A Seasonal Reminder of the Importance of Reading and Remembering

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 The Casual Dining Season - in the Great Outdoors

 I don't know when they were first available but I do remember my
first experience with them. To not put too fine a point on it I think
it was in the 70's. A good friend at the time and I decided that we
needed a wilderness experience that didn't involve meeting other
people looking for the same thing. In Ontario, Algonquin Park has been
the international  postcard for all things Canadian Wilderness since
as long as I can remember. The trouble is that in mid season it is as
crowded as the 400 highway that takes you there from Toronto. People
book numbered wilderness campsites as if  they were checking into some
sprawling hotel. The fix to having to share the wild with legions of
others is to be found in the calendar. Any time after Sept 4 when the
kids have gone back to school works like a charm and usually the
longer you wait the better.
 This was the theory in play when Bruce and I loaded my canoe on the
car and headed north in late autumn.  The specific timing may have
involved some sort of long weekend but it more likely was the result
of calling in sick with some sort of important but vague illness that
would certainly take care of itself after four days.
 We had planned well. We had paid a goodly amount for special
topographic maps and special canoe route maps and had studied and
marked them up in detail. We had layers of clothing for every extreme
of temperature. We even took "some" food. The theory here was that the
park was full of lakes teeming with fish that would about jump into
the boat given the slightest excuse. Why bring food to nature's
grocery store?
  What we hadn't planned on was arriving in a storm that had made
Gordon Lightfoot's  remarks about  "When the witch of November comes
early"  all too relevant. The force of the wind drove waves high and
heavy, right over the dock. There was no way that we were even going
to be able to launch let alone survive a trip across a wind whipped
near freezing-cold lake. "Let's go where the wind is blowing!" one of
us shouted in the other's ear. Seemed sensible enough no matter which
one of us had said it. The problem was, of course, that we had no maps
that led in that direction.
 The journey down the deep and starless first lake wasn't all that
bad except for getting soaked by the spray coming off of the top of
the rollers. With the wind pushing us it was just a matter of keeping
an angle that kept the following waves from swamping us as we neared
surfing speeds. The portage was a long one, narrow, and boulder
strewn. No lights, lots of root tangles beneath, and tree branch snags
from above. When we finally came upon the next black water lake we
hastily pitched the tent, tossed our food bags beside a tree, got into
our sleeping bags and opened up a bottle of rum.
 As we were busy drinking and telling each other our life stories in
varying degrees of truth and then telling them again in wildly varying
degrees I couldn't help but notice a oddly inconsistent but intriguing
noise that perhaps didn't fit into anything weather related. The
trouble was that no matter how much these sounds may have been softly
ringing alarm bells in my mind, I was both just too drunk and too full
of my own story telling to bother  getting out of a warm sleeping bag
to face whatever strange creature may be on the other side of the tent
flap.
 Sun, cold, and persistent wind greeted our hangovers the next
morning. The strange noises had been a small army of the forest's
lesser creatures who had torn our canvas bags to rags and eaten
everything that was not in a tin. Somewhere I have a picture of this,
torn knapsacks, a bottle of rum with two swigs left in it, a few cans,
and thankfully a roll of dry toilet paper. That was it for supplies.
 Since we didn't have any relevant maps and there was no one around
to ask we paddled across the lake and skirted the shoreline.  We
looked in the water for red marks on shallowly submerged rocks. The
scrape marks from the rented canoes painted red and usually overloaded
pointed the way to the narrow paths through the unending blockade of
trees. We used this method throughout the day and to navigate from
lake to lake, all the while fishing while we paddled and paddling
while we fished.  Not a single bite.
 The next day on one of the lakes we discovered another lone set of
travellers. These ones didn't seem the least bit sleep deprived or
cold or tired or lost. They even had a map. According to them all we
pretty much had to do was follow the setting sun and in a few more
lakes we would be fine.  Well this did put us into a celebratory frame
of mind I can tell you. That night we feasted on our bounty of canned
food. In the flames of a campfire on a chilly clear night we fried up
some sort of almost meat concoction along with some beans. I remember
how wonderful it seemed at the time and later tried to duplicate the
meal at home.  (right into the garbage) The real treat of course was
the dessert. A thick yellowish pudding that could be all mine with the
mere insertion of finger into a metal ring, a pull, and a flick of the
wrist. The anticipation was just too much and I gave over to greed and
haste.. "Ooouch!" "Feck ! " Through the stands of blood and pudding I
could make out," N  as e lech le co ver  e". I wiped it with the
sleeve of my jacket. The shining metal was much clearer in the
firelight now.  I pressed my index finger over my hemorrhaging tongue
and in a very flat tone read out " Ne pas se lecher le couvercle"
Although the translation took a bit to materialize in my brain I have
never forgotten what it meant.
 With camping season coming on it may be worth it for you to remember it too.