Back and Blue

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I did, indeed survive the winter camping trip to Killarney Provincial Park so please don't call search and rescue. We managed to outrun -24 C temperatures and beat 15 cm of snow home. Along the way I learned some fun facts.

One of my fave Far Side comics immediately came to mind

Fact #1: Snow Fleas

WTF Mother Nature?! The trade off of winter camping, I was told, was that, in exchange for being cold, you didn't have to worry about bears, snakes or bugs. This is a major fallacy. There exists an insipid form of flea that is attracted to disturbed snow i.e. anywhere you are! and they swarm. I have never seen so many fleas in one place, and my family has always owned multiple canines.

Fact #2: Privy Does Not Come From Private

Brochures advertise that there are "Privies" available, even near back country camping sites. I was skeptical as I had not seen any. When I found a wooden box, with a hinged lid that stood maybe 2 feet high, I thought, "awesome, a place to dispose of garbage that animals can't get at". I was sort of right. Lift the lid and there I saw a familiarly shaped hole. This was in fact, the commode. On the trail, in plain view of anyone who might happen to be hiking by. Back country camping, I learned, is not for the deficationally timid.

Fact #3: An Animal Being Taken Down by a Predator Sounds a Lot Like an Hysterical Person Screaming.

In the early morning, around 5:00 am with absolute stillness all around I heard a blood curdling screech and then a howl. The rest was silence. Though we came across a plethora of tracks, mostly deer and some predator, we did not find any blood or carcass. My Guy accused me of hallucinating, but I know what I heard.

Early morning mist (shortly after the hunting hour)

Cliche night shot

Fact #4: The Wrong Size Pack Can Ruin Your Trip

For this trip I used a borrowed, large, men's backpack (unisex is a lie, manufacturers, you aren't fooling anyone). Given the nature of our trip, I had to bring plenty of water (lakes were under several feet of ice), food and warm clothing. My bag weighed about 40 lbs, all of which was either digging into my shoulders or my glutes at any given time. Every step sent cramps through my right hip and hamstrings. If you've ever been to Killarney, you know how hilly the range is. To say the snowshoeing was uncomfortable was an understatement. 

Me and the Bag o' Pain enjoying the view (and the rest)

My Tubbs Flex Alp snowshoes didn't slip an inch

Fact #5: A.Y. Jackson Was One Fit and Rugged Painter

For those who are unfamiliar with the name A.Y. Jackson (shame on you, if you are Canadian), he was one of the very influential Group of Seven painters who not only gave Canadian art its own voice, but also was instrumental in the 645 square km area becoming a wilderness park. Jackson would canoe and portage throughout the area, climbing the peaks of the La Cloche mountains with a wooden paint box, easel, paints, food, and camping equipment! 

Not A.Y. Jackson

Killarney Park is beautiful and though I would like to encourage everyone to visit it, the selfish part of me says, "stay home, you won't like it", so that I can enjoy the beautiful back country undisturbed. I look forward to going back and hiking the entire 80 km La Cloche Silhouette Trail this summer, hopefully with a new Osprey Xena 70 women's xs ruby backpack! Oh, and I came home to discover our maps arrived about 7 hrs after we left.

A Workshop, A Hike, And A Big Jam

Saturday I attended a wonderful (and free!) canning workshop that was part of the the City of Oshawa Food for Though series and sponsored by BerNardin. Although I had already experimented with my first canning project (had to use those tomatoes while they were ripe!), I have a lot to learn (and did I mention it was free?).

We watched the entire process from ingredients selection to making and canning the finished product. Encouraged that I hadn't made too many mistakes with the salsa, I immediately went out to buy pears from a fruit stand and a stock pot large enough to not boil over and scald me this time. The result was 1.5 l of delicious pear vanilla jam and the decision to preserve Christmas this year so I'm sorry if you were looking forward to a really fancy gift, you are getting jars filled with mushy goodness.

Lovely ladies volunteering their time to teach us

But before I could get to the cooking there were woods to hike, mushrooms to marvel at and kids to shake my head at. Sunday was a rare and wonderful day, indeed, as my guy had a day off, it is late September and the day was sunny and warm. To the woods! This time, to a ravine not far from our house that I have shamefully never explored before. On our hike I found the most vibrant and wonderful looking mushroom growing all by it's self.

It's red, so it must be delicious, right?

Despite my assertions that the tastiest foods on the planet are red and so this must be edible and delicious, my guy coaxed me away from the little fungus with nothing but a photo to remember it by.

We encountered the usual trappings in a wooded area surrounded by suburbia, mountain bike jumps and trails, trenches for pant ball games, red cups - lots of red cups and fire pits. Then just evidence of fires having been set, directly under trees...and then fires set in trees!!!!!

Burnt out tree - What were they thinking?

Children, please allow me to explain, it is evident that you like to drink and generally party in the woods. That's fine, I'm not very eager to come tripping through here at night anyway, but please realize that if you burn it down, you won't have it to play in anymore. This lovely protected greenspace will be replaced by a subdivision in a heartbeat and there will be even more of you sitting around on a Saturday night complaining that there is nothing to do. I hope they don't burn it down, I'm really looking forward to snowshoeing here in the winter.

(You can find the recipe for Pear Vanilla Jam here: http://foodinjars.com/2011/02/pear-vanilla-jam/)