Hi! I'm Grace Evans and this is Dry Spell, my weekly letter of off-season reflections on canoeing.
I found a sweet spot between dinner and sleep in the backcountry. On my mid-September trip the sun set at 7:15 in Algonquin, so it wasn’t even all that late when it started to get dark. I watched twilight unfold; the colours of the sky fade into each other. Cool crisp air at my back. The campfire’s snap and crackle. Silhouette of trees against the creamy swirl of milky way and smattered stars. The gleam of the moon’s reflection in dark lake water. Gentle lapping against rocky shore. The laugh of a loon. Far off flames of campfires across the lake. Feeling happily like a wrung out towel, a tired ache in my muscles from paddling. And now this stillness. How many times do I watch night fall in front of me?
My first backcountry trip was with some early risers and we were zipped into sleeping bags by 9 pm. I only felt the full impact of the night sky when I got up in the middle of the night to pee and saw the spread of stars. There is magic in the morning, and I’m glad I saw it, but hunkered down in tents at sundown I missed the conviviality of campfire, the loveliness of dark night.
For each night of my second backcountry trip, with Emily and her partner Sam, I made dinner. Then Emily and Sam washed our dishes, dug a six-inch hole away from our site and buried the dishwater. They packed dishes and food away in a food barrel and bag, walked off into the brush to our pre-established bear hang, and hoisted the food into the air. To me there is no chore worse than washing dishes, camping or at home, but I can’t believe they let me get away with this.
The work of tidying away our animal attractants mostly complete, we met twilight with another cup of bagged red wine sangria. Or hot herbal tea. Or, on the last night, hot chocolate with tiny liquor bottles of whisky dumped in. We watched the light fade. We heard the laughing call of loons. A rabbit hopped by. A headlamp illuminated a wide toad when filling a water bottle. A heron perched on the edge of our site, silhouetted against the water. I yelped when a mouse shot out of the thunderbox as I stood after using it.
And so the great hive-mind-genius in the three of us came up with a satellite bear hang, a 10 litre dry bag hoisted into a tree at the edge of our site. We rinsed our empty cups with water and drank that down too, brushed our teeth and sealed our mugs, toothbrushes and toothpaste in the bag. Admittedly it’s not strictly following recommended bear hang protocol, but it was low risk enough, and maintained the integrity of our dental hygiene. And then we could linger a little longer*, three giggling chums around the fire, watching the sky change. I’m glad we stayed up.
Links:
*Linger a little longer is from an old campfire song I remember from Girl Guides. Here Girl Scouts sing the 43 second song.
Store food out of reach of bears [Friends of Algonquin Park]
“After the dishes are done, and before going to bed, is often one of the most enjoyable times of the day.” Exactly! [Friends of Algonquin Park]
Bear Bags Are Ineffective [Outside Magazine]
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