The Island Will be There Tommorrow

Several years ago a local Scout Troop ( I swear it wasn’t us) suffered through a period of infamy they flipped several canoes while paddling in some heavy weather and had to be rescued. On this year’s trip to Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada.

Eighteen Scouts and leaders in two crews chose a route to match the abilities of our most inexperienced paddlers.

During our third day of paddling we portaged into one of Algonquin’s larger lakes, Big Trout. The big lakes can kick up some good sized swells that make paddling difficult and dangerous. We entered Big Trout from a creek with the wind blowing towards us (some veterans of several canoe trips swear we always have the wind in our teeth no matter what our direction.) The rough conditions were clearly above the abilities of the paddlers. We headed immediately for the shelter of an island to regroup and consider our options. The first crew on the lake was an hour or so ahead. By radio we learned they had encountered very difficult paddling and swamped one canoe . They had wisely holed up in the nearest campsite about 3/4 of a mile away from us. As we sheltered on the island a storm front came running down on us from the northwest. We set up our tarp, sat on our PFD’s (to insulate us from a possible lightening strike) and waited out a violent thunderstorm. As soon as the storm abated we made the brief paddle to the other crew and joined them in their campsite.

Shortly another wave of thunderstorms started building. Out came the tarps and we hunkered down for another storm. A huge, beautiful and frighteningly awesome wall cloud followed (see above). We later learned that our outfitters base (about 15 miles downwind of us as the crow flies) lost electricity for several days as a result of the same storm. That afternoon we were treated to quite a show as the storm system passed rapidly overhead.

Weather records for the day indicate a massive thunderstorm with winds of close to thirty miles an hour. We saw whitecaps on the lake most of the day. A mile and a quarter across the lake lay one of our favorite campsites – an island that we had stayed on two years before. We stood on shore and looked longingly across the lake.

Lightening was seen and heard a few miles away on all sides of us. The storm had largely passed and our path to the island looked calm. At that point we had to decide whether to stay in our present, cramped campsite or strike out for the day’s goal just a quick hop across the lake. We stayed put. My fellow adviser from the other crew and I made the call to stay because we had only two or three hours of daylight, lightening was still threatening and actually striking in the distance. We made the best of our cramped conditions and left the island for the next morning. We were safe, mostly dry and a bit disappointed.

Thankfully we were experienced enough to ignore a fleeting feeling of failure, of having been a bit too cautious and a driving desire to move on bravely despite the obvious signs that such bravery may be foolish. The next day we made our island goal through some challenging wind conditions but all arrived safe and dry. We’ll never know what would have happened had we decided to paddle the day before.

Perhaps nothing, perhaps a swamped canoe or two, perhaps someone struck by lightening. We put safety and prudence ahead of the goal. We adjusted to the conditions, we were prepared and we arrived home tired, but uninjured (well one adult got a black eye from a paddle when his canoe swamped but he was almost proud of it). We remembered our safety afloat and hazardous weather training. Most Importantly our scouts got home safe.