Cache River Passage
by Jim Carrier (continued from page 2)

Major alarms sounded off inside of my head. Backtracking as well as I could, I shouted for Gary. Just then, in a stroke of luck, I heard my brother's approaching shouts of, "Flash! Flash! Where the heck are you!!" Gary was headed back from wherever he had been. His voice inspired me to earn my nickname right then and there. We found each other.

Relief was short-lived. Gary was less than happy to discover I had misplaced our canoe and, more importantly, the pack containing our tent, sleeping bags, and flashlights. His wet clothing, the utter darkness, and the growing cold made our quick recovery of these items an urgent matter. The prospect of hugging each other for warmth through a frigid, dark Canadian night didn't appeal to either of us. It was time to stop, take a deep breath, and think. Haste would make matters only worse, if that was possible.

Several carefully planned forays into the darkness eventually produced all of the lost gear. We quickly pitched our tent and set up "Austerity Camp" in a rough, rocky opening lined with tree roots near the water. We immediately jumped into our bags, counted our blessings, and called it a day. No steaks, no meal, no special flask.

Morning sunlight of Day Two ushered in a brighter perspective on our situation. After cracking the ice off of our frozen boots, we fixed a breakfast of steak, eggs, and hot coffee. Then we resumed our quest for Cache Lake. We fought countless obstructions of brambles and brush that morning... unloading, picking up, lifting over, and loading again and again and again. Each of our four packs was given a "name" for identification and load sequence purposes (an "engineering thing"). The food pack was dubbed "Fat Pig." Other pack family members were named Green Pig, Skinny Pig, and Dead Pig, according to their individual loading properties. We also picked up dozens of hitchhiking spiders, but thankfully, still no ticks, black flies, or mosquitoes. Late in the morning a pair of herring gulls circled above and just ahead of us on a distinct sea breeze. Soon afterward, Gary and I - along with our Pigs and spiders - emptied into a lake. We "declared" the body of water to be Cache Lake (thankfully confirmed an hour later by map features), and grabbed the mid-lake island campsite.

We stayed on Cache for two days, catching only a few Lake Trout. We happily fooled some of them on a thirty year-old wooden fishing lure that Dad had "loaned" us just for this trip. More importantly, we found the solitude and wilderness we sought on Cache Lake. Skies stayed clear and both evenings were full of stars, the sounds of Gary's harmonica, sips from the birthday flask, and a lot of brotherly "catching up."

We broke camp by 6am on Day Four, paddling out of Cache Lake via the lower Cache River en route to Kawnipi Lake. Joining us on our twenty-mile downriver run were Bill and Rick, a pair of good-natured "lumberjack-sized" fellows from Chicago. We became quite envious when we learned they were on a seventeen-day tour of the park. Leapfrogging portages and stretches of river with them all day, we shared spectacular Springtime scenery and several wildlife sightings. Bill and Rick frequently challenged their paddling skills against rapids of the lower Cache. Gary and I mostly portaged these. Perhaps we had grown more conservative as a result of our mishaps on Day One. Around Noon we caught up to our paddling partners as they were "drying off" from a spill at one set of rapids. As Gary and I pulled substantially ahead, we concocted a story concerning a wildlife sighting of an eagle "dive-bombing" a red fox. We plotted to tell them our tale and gloat over their "missed" sighting at the next portage. Sadly, Bill and Rick struck first. Their story about two spindly-legged newborn moose calves and their protective mother grazing at a bend in the river was just too convincing. We kept our mouths shut.