I had always assumed that the Trans Canada Trail was a landbased path. But how do you deal with the tangle of waterways in northwestern Ontario?

摘要

It's never just an ordinary day on the canoe trail, at least not for me. I've been paddling and portaging in northwestern Ontario for almost one month now, enough time for soft winter palms to blister and harden into thick paddling calluses. My body aches, always, somewhere; if it's not joint pain, then it's bug bites or sunburn. Today, however, is an easy traverse on Trousers Lake, in Ontario's Quet?co Provincial Park— 10 kilometres and two portages, mostly soft creek, beaver dams and less than a thousand metres to haul gear. I plan to not push off until after noon, waiting for a break in the nimbus sky that kept me in camp since sunrise.