Day 2; August 21
Ken was up early fishing, even before Peter made his usual early morning foray to light the fire and brew the coffee. At Warren’s suggestion, Peter cut a piece of foam from one of the sleeping pads to pad his trapesius. A leisurely breakfast and packing saw us on the water by 10 am.
We paddled around Donaldson Island, and started down the Sluice channel. We were careful to make the beginning of the portage -
- since the rapids are about 900 m long, gradually increasing in intensity to a Class 6 at the end at Sluice Falls.
The portage was again close to one km long. Albert led the crew along the portage and returned for a second pack. Warren chopped the portage into three sections. Peter found the going much easier (relatively that is, it was still tough!) with the extra padding. Alison and Ken tried it with the two of them carrying the canoe and found this easier although awkward and slower.
After Sluice, we paddled a km or so to Corner Rapids.
This rapid was run by Warren and Katrina.
Peter declined to run from the back of the canoe, so Warren ran with Albert and Jeffrey.
Alison and Ken then ran with Christopher and made it through successfully.
Then everybody except Peter and Christopher swam the rapid, several times. Warren said “Dad, come on, you can do this!” So Peter was shamed into going upstream and very tentatively, with much hand holding from Warren, to swim the rapid. Peter exited on the wrong side of the haystacks, but got to shore anyway, then clunked his knees on the rocks getting back to the canoes. This was the second time Peter had swum a rapid, and the first time he had done it voluntarily. Everyone practiced eddying in and out of the strong eddy at Corner (called the Toilet Bowl by Warren’s group, and the scene of a previous protracted circulation by Mike and Peter in 1996). Everyone then ran the remaining fast water, although Peter and Albert were so busy waiting for Warren to go that they did not realize that they were drifting sideways onto a rock. This spun them around, but they calmly selected a downstream Vee on river right and ran the rest. From Corner we paddled a few meters to our campsite, another very nice one, and started setting up at about 1 pm.
The afternoon was occupied with fishing, and paddling over to the foot of Farside to see some kayakers. The kayakers, a father and son, were from Edmonton, traveling in a canoe and two kayaks. They later came to share our campsite, which had many good tent sites.
The weather was very hot; Ken’s thermometer (when translated into Warren’s ‘real numbers’) read 29. Warren, Alison, Katrina, Albert, Jeffrey and Ken swam across the current at the bottom of the rapids. After bathing, with environmentally acceptable soap, we donned clean tee shirts, only to begin sweating again.
The fishermen were informed that they were expected to supply dinner, but fishing here was nowhere near as good as the previous evening, and there were few bites. The kids refused to allow any of their catches to be used for supper but the question was moot as Ken was the only one to succeed by hooking a six-pound jack.
Ken played this fish carefully, until Warren, armed with a new filleting glove from Peter which enabled him to get a grip on the slimy jack, succeeded in grabbing the fish and tossing it onto the shore.
To the dismay of the kids, Warren then struck the fish on the head a few times with a suitable rock to dispatch it. It then fell to Peter to fillet it. Jacks have lots of tough bones. Alison assisted with the cleaning of the fillets.
Alison, Ken and Peter then looked forward to a fish dinner (the emergency reserve of hotdogs were kept in the cooler). Warren and the kids dined on large quantities of macaroni cheese. However, when it came to cooking the jack, we found that we had not packed any butter or margarine.
Alison leapt into the breach by pan baking the fillets/chunks in dry Shake and Bake.
Peter ate three large ones. Our Edmonton companions accepted two, in exchange for which we tasted their smoked fish (Warren excepted).
The day before, Alison had remarked that one of her wet bags had leaked slightly, wetting one of the kid’s sleeping bags. Upon unpacking, Peter also found some of his clothes to be wet, but the odor was different and he found that his carefully husbanded jar of brandy had popped its lid. His after dinner drink was reduced to wistful sniffs of the jar.
Warren and Peter slept without a fly, so they could see the satellites going over, but they both fell asleep first. There were storm clouds but Warren did not consider reinstalling the fly until after breakfast, when a thunderstorm threatened.