failed, crying and wishing they had never come and that the trip would
just be over. They were sunken by the loss of a positive mentality. In a
wilderness as vast as Manitoba, nothing is as invaluable as positivity.
Their route was a winding loop. To get to their starting point,
they rode a floatplane into the vast wilderness. The plane flew at a low
altitude, giving them a clear aerial view of the landscape. It was an
amazing network of bodies of water and bodies of land. Five minutes
after takeoff, not a single manmade thing was in sight. It was possible
that some of the land they would be stepping on had not had human
contact since the French fur traders traversed these areas in colonial times.
On the second day, around noon, the three had tethered their
kayaks together in the middle of a large, calm lake where they could
enjoy a refreshing breeze and the mosquitoes couldn’t bother them. The
men were eating shortbreads with peanut butter. A luxury of kayaking
over backpacking is that weight is not much of a concern. It enabled
them to eat plenty and take large flannel sleeping-bags as opposed to
the restrictive, lightweight, nylon-shelled mummy bags. The snack was
interrupted by a chilling wind coming from a strange direction, the gust
front of a thunderstorm on the horizon. The greenish-purple storm was
moving quickly, prompting a swift end to lunch. Stroking the dark water
ardently, they headed in the direction that the wind was pushing them.
Once on land, the storm reached them. Raindrops splatted the rocky
beach; then began to ricochet and shatter. The men scrambled under
their kayaks and curled up so that no part of their body was unsheltered.
Small, jagged hailstones were blowing in the wind and one had pelted
George in the face, giving him a bloody eye.
The greenish-purple sky blew through with haste. George’s eye
was okay, but an unsightly scab had coagulated on the tear duct in the
corner of his eye. Back on the water, they paddled to the tip of the lake
where there was a narrow flowing waterway that connected the lake to
its neighboring lake. The storm had stirred up the lake, and the run was
churning and rockier than expected. Randy suggested that they should
consider portaging around the run to the next lake, but they decided
against the option, as they had not packed lightly and portaging would
require several trips. Ken argued that enough time had been lost; their
aggressive itinerary left no room for it.
Ken and Randy went ahead of George. Their canoes were lighter
since their bodies weighed less than George’s, and if they paddled behind
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