Gatineau Adventure Weekend

From the vis­i­tor cen­tre we check the relief map for our trail. As I’m sign­ing in, Heather notices my date of birth is in the 80s. I’m the only one, and they joke about how young I am — espe­cially com­pared to Benoît, who’s a six­ties baby — but it never feels like we’re far apart in heart and mind.

We car­pool to the clos­est lot, and strap on our packs for the hike to the cabin.

The trail is fairly easy, and paved most of the way. It’s a very wel­come detail when you’re car­ry­ing sleep­ing gear, rain gear, extra clothes, eating/cooking imple­ments, cam­era equip­ment, sev­eral days worth of food, enough water to keep you hydrated on the way there, and your pack is over 25% of your body weight.

A quar­ter way in, and I’m already shed­ding clothes as my body warms from the walk, even as the wind blows late-winter cold. Even though peo­ple offered to help me carry things, I’m deter­mined to bring as much as I can by myself.

The sounds of nature sur­round us. Frogs mate-calling, crick­ets chirp­ing, and wood­peck­ers sound­ing off in the trees above.

After two hours, we arrive at our quaint lit­tle cabin, the only one on a lake in Gatineau Park. There’s a shed of fire­wood in the back, and an axe with which to split it. A lit­tle solar panel on top pow­ers a smoke detec­tor, car­bon monox­ide detec­tor, and emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion system.

The cabin has six bunks with mat­tresses, and a cozy wood-burning stove that serves as both fur­nace and kitchen. It’s clean and well-maintained, with it’s own set of pots and pans (also very wel­come when you’re hik­ing in). Even though we’ve booked the cabin for the week­end, it’s still open to the pub­lic between 4pm–10pm, and vis­i­tors come and go from all direc­tions, shar­ing tables with us, and exchang­ing stories.

Sergey sets up his ham­mock before dark. Even with the lux­ury of a shel­ter, he doesn’t feel like it’s camp­ing unless he’s sleep­ing outside.

For a pre-dinner snack, Roberta melts cheese over beans and lime nachos on the stove. I’m not sure what I appre­ci­ate more; the warm snack, or the fact that she car­ried bags of gua­camole, salsa, con­tain­ers of sour cream, and avo­ca­dos for us to enjoy.

Soon after, we feast on borscht, French bread, and chicken and beef faji­tas. Benoît even packed 2L of red Peller Estates wine, as well as sev­eral won­der­ful cheeses. There’s no arti­fi­cial light any­where, and as the sun sets, and we eat by candlelight.

Only a faint, pale glow com­ing from the city lights up the hori­zon. Otherwise, it’s pitch black; per­fect con­di­tions for star gaz­ing or astropho­tog­ra­phy, if it wasn’t for the heavy cloud cover.

I think of a pho­tog­ra­phy tech­nique called paint­ing with light I’ve seen but never used. After a few test shots, everyone’s excited to dance and pose and paint the air with our flash­lights as the snow falls around us.

We stop putting logs in the fur­nace well before bed­time, but the remain­ing fire keeps the cabin hot. A lit­tle too hot. In the morn­ing, we dis­cover that we’ve all shed as much of our cloth­ing as pos­si­ble and opened the win­dows. Roberta even moved to a lower bunk to get away from the heat.

In a fit of heat induced mad­ness, Dahlya put another log in the stove to keep the fire going at some point in the night, and didn’t real­ize the con­se­quence with what she had done until the morn­ing, but everyone’s in good spir­its nonethe­less with the day­light com­ing in bright and clear.

Before every­one has woken up, I take a short walk down the trail to look for inter­est­ing sub­jects, but spring has just started, and there’s noth­ing around but fun­gus and wet soil. It’s so still and serene here, I won­der if the fun­gus started grow­ing on the branches before or after they fall.

There’s too much food, and we eat as much as we can to lighten our packs for the hike back. The fresh air and exer­cise has no prob­lem keep­ing our appetites healthy.

It’s always inter­est­ing to see the inno­va­tions used for camp­ing. Pots with curved han­dles that fold against the sides to stay com­pact. Insulating mat­tresses that can fold up dou­ble as chairs. Combination uten­sils. Carbon fibre trekking poles. Little details that were given lots of thought, and appre­ci­ated greatly by those who make use of them.

Sergey fishes by the lake. He even goes skin­ning dip­ping with Heather, which strikes me as par­tic­u­larly bold when we’re all wear­ing toques and it’s so cold that some of us have put on every piece of cloth­ing we brought.

We draw water from the lake through a fil­ter, which turns the insect-infested, pale-yellow water clear and drinkable.

Heather’s always wanted to try Tai Chi, so I give her a short les­son. As a group, we try uproot­ing, and take turns try­ing to move each other with tech­nique instead of force.

I’ve only brought two lenses with me — my bare essen­tial 16–35mm and 24–70mm — because I couldn’t spare any extra weight or space in my pack, but a part of me wishes I had packed my macro lens when­ever I see the tiny details in the vegetation.

Through much of the week­end, the wind blows cold, but every now and then the sun comes out and bathes us in warmth. We spend as much time as we can out­side, with our com­pany and con­ver­sa­tions keep­ing us enter­tained. It’s a serene week­end, with civ­i­liza­tion and cell phone ser­vice far away.

I’m using the same pack I had in Scouts, which was about 15 years ago. I sus­pect I haven’t grown much since I was 15. It was in those two years that I learned how to dis­trib­ute the weight in my pack, what to eat, what to bring, and how to sur­vive outdoors.

Before leav­ing, we sweep the floors, clean the pots, do every­thing we can to leave the cabin the same way we found it, as the group before us has done.

We make good time on the way back. A steady pace is set, with con­ver­sa­tion tak­ing our minds off the pass­ing time, and we cut our time almost in half. I can feel the mus­cles in my feet, legs, and arms tighten with sore­ness, and I’m sure I’ll feel it much more the day after. It’ll be good to be so exhausted; a won­der­ful reminder that I should appre­ci­ate every chance I get to do this, because I don’t do it often enough.