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Ahhhhhhh :exclamation... love that Lz-Z-boy kitchen shot. What a nice photo to sit here and view as I sip my morning coffee.  Yes, I'd like to be there Thanks for sharing that db.

kypaddler wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2009 at 1:32pm:


You might be on too something
When I used to trip with 3 other guys who NEVER met a campfire they didn't want too get DRUNK around, I would retire early because I was the "cat" herder and often woke up to find the fire pit full of items they thought would burn  A few times it contained items of clothing they had hung on dead branches and ended up throwing in the fire
One trip to Maine one of the guys burned up his ONLY pair of long pants.
He was a rotund fellow, and only one of us wore the same size pant as he. Sooo, he had too wear the guy's DIRTY pants for a week. It was late September, cold and rainy, with a frost every night, not good laundry weather.
 Not a big thing, EXCEPT the guy had had some Lower Intestinal problems from eating Freeze dried food that was past its expiration date
 WE called that trip the CRAPPY PANTS trip and I can guarantee the wearer of those pants NEVER came on a trip again without at least 2 pair of pants

kypaddler wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 2:43am:


Kypaddler: I hope you don't mind if I use part of a previous post to continue :question ... I was wondering if the campsite near the border was in Q?, and did the camp condition reflect a "kegger"party took place? (as in sock and garbage thrown about). My take on this subject as I've re read it a couple of times, seems to be that something in Q is causing the grand ol'  monumental traditional fire pits to be reduced to rubble? or at least scaled down to something lesser.  From the posts I read, my thoughts is either the Canadian portage crews are rebuilding, the public in general are rebuilding, a camp or organization is rebuilding,or everybody in general that don't like fire places are doing their thing as they may. Overall, my take is that most of the Q campsites are a complete mess resulting from the obvious misuse by keggers......I mean, paddle campers would not be the cause

As one that no longer paddles Q, I am sorry to hear of the decline. My father and I made many Q trips long ago and it was good. Sorry to hear the keggers are reforming a beautiful garden

Riversend and Phantom Jug,

Yes, please allow me to clarify and add perspective, because my previous post was intended to be fairly limited in nature and not a general proclamation about either people or the park.

First, about the campsite. Yes, it was in Quetico, near the border. I wouldn't say "trashed" in the sense that it was, well, "trashed." A bit of garbage, some charred logs (not like that birch tree photo P. shared) and a destroyed fire pit. Partiers? Well, seemed more like a large group that seemed a bit lax in cleaning up after themselves and that had different ideas about what to do with fire, a decision I was lamenting. Of course, in a place like that, even one piece of garbage seems glaring.

Second, about the firepit. Again, this didn't appear to be the work either of a trail crew or dedicated paddler/paddlers trying to "tame down" a monstrosity. Just a group that decided they wanted an open-faced bonfire they all could gather around rather than something they could cook in. So they created a ring and two separate piles of rocks nearby, one of which they had had a separate fire in. It really was a jumbled mess. My point was that the firepit -- monstrous though it was -- had become part of this particular campsite over the decades, and I hated to see it destroyed.

Third, the "taming down" movement (ha, like how I've assigned this a grandiose term to give it import and energy?). Maybe this distinction exists only in my mind, but I think there's a difference between monstrous fire pits that encourage and allow monstrous fires, and those that contain lots of rocks but really are used for smaller fires. To me, the latter carry with them a sense of history and use: Much food cooked here, many nights spent huddled around as dark fell and storms raged. Add your own stories and move on. Again, I respect those who would prefer out-of-the-way, almost hidden cook spots. To each his own. I was just disappointed when we pulled up at that site. Thus db's post was surprisingly timely.

Now, finally, the park. If there's been a general decline in the cleanliness and attraction of Quetico, I've not seen it. My first trip was in the early '90s; my latest trip in early September. It's still a beautiful place, pristine and mostly untouched by man. Other than a bit of garbage on the aforementioned campsite, and maybe one wrapper on a portage, I didn't see too much sign of disrespect. Others may have had other experiences, I cannot speak to those. But I don't want my post to imply I've seen a widespread problem. I could write an epic about this latest trip alone -- the three evenings in a row we paddled out at dusk and gently fished as dusk fell, the loons called and the lake calmed down to a sheet of glass; the turtles, otters, eagles and ground squirrels; the smallmouth and walleye meals; the blueberries and odd-shaped fungi; the pictographs and challenging waves that made me just thrilled to be a man with a deftly shaped piece of wood in my hand ... and on and on.

Sometimes man can be an intrusion in a place like this -- I don't want to start pontificating here, but let's me mindful of that. So people are more intrusive than others. So let's insist, always, on respect and reverence. And if indeed some people are seeing a decline, the important thing is that it's not too late to reverse it.

thanks for reading, and the opportunity to clarify.

-- kypaddler