It's dangerous to take yourself too seriously.

This past weekend was the annual Carney, Henkleman, and Kornelsen weekend at the cottage. The Henklemans were under represented this year but our numbers were bolstered by the addition of Christian and Sarah. Heather, Jon, Heidi, and Jenny came as the other younger members of the Carney, Henkleman, and Kornelsen group, but Jon and Jenny were feeling a bit ill so they went home early.

The weekend was pretty much rained out. It was raining when we drove up, it rained on Saturday, Sunday happened to be the second true day of summer, and it rained again on Monday.

On Saturday we stayed inside, read, talked, and listened to music most of the day. Every now and then it would start raining again and I couldn't see the lake from the cottage. Generally it was just a day to relax.

Sunday was different though. It was bright, sunny and almost warm. Heather, Sarah, Christian, Emily and I went out in the boat with Dave Blatz were we tried to wake board and knee board.

Christian has taught wake boarding so after a few tries I was able to get up and stay above the water. It definitely was not easy and I need a lot more practice before I can stay out of the water for more than a minute at a time. I think that if I knew how to snowboard then wake boarding would be easier, but alas, I am a skier.

After trying wake boarding, Emily and I did some knee boarding just so we could do something simple and fun. After trying hard to learn wake boarding I found I really needed to relax and do something I already knew.

Later Christian heard about the cliff diving at Tulabi Lake. Emily and I were hesitant since we had never jumped there or seen anyone else jump, but we drive over to check it out. When we got there Christian really wanted to jump so despite being unprepared we ended up doing some impromptu cliff diving.

That night Emily and I set up the tent in the living room for a semi-authentic camping experience. It was authentic in that we slept in a tent, but less authentic considering the mattress we stole and wedged in the tent.

On Sunday we woke up to more rain. I was immediately happy that we decided to set up the tent inside rather than outside and have more than a fly to protect us from the rain.

It was cold enough that going out in the boat again wouldn't be a wise idea so we went ATVing with Dave and took quads through all types of mud in the woods. Going through muddy trails is much more satisfying than hard packed ones so the bad weather really made the day. The trails had turned into streams so mud and water were everywhere. By the time we returned, my boots were full of water, my jacket covered in mud and my shorts were soggy wet. It was great.

After we got back to the cabin Emily and I rushed to the shower to clean and warm up, leaving Sarah and Christian to continue looking like they just crawled out of a swamp. After a excellent lunch of leftovers it was time to head back to the city again.

This weekend I got to do something I have always wanted to do: to paddle right up to a house. With all the rain we have been getting lately the Bird River has been flowing high and fast. Bird Lake is around ten feet higher than it should be at this time of the year.

We have been relatively lucky, all we have lost in the rising waters is some sand from our beach front and a few boards for our dock.

Its amazing to see how high the water can rise in only a few weeks.

I have heard that some members of the Henkelman family may start an uprising unless I write more about the cottage. To prevent anything of that sort, here is another post.

The cottage is located on Bird Lake in Nopiming provincial park, roughly a two and a half hour drive from Winnipeg. The lot backs right onto the lake and the cottage has a great view out over the water.

The general design of the cottage follows the contour of the hill it is built on. The kitchen is on the top level, the living room is set four feet down, and the covered porch is another four feet lower.

The cottage can sleep a pile of people. There are three bedrooms, two on either side of the living room and one beside the kitchen. Above the kitchen is a loft which is accessible by ladder for those who are slightly more adventurous.

I really like the design of the cottage and it's location. The area is very scenic, with Tulabi falls nearby and some great canoe routes heading off in all directions. I can't wait to spend some time up there after my exams.

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

When we got ashore we quickly got to the basics of setting up camp. Tents were erected, and firewood was gathered. Luckily the island was not a small one so there was no shortage of firewood to gather. The only problem was that the vast majority of wood was very wet. The fire spent a lot of time on 'life support' - being fed loads of kindling so that the larger logs would eventually light. After a while the fire started to burn properly and I explored the island a bit.

The island is around 100 meters across with two campsites on the southern side. The bush on the south side of the island was sparse but the north side was forested too thick to walk through. I went a bit north but elected to turn back because the effort of pushing through all the trees and branches simply wasn't worth it.

On the way back to the campsite I discovered the second outhouse, one of the green throne variety. They are amazing toilets for the fact that they afford little to no privacy and have arm rests. I honestly don't know why they gave a thunderbox arm rests, but it seems like the height of luxury.

When I returned to camp preparations for supper were in full swing. Potatoes were roasting over the fire, and hot rod ends and gummy bears were being passed around as an appetizer. I really need to make a cookbook full of recipes that use hot rod ends. Spiced meat goes well in many dishes; omelets, soup, meat pies, you name it.

After waiting what seemed like forever, the potatoes were cooked enough to allow us to start cooking the steaks and beans. The steaks were cut so large they appeared to be small roasts. After cooking the potatoes, beans, mushrooms, and steak over the fire all was left to do was open the box of wine and start eating. The wine gave me no end of amusement. The box proclaimed that it was voted the best cask wine, which seems rather unlikely given its current packaging.

Keeping with the focus of the trip, the food was amazing. The potatoes were a bit... blackened, but I easily scooped out the nicely cooked innards. The steak was amazing especially after a day of anticipating it, and the beans were beans. Beans, like summer sausage, are one of the foods you simply must eat once every canoe trip. Nothing wrong with beans.

After supper we sat around a bit and talked of how strange it was to be able to sit around a fire after dark and not be carried away by mosquitoes. The cold weather does have its advantages. Everyone hit the sack early knowing that a long paddle home awaited them the next morning.

I woke up many times during the night, but I was able to roll over and go back to sleep. I woke up in the morning to an empty tent and the sound of rain gently falling on it. I cursed the weather for a moment and remembered that I needed to have a word with Environment Canada about their meteorological data and their accuracy. Luckily the rain stopped several minutes later and in total it only drizzled for ten minutes.

Breakfast was pancakes, sausage, and fruit juice. I am amazed by the amount of beverages we brought with us for the weekend. They tasted great but I would hate to carry all that liquid weight over portages. Luckily the bulk of the food rode in other canoes. After an amazing breakfast we took down the tents and cleaned the campsite while the sun rose and temperatures climbed.<p>

Saturday was cold and windless, and Sunday was shaping up to be quite the opposite. As we loaded all of our stuff into the canoes and headed out, the wind picked up and blew up across the lake in good time. This was pleasant, but the knowledge that we would have to fight the strong wind later spoiled any positive effects it gave.

When we got to the river, the wind blew us all over the place, coming from a different direction after every turn. The portages had dried out a little bit over the night, but for the most part we came out just as muddy as we did on Saturday. The time spent going down the river flew by. The trip home always seems to go faster than the trip to camp. Mikael and I were the first to finish each portage so we spent lots of time simply floating downstream while waiting for everyone to catch up. Lunch was the same as the day before, eaten at the beginning of the second portage.

Tulabi lake was the last stretch of water to cross to make it to the van, but there was something rather annoying on the lake. Whitecaps, and lots of them. The lake reminded me vaguely of the North Atlantic, cold and turbulent, only moved to a unexpected location. We paddled straight into the wind and battled the waves for what seemed like forever until we reached the opposite shore. We were wet, tired, and muddy, but well fed and happy to be at the end of a great trip.

All the pictures from the trip can be found here.

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.

The planned route is from Tulabi lake to Elbow lake. We are heading out of the city on Friday night, staying the night at the Blatz's cottage and then setting in the water first thing in the morning on Saturday. I haven't the foggiest idea what time we will be returning to town on Sunday.

I really should start packing, but I haven't yet. I'll probably start packing sometime on Friday just before leaving. As long as I remember to charge my cameras battery packs, everything else can be done at the last minute.

On Monday you can expect a long post full of pictures from the trip.