Tag Archives: Kayaking

A golden ending

This was it, the end, the last weekend of rentals, both at the Parc de la Riviere, and at Îles de Boucherville. And what a gorgeous weekend it was, with highs in the low twenties all three days. The one hitch was strong SW wind warnings for both Saturday and Sunday, and a forecast of NW 10-15 knots for Monday as the cooling-off began. But I would have braved worse, for one last paddle. Plus, a fellow epidemiologist and I had been working on getting out on the river together for over a year; between her schedule, my schedule, and the Spring That Did Not Happen and Was That Really August?, this was our last chance. So off we went, on Monday morning, to the Parc de la Riviere. And we were rewarded with one of the best kayaking days I’ve seen on the river, warm, bright sunshine on golden leaves, barely a whisper of wind, a day when a mere wave of the paddle seemed to send the kayak gliding ahead.

We arrived at the Parc on the 10 am bus, got kitted up, and (after some circling around and taking photographs) headed out along a much narrowed and diminished channel, east around the tip of Île Gagnon; the river had fallen far enough that the water under the bridge carrying the Rue de l’Île Gagnon was not navigable. The river was as low as I had seen it, very shallow except for the main channels, and murky, and it was all too easy to miss large rocks until the moment of contact (or painfully prolonged period of contact), even when not looking anywhere but ahead of the brow. My boat acquired a few more scratches to add to its scars.

We paddled up the south side of the river, towards the marsh. We were not the only ones on the river: several pairs of kayakers and a few canoes, most of them colour-coordinated with the foliage: oranges and reds. This is the season for orange boats. That’s my paddling companion Daphne on the left, and a canoe group whom we kept passing, on the water and on the islands, here illustrating the exquisite calm of the water.

At the marsh, more autumnal glory and less water. The bird lookout was hard up against the exposed ground and reeds.

For the purposes of contrast (I do intend to do a catch-up digest post of the paddles I have not yet documented this year), here is a view of the same area in May, while the meltwaters were still coming down the river. That single tree is off to the right of the October photograph, high on dry land and surrounded by tall green reeds.

As another indication of how much the water level has fallen: the first time I paddled this year, that fairly chilly, overcast day in late May, I stopped for lunch at Île Chabon, hitching myself from the cockpit of my kayak directly onto the bottom step of the stairs shown in this photograph. We stopped at Chabon today, too, and discovered that there was no picnic table, but we ate sitting on our PFDs on a lookout platform over the channel between Chabot and “the mainland”.

After lunch, we checked out the turtle pullouts along the south side of Île Chabot, but either it was not quite warm enough, or too early in the day: no turtles. We saw a single turtle in shallow, rock and stem-studded shallows at the upstream side of Île Ducharme, but the water had fallen even lower than a month ago, when I found another series of turtle pullouts on the east side of that bridge, and we could not get past the bridge. The herons were dispersed along the riverbank, fishing. The warm weather seemed to have put them in a mellow mood, unlike last year. I’d left my my camera with the zoom lens at home – I’m at the stage in learning when there’s a lot of fumbling and muttering over the manual – so my photographs were generally of brilliant foliage with a bird in there somewhere. One of the herons looked almost pure white. It had a heron shape, at least from a distance, and heron stalking motions, but no apparent markings.

Gradually, we worked our way back across the river and back to the location d’embarcations, returned all the gear, and headed for the 3:35 pm bus back to Cartier and thence back to Montréal. And so the season ends.

Sigh. But what a golden ending.

Tall ships and warships and kayaks, oh my!

Cross-posted from Kayak Yak Yak.

September 18, 2011

So, on paper (on screen), the itinerary looked awful, despite my having the tolerance for lousy connections that comes with being a hardened veteran of public transit. As of Labour Day weekend, only one of the four navettes to Parc des Îles de Boucherville is still ferrying. The (hourly from 1000) ferry leaves on the hour. The (hourly) Sunday bus to the ferry arrives at the nearest stop 2 minutes to the hour, with a long, high footbridge over the highway between stop and dock. On the way back, the (hourly until 1730) ferry leaves the island at half past the hour. The (hourly) bus leaves the stop near the dock about 28 minutes past the hour. Added to that, this ferry pulls in at a jetty on Île Charron an extra 1 km of path away from the kayak rental.

But it was an ideal kayaking day, and I live in the neighbourhood of a stadium. The morning of a big game usually features successive serenades by tow trucks, brass bands (though I harbour a secret pleasure at the irreverence of the Pink Panther at 9 am on the sabbath), and vocals (“Oh Ceh-neh-deh!”). There should be a fine for amplifying any singer who cannot. Hit. That. High. Note. On. Key. I had been out at Parc de la Riviere (I will find that grave accent on the keyboard yet) the previous Sunday and spent 7 hours in a kayak (probably qualifying as one of my 5 longest paddles), so I decided I would head for the ferry.

Leg one of the Great Trek was by Bixi down to the Old Port, which I found busy for a Sunday forenoon, having forgotten the tall ships had sailed into Montréal on Thursday. Four were still in dock, and I paused to take a photo and then carried on west along the promenade. The next nautical attraction was not one to pass with a mere snapshot: frigate HMCS Montréal moored with pennants flying and gangplank down. I found a dock for the Bixi and trotted aboard for a good peer at the ship and all its gear (at least the gear they were willing to show off). Since kayaking leaves one very aware of stability, I am still baffled as to how they launch their Sea-Sparrow missiles without, well, turning over. The angle of the harpoon anti-ship missiles made sense, in that when the rig is in launch position the thrust must be towards the middle of the ship, but the Sea-Sparrows are housed laterally and appear to launch vertically. Must read up.

Around 11:30 I collected my Bixi again (same bike), and set off for Parc Jean Drapeau, which involves describing a big hairpin to come at the Parc via Pont de la Concorde. I had to make Metro Longuiel-Université de Sherbrooke by 41 minutes past the hour to catch the 81 bus – the bus that would probably arrive in time for me to miss the ferry. I continued at my own pace, pausing to take a couple of pictures from the other side of the harbour, and rolled up to the Bixi station beside the Metro at Parc Jean Drapeau at 12:20. Lots of open docks, check. None of which were willing to accept my bike. Finally, after I had tried every dock at least once, one grudgingly gave me the green light, and freed me to plunge down the stairs into the metro station. . . . As the masses began pouring out, a outbound train having come and gone.

So there went another 5 minutes. I rode 1 stop under the river, got off the train and scampered. Well, proceeded on impulse power. Seemed silly to miss the bus now. The bus complex has big windows onto the bus parking area, so you can see your bus on approach, and know when to engage warp engines. I caught the bus, 12:41. Along with a little tot whose mother – who looked about thirteen years old – would never lose her in the long grass. Or, indeed, anywhere short of a rock concert.

The bus hit its mark at the appointed time, and I scurried for the footbridge. From the footbridge, I saw the ferry below at its dock, with a line of people with bikes, loading. Scurry faster. Down stairs, along a few dozen yards, skid down gravel path, and arrive to find that they were full and had to come back for myself and another couple. Which they promised to do. So we hung out on the docks, bobbing as the speedboats tore past, and 10 minutes later, back came the ferry. We’d loaded and cast off when a young family, complete with tot (silent tot) in trailer bike, pulled up, and our captain looped back to collect them. With that and a couple more strays, we had a full cargo of people and bikes.

It’s a quick trip, just across the narrow strip of the St Laurent between Îles de Boucherville and Boucherville. We offloaded adjacent to a boat ramp that was already stacked with boat trailers depositing boats. Once again, I was the only bikeless passenger, and was shortly all alone (but for a few assorted butterflies), tramping around the opening of the highway tunnel (I’m sorry, it is just so wrong to have a 4-lane highway come up from the underworld on an island which is a park). Across Île Charron on the way to the entrance of the park, and down the south side of Île Sainte-Marguerite. I estimated it would take me close to an hour, and it did, though I was not hurrying. Temperature was probably close to 20C, but the air was so clear that the sun had a Calgary feel to it, hot. There was a constant silver noise of cicadas.

I reached the location d’embarcations about 1:40, and paused for a quick lunch before getting to the point of the day. No queue, no crowd on the beach, quite a contrast to my first trip. Red Kayak, Ookpik, with a rudder I never did get to cooperate with me, fixed unfeathered paddle, which felt too short until I was in the reeds. I calculated I had about 2 hours before I would have to make tracks for the dock, because if I missed the 1730 ferry my options would be (a) hitch a lift, (b) call for a taxi, or (c) check into the hotel on the island until next Saturday. I had no desire to fight with criss-crossing wakes, even if there was no wind to speak of, so I turned left/north/up La Grande Riviere and, well, the pictures speak for themselves. Blue sky, round little decorative clouds, and water like glass. I threaded through the reeds for most of the way along the north leg in Chenal le Courant before I hit my turnaround time. There were a few close encounters with fellow paddlers and canoeists in the narrow channels. Canadian politeness seemed to make us compete as to who could move furthest out of the way, leaving 2 boats discretely trying to extricate themselves. Two herons, on the wing, and what I suspect was a kingfisher, with a striking white stripe on the neck. In the photos, the water looks faintly marbled from the weeds, visible through the clear water. An abundance of tiny fish in the shallow waters of Grande Riviere, and some larger ones in the deeper open areas of Chenal le Courant.

Back to the rental, park boat, deliver gear, collect ID, take a couple more photos, knowing I would probably not make another trip before the ferry stopped running after Thanksgiving weekend. Paths were busier on the way back, but still not nearly as busy as they were in July. Arrived at ferry dock about 5 pm, thinking I might be lucky, and they might be shuttling passengers at need, but there was no sign of the ferry. I sat and and watched the antics at the adjacent boat ramp, with boats ringed around the ramp and cars and trucks with trailers queued back along the road waiting to pick up or offload. I’d thought the ferry might be full, which was the other impetus for getting back early, but when we left, we had about eight aboard, including a flushed couple of cyclists who had done a very fast final km. By the time I reached the bus stop in the shadow of the bridge, I was looking at a 50 min wait.

I started walking, along Boulevard Marie-Victorin, with road and humming highway between me and the water, and standard suburbia on the other side. My knees had been wingeing ever since I got out of the kayak, and they stepped up their complaints as the road opened out before me, though it was the low sun in my eyes that eventually made me decide just to stake my spot in a shaded bus shelter, and wait. I detoured via a Macs for a bottle of gatorade and a chocolate bar. Call it rehydration and replenishing glycogen stores, ok? And settled down to read “Sheepfarmer’s Daughter” (Elizabeth Moon) from the Baen Free Library on my iPod touch until the bus came.

Bus to Metro Longuiel-Université de Sherbrooke, Yellow line to Berri-UQUAM, Orange to Metro Sherbrooke, and La Popessa spaghetti house for fettucini a l’Atlantique, which seemed appropriate. So in summary, I kayaked for 2 hours. Biked for probably 2 hours. Walked for 2.5 hours (not counting the time spent aboard HMCS Montréal). Rode various forms of public transit for another hour or so. Definitely did not fulfil Alison’s optimum of paddling time > travel time. But I was lucky on the way out, and psychologically prepared for the return, the sky was blue, there was no wind, and the water was like glass . . . [Edited September 22 to add some more photos]

Parc nationale des îles-de-Boucherville

Although Parc nationale des Îles-de-Boucherville has year-round auto-access (by tunnel and autoroute, no less), getting there by public transit is more challenging. Last year I missed the 3-or-so month season of the navettes (ferries) to and from the park. This year I was determined to make it over at least once. A couple of weeks ago, I’d looked at the temperature and wilted. This weekend, newly hardened by our “heat dome”, I didn’t look; I made my plans, packed my bag, and set out.

The navette from the Montreal side leaves from Parc Bellerive on the east island. With Sunday bus service, I figured I was going to miss the first ferry at 10 am, but it was still there when I trotted up to the dock about 5 minutes past. I paid my $8.00, clambered aboard. Brisk zip with a certain bounce along the St Laurence to the dock on Île Charron (that’s the incoming dotted line to the upper left of the island-mass on the map), past a formidable looking radar monitoring station and into a rectangular bay of calm stale water, with a slight whiff of anaerobic mud.

This did not put me into the Parc proper; rather disconcertingly, I climbed up the short path from the dock and I found myself plunk beside a roaring highway, rising up from underground. However, a dozen or so yards away, a cinder track turned off to the left and I left it all behind. All the other ferry passengers had bicycles, so I shortly found myself alone, tramping across Ile Charron; the map said 3.5 km to the Centre de Locations, about half way down the channel between Île Sainte-Marguerite and Île Saint-Jean. I’ll compress the land-bits, save that the temperature was already heading for the high-whatever and I was feeling the lack of shade because of the well-cleared zone around the path, I gave one of the local lifeforms a flying fright, catching only a glimpse of reddish flank and a great thrashing wave retreating through the tall grasses (I was put in mind of Sheri Tepper’s Grass, though obviously it was not a foxen). I crossed over a road-access, and walked by two parking lots, something that seemed mildly surprising and ever so slightly indecent. At the entrance I paused to puzzle over whether or not I needed to put a bit of my ticket in the self-pay envelope to establish I had paid the entrance fee – which I knew was included in the ferry fare – but decided I probably needed it with me. As it turned out, I was right.

Once in sight of the rental shack, I had a gazpacho-break in the broad picnic area, and then went and snagged myself a boat ($35 for 3 hours). I did not (remiss of me) take a note of the name, save that it had 6 letters, and was Inuit. The kayak was bright red, hard glossy plastic, with a rudder, probably a 14′. Very comfortable seat with good back support. Foot-pedals on a strap, sparing me the usual contortions adjusting them as I floated offshore, having cleared the busy beach. I need to bring my sandals next time – paddling barefoot is too hard on the heels, but walking 7 km in those sandals is too hard on the feet. On the deck, waving like a tongue, was a laminated Parc map about 9 inches long, secured at one end. The man at the booth assured me the circuit on the map was doable in 3 hours, and that I should start by heading south.

However, in not looking at the temperature, I also missed taking note of the wind. I have no photos of the initial paddle down Chenal Grande Riviere. The paddle I had was fixed, not feathered, and felt shorter than I was used to, and I needed to hold my course between the reeds and various pleasure-boats, against the wind. Later I read it was 15 kph N with gusts up to 30 kph, per environment Canada, but even by Montréal’s idiosyncratic definition of directions, that wasn’t a north wind. I hugged the reeds along the right shore until the debouchment into the Fleuve Saint-Laurent, checked for oncomings, and slogged across the choppy water to start along the south shore of Île de la Commune. There are no photos of this section, either, because I still had the headwind, and in addition, had wakes kicked up by the assorted pleasures boats’ more energetic cousins, all the way to the turn-in to Chenal la Passe. I also had company, a couple in a red rented double, a family of three in a canoe who could not all paddle in the direction at the same time, and a couple probably in their own boats, bold enough to swing out clear of the shallows and the worst of the chop. I think they all had more ambitious plans than I, because when I turned into the Chenal la Passe, none of them followed me.

Something else did. I was admiring the wooden bridge which carries the foot/bike path over the Chenal, when I heard a clatter of outboard behind me. It refused to be willed away, and further asserted itself with a puff of diesel flatulence, before parking in the middle of the channel. I can haz torpedoz, I darkly muttered, and scooted past before the fishhooks came out. I met the breeze again coming down, making that five points of the compass it covered, though it was much lessened. And when I got to the top of the Chenal and turned west, putting the wind more or less at my back, and hitched myself around (flexibility exercises! must do!) and discovered that although I had not checked that the rudder was unhooked, it was unhooked, and I could flip it down – suddenly my Sunday workout became a Sunday cruise. On both sides I had reeds and what seemed a thin line of low trees. Straight ahead, I could just see civilization in the form of a pylon. The omnipresent city hum was almost inaudible. On the way up the Chenal, I caught sight of a kingfisher, glimpse of blue and pale, dashing past, a little mustard-coloured finch-like bird, dotting from leaf to leaf, the ubiquitous red-winged blackbird, and the hovering black-winged seagulls. Though the map suggested one hugged the shore, I needed to steer wide around mats of frothy spew of yellow-green weed (the only way to describe it). In amongst the reeds, I could see water-lilies. There was the occasional white one, open, and faintly luminous, with the peppering of tiny insects in the base of the cup, but more of the closed fist-like yellow ones, pushing above the waters on their stems.

Then the reeds closed in. Shiny, green, about 3 feet high, with the wind hissing through in a mean-girls whispering; they narrowed the passage down to a single navigable channel. The movie clip captures the motion and something of the sound, though coarsely through the little microphone. I think that sudden flight of birds is of red-winged blackbirds, and the creaking is the sound of my plying the rudder, steering. Just after I had put the camera down, two double kayaks, as red as mine, appeared before me, and we were occupied in trying not to run into each other as we maneuvered past. I heard the occasional grunt and mutter of a heron, but only saw one, when it launched to my left and floated parallel to my course for several impossibly slow wingbeats, before it settled out of sight again. It was one of those long suspended moments that are still far too short to go for a camera. Something behind me started shrieking and crying in piteous alarm, though I have no idea whether I was the provocation, or what it was. Once out of the reeds, I paused to drink yoghurt turned liquid the warmth and finish my Jamaican pastry. Then I carried on down the channel past assorted route markers and the occasional cryptic sign, thinking about the unmistakable high summer blue-green of the foliage, just before it starts to look tired.

Chenal la Passe turned into Chenal Grande Riviere, and I was very shortly back among the pleasure-boats, with the bronzed and bodacious disporting themselves. A large shaggy golden retriever on the deck of one gave the peasant in her kayak the stern retainer’s eye. The circuit had taken me 2:15 hours, and though I was tempted to turn back amongst the reeds, I was tired and my eyes were dry and scratchy. So I beached, off-loaded, and, the attendants being occupied, discovered that using the trick of lifting the boat onto my thighs before shouldering it, I could heft a plastic kayak pushing 50 lb. Though I would not have wanted to load it onto a roof-rack solo, and maneuvering with only a 90 degree field of view and 7 feet of kayak sweeping fore and aft is not something I like to do with as many people around – so in future I will wait. But I returned it to its rack without injury to myself or anyone else, and my return was timely, because the line at the rental shed was getting ever longer and the supply of visible boats, dwindling.

Back on land, I’d the choice of walking back to Île Charron and taking the navette back to Bellerive, or continuing on to the other dock, walking along the shore I’d just paddled beside, crossing over Chenal la Passe and getting a shuttle over to Boucherville itself. The distance, walking, was about the same, and I wanted to scout out the second route, which seemed to me the most feasible way of bringing the Dragonfly over. So I got to see a quite different aspect of the island, because although from the water it looked wildish, inland, it had been cleared and put to the plough and looked not unlike parts of central Saanich. I crossed the Chenal Grande Riviere on the cable-ferry, and the Chenal la Passe on the bridge I had admired. On foot, ducking down the grassed footpath which ran parallel to the track, I was in a minority, most everyone else being on bicycles. This time I knew I’d miss the ferry, which according to the schedule left on the half hour, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, whatever the schedule said, the ferry was only pausing to off- and on-load passengers. My ticket turned out to be a return, and I hopped aboard, bound for Boucherville. The young man at the helm took off with brio, including some wide swishing turns that kicked up white spray and were – fun. Yes, indeed, maybe I can understand the appeal of going really fast over the water. (But I didn’t squeal.) My luck held at the other side, because after a short, pleasant wait, the hourly bus (81) hove into view, and I had even had the foresight not to spend all my change. The one downside of the southern route is the Boucherville bus is a separate fare from the Montreal one; on the other hand the ferry is cheaper. And so to the Metro station and back into town.

Here’s the first selection of photos; there may be more.

On the purpleness of starfish

Cross-posted from Kayak-Yak.

Once upon a time in Brentwood Bay, while drifting over rocks studded with orange and purple starfish, and past huddles of starfish in crevasses at the waterline, it occurred to me to wonder why they were these colours, that purple, in particular. The starfish in question were the ochre star, Pisaster ochraceus, and the answer, after intermittent and desultory trawling through the web and the scientific literature, turned out to be (a) carotenoids and (b) maybe what they eat.

The Royal British Columbia Museum Handbook Sea Stars of British Columbia, Southeast Alaska, and Puget Sound, told me a lot about the anatomy, hunting and mating behaviour, but does not account for the colours: P ochraceus is the most common intertidal sea star, with territory from Prince William Sound, Alaska, to Cedros Island, Baja California (lucky it!), and from the intertidal zone to nearly 100 m undersea. It likes rocky shores, waves and currents. I’ve seen plenty in the Broken Islands, the Gulf Islands, and around Saanich Penninsula. P ochraceus eats mussels, barnacles, limpets, and snails. It is the paradigm of a “keystone species” in that its presence and predation significantly affect the numbers and distribution of other species, especially the California mussel, Mytilus californianus; in the absence of P ochraceus, M californianus takes over the beach. Pisaster spawn in May to July, releasing millions of eggs, which turn into larvae, first floating free in the plankton and then (those that survive) attaching themselves and turning into juvenile sea stars. Juveniles grow to adult size and maturity over about 5 years. Larval P ochraceus have a chemical defense that induces filter-feeders to spit them out (got to look that up). The only known predators of adult sea stars are seagulls and sea otters.

Harley et al, 2006 (full text available) looking at the colour variation, note in their introduction that “at least two caroteinoid pigments mytiloxantin and astaxanthin, sequestered in the aboral surface, produce these colors in Pisaster and other asteroids.” Aboral is the upper side side of the sea star, and starfish belong to the Class Asteroidea, under the Phylum Echinodermata. Caroteinoids as a chemical class are named after their best known member, the yellow pigment in carrots, and have in common a long carbon backbone with many concatenated double bonds which generally absorb light at the blue end of the spectrum, hence the orange colour. Mytiloxanthin was named after M californianus, part of P ochraceous’ preferred diet, from which it was first isolated, so it was assumed to be dietary in origin. Astaxanthin arises through “several distinct metabolic pathways”, and is orange. I’m still not sure from my reading what the pigment behind the purple is, though reading descriptions of 1940s-style chromatography makes me oddly nostalgic for undergraduate chemistry.

However, knowing the pigments doesn’t explain why individual starfish should be orange, ochre, brown, or purple, or why starfish on an exposed, wave-beaten rocky coast like the west coast of Vancouver Island should be predominately orange (6-28%) and brown (68-90%), while those in the sheltered waters of the South St Georgia strait should be almost entirely that brilliant purple so familiar on our paddles (95% in the samples collected by Harley). The answer is apparently not genetic: DNA studies don’t suggest that the populations sampled (from Alaska to California, with lots of attention to Puget Sound) are isolated from each other, and conversely do suggest that there is flow of genetic material between them. It’s not apparently to do with wave action, inasmuch as scientists have been able to reproduce in the lab the difference between turbulent water and calm. It may be dietary, in that the distribution of colours correlated with the pattern of prey: in the more exposed waters (where purple starfish are in the minority), P ochraceus preferentially eat M californianus, the big California mussel, whereas M calfornianus is uncommon to absent in interior waters (where purple starfish are in the majority), and the Pisaster there tend to prey on barnacles and bay mussels. So, eats purple mussels -> orange; doesn’t eat purple mussels -> purple. Hmm. And that still doesn’t explain why purple and orange starfish could be found within yards of each other. Another paper by Raymondi et al, 2007 (only abstract) found that the frequency of orange in a population was constant with latitude, but tends to increase with the size of the individuals in that population. So all is not quite explained.

References

Harley CDG, Pankey MS, Wares JP, Grosberg RK, Wonham MJ. Color Polymorphism and Genetic Structure in the Sea Star Pisaster ochraceus. Biol Bull. 2006 Dec 1;211(3):248-262. And here’s marine biologist Christopher Mah (full name from his Twitter feed), on the Echinoblog, with a crisp and colourful synopsis, complete with photos and diagrams; if I hadn’t written a chunk of this entry while back before I found his entry, I’d just have said, go there!
Lambert P. Sea Stars of British Columbia, Southeast Alaska, and Puget Sound. 2nd ed. UBC Press; 2000.
Raimondi PT, Sagarin RD, Ambrose RF, Bell C, George M, Lee SF, et al. Consistent Frequency of Color Morphs in the Sea Star Pisaster ochraceus (Echinodermata:Asteriidae) across Open-Coast Habitats in the Northeastern Pacific. Pacific Science. 2007 4;61(2):201-210.

Making believe it’s June

(Cross-posted from Kayak Yak)

Starting back into the regular Monday-Friday routine concentrates the mind. Forecast of 10-15 westerly knots (again) notwithstanding, it was paddle Sunday or not at all, and the day that I got made me regret all the similar days I passed up.

(But I am not gloating, really, only on this particular day, the east won.)

It was Parc de la Rivière again: Bixi to the Metro, Metro to Cartier station, STM 73 bus in the direction of Fabreville – Laval, bless them, puts the direction of travel on the buses, unlike Montreal. Arrive just after 9 am in noticeably slanted morning light at the Embarcations, and stake my claim on a Kayak de Mer, the doughty orange Kasko.

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve only paddled the Parc once this summer, back in mid June, the continually taunting weather reports having fed into my third-book-and-trilogy completion neurosis; I kept procrastinating, waiting for a day with no wind forecast. When I was out in June I was impressed by how low the water already was. It made me appreciate that last winter had been dry. Last year in the early summer I was able to paddle through trees (and get munched on by flies), and venture into the marsh; this year, even the turtle pull-outs were well up the bank, the marsh was impassible beyond a short, narrow channel, a number of shortcuts, like the one out of the lagoon in front of the launch site, were above the water level. I’m simply not used to the water going away and not coming back 6 hours or so later. I found myself thinking that the originator of the expression ‘letting the grass grow under one’s feet’ as a measure of indolence had not observed river grass invading an exposed bank. There was no way of telling from the grasses alongside the river that that part was underwater a year ago. Today it was even more of the same. In a lot of places, if I’d tipped, I’d have been sucking mud, and if I’d banged my head on a rock, I might have been rediscovered like Lyuba, the baby mammoth in a million years or so. Although when I did wobble interestingly, it was because I was probing for the bottom with my paddle in what turned out to be a deep spot.

I took what has become my usual route, out the east end of the lagoon, and past Île Gagnon, where the water was extremely shallow, the bottom muddy and rocky, and I was conscious of tucking my tailbone up in anticipation of the grinding beneath. Up the south side of the river, under the Autoroute des Laurentides and the footbridge to Île Locas, checking out the completed swallows nests on the underside as I went – I’d watched the foundations being laid when I was out in June, beakful by beakful of dark river mud, trying to figure out whether one plan ruled construction or not. And then on to the marsh. This post was nearly entitled “500 geese, a dozen herons, and me.” This panorama, taken from beside the lookout on the edge of the marsh, should give the idea (note, those speckles are geese).

I let myself drift very slowly through a gap between goose-gangs, and discovered a dredged channel leading into the marsh, which terminated abruptly in a wall of black mud and sticks. I don’t think beavers were involved. If they were, no waterway is safe.

As last year, the great blue herons were out of their usual exclusive neighbourhood in the marsh, and scattered up and down the water’s edge west of des Laurentides, each one apparently aspiring to solitude. They seemed touchier than usual, and though I wasn’t trying to spook them, even when I swung over to the other side of the channel it didn’t seem far enough. Though there was the one I came on as I rounded a bend; it froze, I froze, and we played statues as the wind pushed me gently past and away. I also spotted a number of kingfishers dashing between islands, and some small white-bellied shorebirds I could not identify. No swallows, scattered dragonflies, and whatever moved beneath the water’s surface was safely hidden in mud. The water-lilies were looking tattered and tired, and there were scattered mats of purple river-plants.

Wind, yes, there was wind, intermittently. But there were spells of calm, allowing full appreciation of the flotillas of round cumuli proceeding overhead with perhaps just a little too much despatch to be stately. This panorama was taken at the furthest west extent of the Parc, at the tip of Île de Mai looking west. One day I shall go beyond …

I rounded the tip and came down channel between Île de Mai and Laval, brazenly floating down the middle of the channel while munching on a roasted mushroom and chevre panini, something I’d never have dared do in the middle of summer. I paused to admire and take pictures of a weeping willow planted above a wall and draping down almost to the water. While I was doing that, the first power boat of the day passed by, sending the water sloshing and my kayak rocking. Then I swung back over to make a pit-stop on Île Chabon, muttering ‘I must do more of this’ as I floundered to dismount onto a steeply sloping beach. Two or three canoes had reached the lookout and the geese had scattered. Then I paddled back the way I had come through the channel towards the des Laurentides bridge. I was well into my fourth hour and a day rental, so I paddled around the north side of Île de Jiufs, but had decided to cut myself off at 5 hours and get the 2:30-something bus, so back into the lagoon, which was crowded with single and double kayaks and two person canoes, heading out to enjoy a gorgeous warm afternoon. Would that it had been June!

My fake GPS plot – just Alison ‘taking a line for a walk’ as we used to call it in kindergarten. Unfortunately, I can’t recall where I got this image from, or I would have updated it to show the difference between then and now.

Alison Sinclair

science, medicine, science fiction, and fantasy