Missinaibi River Day 3 - Swimming

• Posted on June 22, 2009 at 6:32 PM
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Is there anything better than swimming?

If there is, it must be quite the activity. One capable of relaxing you, cleaning you and diminishining all the day's rougher memories.

After a fun first half of the day spent running several class 1 and 2 rapids, our pace slowed to match the river's languishing current. The sun burnt away all cloud cover and, as mid-day arrived, we were hit with the full brunt of the heat wave that has been forecast all week. The mercury shot up past 30 degrees and our skin became one third flesh, one third muskol and one third sunscreen, the latter two liberally applied in roughly equal doses.

There were few places to pull out and seek shade as the high waters have washed out most of the landings. So we paddled on, growing more drained and, in my case, cranky, by the hour.

But our campsite made everything better. Just past the railroad crossing at Peterbell, where the river should be at its marshiest, we finally came upon a classic rocky headland, speckled with tall pines and cedars. The water around the shelf was cool, deep and jumping with pike, one of which cost Janine a nice lure. With the temperature still in cooking range, we erected camp quickly and then got down to the important business of swimming. This was followed by napping. Then eating and then, since it was by then late evening and still as hot as mid-day, more swimming.

Floating on my back, horseflies and dragonflies buzzing around my head, a loon dipping and cooing nearby, I stared up at a stand of white birch near the shoreline, their green leaves standing out against the deep blue sky. I had a sudden powerful feeling that it was for moments like this that we go into the woods. To do good honest work that means something and to have that work enhance the little pleasures we allow ourselves once it's done - the game of cards after dinner, the book in the tent, the extra oatmeal cookie that you traded an extra round of dish duties for.

Tomorrow, we run more rapids and make our first portages of the trip - around Alan Falls and the mighty Greenhill Rapids, which in this flooded season, we dare not run. Judging by tonight's sky, lugging the boat any distance overland will be hot, tiresome work.

But as long as we have an ending like today's, I don't think we'll mind.