Jubilee Lake Trip Report. I hope you realize just how close you came to being DEAD and stranding your buddies on the other side of the lake with nothing more than what they had in there pockets? Ironically it was probably due to the snow that you were wearing your foul weather gear that tends to act like a poor mans wetsuit when immersed in water. The suit tends to trap water next to the body which you body can then warm up slightly through body heat. Congratulations on hanging in there and having the presence of mind to hang on to the canoe and the paddle. You did what you had to do to save yourself. With only very slightly different circumstances we could have been reading about a drowning on Jubilee Lake rather than a great adventure. Its usually just simple little mistakes that set off the chain of events that lead to you being dumped in the lake. Only a few ever get a second chance. Count yourself lucky to be one of them. I didnt write this comment to criticize but just to point out just how quickly a ordinary situation can become deadly. I hope others will read your account and see themselves doing the same kind of things. My wake up call came during a solo trip when I slipped on a rock into deep water at the end of a portage. I managed to hold on to the canoe but lost the paddle temporarily till I could find a branch as a temporary paddle to retrieve it as it floated toward the other shore where my canoe would have gone if it had gotten away. On a positive note any close call that one survives increases our experience about what not to do. Thanks for sharing your trip with us and hope you have many more enjoyable trips to Algonquin.

No critizing either here!

Racoon, Rob and Bo Knows learned our lesson after
having ben tripping for 20 years when we became
careless half way down Rock Lake in May after ice out!

Why is it that we learn really well from a real life threatening lesson?

Likely because even knowing before of such dangers/possibilities
and perhaps losing perspective of said dangers after
many times dancing the tides successfully we tend to just never
seem to realize it could actually happen to us!

MOTD


Red Green said:
I am a man, and I can change, if I have too!

We all should heed such advice ( man, woman or child) when
it comes Spring and fall canoeing treks if not at all times!




Raton Laveur
aka

*Rac n*

Who is the OP talking to?

I'm confused.

I failed to make my comments clear that these comments were about the Main Page Trip Log of the same name. While it is a very interesting trip log it seemed to me that they had missed the life threatning consequences of being dumped into the lake the first day of June.

Hi William,

You are most definitely right that it was a dangerous play on my part. I am still pretty inexperienced especially when it comes to canoeing, and yes that experience was a sobering one. Luckily the water wasn't completely freezing and that I am a good swimmer. One thing I learned is that going out in the lake with an empty canoe by yourself is not a good idea at all! I should have weighted down the front with some logs, which is what I did after I reached to shore, it was much more manageable that time. I learned alot from that day, most of all never take any unnecessary risks and if stuff does go wrong do not PANIC. Keeping my witts definitely saved my life and my canoe.

What's interesting (and unfortunate) is Andrei could tell his story of what happened to others who would simply think such a thing would never happen to them and not learn from the experience.

My wife and I had a very close call about twenty years ago which was triggered by an error in judgment/inexperience(in hindsight)/ and misreading the Pet. The best part of that experience is that we survived to learn from it. Situations go from the routine to life threatening so quickly that many can't actually comprehend either the speed or the seriousness of the danger. In many cases such mistakes are fatal.

A lot of folks are accustomed to canoeing in cottage country where there is a cottage around every corner affording a certain sense of security and accomodating a commensurate amount of carelessness. When I am in the park, I never forget how alone I really am if I were to get into trouble. I frequently remind my kids not just how far we are from a hospital but the challenges involved in actually getting there.

Andrei.. thanks for having the courage to share your situation rather than keeping it to yourself out of embarassment. Most importantly, go back and teach those you go with about the importance of safety and anticipating potential dangers.

Great topic!

Maybe raiding firewood from another campsite was not a good idea. The firewood was made for visitors to that site. You had two hatchets, use them. Canoe gods were angry. Part of being a good outdoorsman and backcountry camper keeping a small pile of wood for the next visitor. You're lucky to be alive.

Yes we did raid the campsite next to us but thats only because ours had no wood at all, we were surrounded by a marsh so we couldn't even go further than a few feet from our site. In this kind of case I'm sure the canoe gods would oblige in the fact that we're in the backcountry and in need of wood. The site across us had no such problems you could walk in any direction without hitting a marsh. We also left some wood for the next people in both sites, so really we were paying it forward. The people who were on the site before us didn't even leave us with any dry wood when we got there after a major rainstorm. In these kinds of situations what are you to do? We couldn't just go without fire on a rainy day. Either way it worked out.

Glad you paid it foreward.

Carl