DAY FOUR - PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY

Today dawned sunny and warm after last night's thunderstorm. We set out to explore Sandbanks Provincial Park on the south shore of Prince Edward County. Once again, we found it empty. The only life on the long Outlet Beach was a flock of gulls. The lake was glassy calm and the sand pockmarked from the deluge of rain a few hours ago.

We headed for West Point, down Lakeshore Road, and found a beautiful spot. Obviously it had once been lived on as we found the foundations of a house and cleared land to the lake's edge. All we could hear was bird song, though I must say PEC is filled with it wherever we've been.

This is a perfect picnic spot, but it wasn't lunch time yet, so we took many photos. Two loons were cavorting off shore, wild flowers were in bloom everywhere, and the rocky shoreline was intriguing.

We saved Dunes Beach for last. This is the largest collection of dunes on a fresh water lake in the world, and of course, is constantly evolving with currents and wind action. Again there was no one there but us. In July and August, we're told, there is not a parking spot or campsite to be had — one of the great advantages of travelling out of season.

I was having lunch with a fellow Dundurn author today at Lake on the Mountain Inn and we drove halfway across the County through farms and villages. We got there too early and took a farm lane for about four miles to spin out the time.

The lake is at the top of an escarpment that overlooks the mainland of Ontario. It looks like a crater lake, but isn't. Geologists believe the rock beneath fractured and collapsed in on itself creating the circular lake. It's very picturesque with the lake views on one side and the Bay of Quinte on the other. By the time our long lunch was over, the skies were grey and rain was beginning, so my pix are not worth posting.

Roger Litwiller, author of White Ensign Flying, and I talked naval history and writing, while my husband and Roger's wife, Rhonda, talked more generally. It was an excellent lunch, with good company. I'm so happy we managed to meet.

IMAGES: Photos by Pharos 2014

All rights reserved

RIDEAU CANAL CRUISE - DAY ONE

Today we sailed through seventeen of the forty-nine locks we'll negotiate on the Rideau Canal.

I'm cruising with Ontario Waterway Cruises on board Kawartha Voyageur, a small specially built ship for the waterways of southern Ontario. We joined ship in Ottawa and this cruise takes five days to Kingston.

Forget the typical idea of cruise luxury and loud entertainment, casinos and dancing — this is a 45-passenger vessel without stewards and pools and midnight buffets! Instead, we sail along tree-lined banks, life is quiet and relaxing. Except for a hard-fought game of bocce after the first dinner aboard. We do have amazing home-style meals, three significant snacks a day, and drinks.

I enjoyed seeing osprey fishing and then feeding their young, Great Blue Herons by the banks, and many red-winged blackbirds in the reeds in the wetlands.

Locking through our first lock brought all the passengers out onto the top deck to watch the process. This was Hog's Back Lock just south of the heart of Ottawa. The ship only just fits into the locks, but to do so has to raise it's bow. There's not much clearance on all sides — a matter of inches — and it takes skill to manoeuvre the ship in and out. The photo on the right, taken from the port side of the bridge, shows us approaching a lock . It was a glorious morning and everyone had their cameras at the ready.

The majority of passengers are repeat cruisers; one lady I spoke to had done eleven before this cruise and another had done twenty. They keep coming back because it is so restful and the customer service is second-to-none. They dislike crowds and appreciate being moored alongside at night. The ship is quiet then without the engines running.

 

We also experienced our first flight of locks, three in a row at Long Island. This is a particularly pretty spot with a chatty lock keeper who rattled off the statistics of water flow, lock capacity, and traffic through per year. Here too is one of the original arched masonry dams built in the late-1820s when Lieutenant-Colonel John By, a Royal Engineer, managed the huge project. The dam is 31 feet high and 700 feet long. The locks lifted us up 25 feet.  From here we went down the Long Reach, the longest lock-free stretch on the canal, sailing by huge mansions and modest cottages of the town of Manotick.

As I finish up this post, the sun is down and the Kawartha Voyageur is moored at Burritts Rapids, just below the lock.

IMAGES: © Photos by Pharos 2014. All rights reserved

MY SASQUATCH SAFARI

The weather didn't cooperate and we waited until the very end of our June 2013 stay in Harrison Hot Springs, BC, for the grey clouds and rain to clear off the lake and mountains to do my first Sasquatch safari. My husband checked the weather forecasts hourly and I scurried in and out to see if the clouds were lifting. Phone calls to and from Bill Miller the operator of Sasquatch Country Adventures punctuated our wait.

Tom (L) and Bill with casts of
Sasquatch foot prints they've found

The Harrison region has the highest number of Sasquatch sightings on the planet and I was determined to talk to experts. A year before this visit I had interviewed two of them—Bill and his colleague, Tom Steenburg. Truthfully I had been expecting crackpots and was delighted to find that they were serious, conscientous researchers who investigate every reported sighting. Yes, they are certainly obsessed, but very careful, and have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject back to the 1970s.

Finally I got my chance to go out into the back country with Bill and experience what it is like to try and find evidence of the elusive animal. It was an adventure worth the wait.

The June morning was cool and the mist hung between the mountain ridges as we piled in Bill's small Polaris 4-wheel drive vehicle. Cameras at the ready we roared off, climbing steadily on the eastern side of Harrison Lake. The bush was dense beside the narrow trail—so dense it was impenetrable. How were we to see a Sasquatch? Bill reminded me, " You won't unless it steps out to cross the trail."

I tried to focus about fifty yards into the bush as we bounced along. Bill kept his eye on the trail for scat and other indications of wildlife. Black bear, deer, and cougars are common here where there is no habitation for hundreds of miles north. I had noticed the bear spray on the dashboard. But we saw nothing except a mother Ruffed Grouse protecting her young. She was not about to move as we edged forward through the greenery. Then in a great flurry of beating wings she flew onto a branch and watched us pass.

Soon the trail narrowed and we pushed through wet new growth from the night's rain that soaked us. Still climbing we popped out into open country and the view of the lake and mountains opened up for us. Wild flowers grew in profusion at 3000 feet and we stood transfixed by the view of Mt. Breakenridge and Long Island as Bill told us stories of the sightings that had taken place all around us.

It is an awe-inspiring tale starting with the First Nations' oral histories from thousands of years ago, to the fur traders' journals of the 1800s, and ending with the sightings reported in the last year.

Bill's Polaris vehicle that makes the expedition
possible for all ages.

I never saw anything resembling a Sasquatch or even a foot print, but the safari was an experience of a lifetime and one I want to do again.

Bill ended the adventure by giving me a cast of one of the foot prints he had taken in the bush in the Harrison area. Meanwhile, until I go again in September, I'm reading all I can on the subject and want to believe. However, Bill warns me, "It's better to be sceptical and not carried away by emotion, or you may think you've seen one when you haven't."







IMAGES:  © Photos by Pharos 2013. All rights reserved.