got me thinking "what couldn't I do" if I really wanted to do it. The same thing goes for crossing Lake Olifant. Lake Olifant is a fairly large lake in Quetico, and apparently it can get fairly rough. From what I was told, it wasn't as rough as it could be... but knowing that didn't make it any less hard to cross. I don't know exactly what it was about the lake
that made it so much less calm than other lakes--the wind, the day, the location of the lake... whatever it was I paddled/tried to steer the canoe in the straightest direction nature would allow for forty-five minutes straight. And that was hard. Luckily we had just had our lunch because it took so much of my energy to paddle through the water. When it gets wavy, the water will push you back just as much as you try to push into it sometimes making any effort you exert worthless. You feel like you go nowhere. It was so very satisfying when we got to the other, considerably rather smooth side (and really made me want to go swimming).
However, sleeping on hard ground that only seems to get harder and harder somehow throughout the night does NOT make me feel accomplished in the morning. It is not satisfying. It is not making me a better person. I'm going out of my comfort zone, but not the kind of comfort I can do without. It makes my back hurt; I can't imagine paddling a canoe back to Pickerel Lake at the end of the week after sleeping like this every
Dad looking out at Lake Olifant before we head into the rough
The lake looks calm at the end of it all... not so much in the middle night. So for that reason, I am glad we are setting up a base camp tonight that we will stay at for a while. That means tomorrow we just bum around here and relax. I know, relax on vacation? What a concept. Who ever heard of such a thing.
I do love our campsite here. We were hoping to stay on Blueberry Island tonight, but that is being occupied right now and its occupants hated by everyone in my family sans me. I really don't know why they'd rather have the island. Sure, it's an island and that's cool... but our campsite tonight is real nice. We have the tents back in the woods a bit, which is nice and private, and this large rock "living room/dining room" of sorts where we had our first experience with freeze-dried food (peach cobbler). It's actually really awesome (well, not the freeze-dried food... that was okay at best, but seeing as how I was eating peach cobbler in the Canadian wilderness... I can't complain I guess). It has easy access to the water, a nice place for our canoes to sit, a great area for family bath time (as weird as it
sounds, but don't worry: we had on bathing suits), and it has a awesome view of the sky.
And what a sky. Tonight the stars came out around 10:30 and MAN! Stars like I have never seen before in my life. It was amazing. They started coming out slowly at first. One here, a second one there... three and four more again. Hannah and I started counting, but that was in vain. All of a sudden it was like an explosion and the only thing we could count were shooting stars and satellites (six and eleven, respectively). You could even see stars reflected in the water. It was real hard to go to bed, but since I was so tired from such a hard (yet fulfilling!) day I really had no choice. Can't wait for tomorrow... nothing but bum time.
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