This is a long entry so I am going to post it over two days. Here is the first half - from Thursday night to landfall on Saturday

What a great weekend. While most of the people I know languished in the city, I got to spend two amazing days paddling the Bird River. - Wow that comes across as a bit boastful doesn't it?

The great trip began Thursday night with the traditional last minute packing and the bringing of what may be considered too much stuff. I never did use the shorts I brought but hey, I'd rather be prepared.

Friday was a busy day and afforded little time for packing. I went to school and spent the afternoon working on a group project and attending the photo club camera basics workshop. When I got home, it was time to put the canoe on the van, pick up Mikael, and set off for Dave's cottage.

Dad drove out to the cottage, and just after Beausejour, hit a deer. The van suffered some major headlight trauma, but otherwise came across much better than the deer probably did. I am actually kind of happy that this happened because I have been driving that road twice a week for the entire summer. The van was due for a collision and I wasn't driving when one happened.

We got to the cottage and met up the the rest of our party. The people in this adventure were: Myself, my father, Mikael, Dave, Greg, Carland, Dan, and Morgan. Nearly all of these guys are experienced paddlers and half of them work in the meat packing industry. There is no correlation between paddling expertise and occupation, although according to my grounding in statistics 100, this suggests a trend.

Friday night was spent sitting around eating hot rod ends, chips, and drinking each man's beverage of choice. Talk was sparse and mostly centered around the Blue Bomber's most recent loss. Everyone hit the sack around ten thirty to rest up for the following day.

I woke up around eight, long after everyone had gotten up. I quickly had some cereal and repacked my stuff. Shortly after we headed down to the parking lot at Tulabi falls. It was cold out, far colder than I prefer. I was wearing a hoodie and my fleece and that's before we even hit the water. While the canoes were being unloaded I ran down to the falls and took some pictures of the water. Soon Dave and Greg came back with our two rental canoes and we set out on the lake.

For the weekend, Mikael and I had the Kevlar canoe. Mikael was the powerhouse in the bow and I provided direction from the stern. The first stretch was fine, there was very little wind and the river easy to navigate with relatively few rocks to avoid.

The fun part was the first portage. There was only enough room for one canoe to come ashore at a time, and the rest was nice thick mud. Not just mud, but clay. You could call it Bird River gumbo. The mud did not stop at the water, but lined the entire portage ensuring that one's shoes were completely caked by the time they walked the portage. On the far side we put in to a large muddy sinkhole with the next portage visible, only two hundred meters away.

After a pathetically short paddle we took the boats out of the water and portaged another longer mud pit of a portage. This time, the mud stopped about one hundred meters from the end of the portage and we set into the water off of some nice, dry, un-muddy rocks.

Back into the water, we paddled for a while down the river through some gentle corners and came to the third portage. The third portage was a sight for sore eyes after the first two. It had everything the first two were lacking. Sandy beaches to launch from, a dry trail, a nice sign stating that this portage was only thirty meters long, and some rocks on which to eat lunch.

For my father, planner of this trip, canoe trips are about two things. 1) food. 2) canoing. Simple. Every meal that we ate on the trip was at least as good or better than what I would eat should have I stayed at home. Lunch was Montreal style bagels with spiced Havarti cheese and summer sausage. Summer sausage is the essential canoe trip food. It lasts forever, and can take quite a bit of abuse before being rendered inedible. I think we may have had better meat with the bagels, but there is a unwritten rule stating that at least one meal needs to include summer sausage.

After lunch, we continued paddling upstream. We passed numerous beaver dams along the river and saw some moose in the distance running away from us. By now I was starting to tire a bit and looked forward to reaching camp. The first campsite we passed on Elbow lake was occupied by someone with a rather annoying dog which seemed to enjoy the sound of its own bark. We pushed on down the lake and reached a island containing two campsites and two outhouses. The perfect place to make camp.