Tiny V-shapes circled high above as we launched our canoes into Bell Lake. "Turkey vultures," said our guide Robin, squinting upwards. "They feed on decomposing, liquefied flesh." He smiled. "Something must have died nearby."
The appearance of evil portents seemed fitting. Ontario's Killarney Provincial Park was facing the worst heat wave in years. Paranoid forest rangers had imposed a strict campfire ban throughout the area, while waterbombers executed practice runs beneath the circling vultures, dousing imaginary flames.
Led by my university friend Robin, we were embarking on a four-day canoe trip through this 48,000 hectare park on the northern shore of Georgian Bay. Our guide had the unenviable task of taking eight urbanites - from Venezuela, Ontario, Wales and B.C. - deep into Killarney's interior lakes and wilderness by paddle, portage and foot. In the process, he had to ensure we didn't become carrion.
Our group was a diverse one, including a grad student, lawyer, courier, and teacher. We enjoyed an easy camaraderie and instant rapport, although we had never met prior to signing up for the trip.
Strong easterly winds hindered our three canoes as we paddled across Bell Lake to the first portage site. It was 8:30 in the morning, and already the temperature had climbed to over 30 degrees. Pausing in the centre of the lake, we filled our canteens with the sweet lakewater and took a look around.
Surrounded on all sides by white rock and gnarled pines, Bell Lake is a three-dimensional Group of Seven masterpiece. The resemblance is not coincidence. Beginning in the mid-1920s, five of the Group of Seven began regular sketching trips to the area by canoe, most notably A.Y. Jackson and Frank Carmichael. Carmichael was so taken with Killarney that he built a cabin on nearby Cranberry Lake.
Many of the Group's enduring masterpieces captured the rugged beauty of the Canadian Shield that Killarney so vividly typifies. Infatuated by Georgian Bay's northern shore, Arthur Lismer described what they strived to capture on canvas:
"…great high rocks tumbled in confused masses and crowned with leaning pines, turned away in ragged disarray from the west wind, presenting a strange pattern against the sky and water…"
When A.Y. Jackson learned of plans to log the shores of Trout Lake in 1931, he rallied support for its protection. The result was the establishment of the first protected wilderness in the area. In 1964, the current boundaries of Killarney Provincial Park were drawn and protected as a provincial wilderness park.
Unlike the days when Jackson and Carmichael portaged through these lakes in thoughtful solitude, Killarney now attracts visitors from all over the world. As we soon learned, the summer portage trails get as harried as any rush-hour freeway in Toronto. We were witness to heated arguments, queue-jumping at portage line-ups, and numerous instances of unhappy campers engaged in what can only be described as "canoe rage."
The first portage snaked through 800 metres of rough bog and marshland. Balancing the 16-foot, 50-lb craft on my shoulders, I navigated the narrow bridges and catwalks, chased by a cloud of mosquitoes and biting flies. The bugs swarmed to the back of my legs and ankles, unhindered by my raving stream of obscenities.
My torment was trivial compared to the experience of the voyageurs, who established trade routes through Killarney lakes beginning after 1760. Whenever Georgian Bay got too rough, fleets of up to 50 cannot de maitre (birchbark canoes 13 metres long by 2 metres) would travel inland, portaging their typical 4,000 kg loads and canoes over the La Cloche Mountain Range. They had neither bridge nor manicured trail to ease this passage. With their stomachs wrapped tightly to protect from hernias, the superstitious voyageurs were not averse to such overland travel, as it offered respite from the evil spirits they believed ruled the waterways.
A huge beaver dam had swollen our put-in at David Creek into a small lake. We paddled through the tannin-browned water, aiming our canoes between the tips of drowned pine trees. The humid air was raw and earthy with decay.
Another short portage led us to the shores of David Lake. A victim of acid rain, David Lake was one of many Killarney lakes that made worldwide headlines in the early 1980s. Despite reductions in sulphur dioxide emissions from Sudbury and northern U.S. states, sun rays penetrated 20 feet into the unnaturally clear depths. No vegetation was visible. The lake had clearly not yet recovered.
Our lunch on a picturesque quartzite ledge was rudely interrupted by a tormenting storm of stable flies. These voracious pests, a smaller version of the common housefly, were much quicker than mosquitoes, and thus more difficult to kill. Diving into the Windex-hued water was the only respite from the flies and the 35-degree heat.
To all of us, the pestilential swarms of blood-letting insects came to symbolize the inhospitiality of the Killarney wilderness. Combined with the extremes of local climate - ranging from uninhabitable cold to stifling humidity and heat -- it was clear that most civilization-softened humans could not survive a prolonged exposure here. For our small party, the allure of coming to Killarney was that we could test ourselves against the harshness of nature, take in the stunning beauty, and return to the comfort of home soon after.
After an evening swim, we sipped Scotch whiskey from metal cups and listened in silence to the tortured calls of the loon. With the encroaching darkness came the inevitable talk of bear encounters. Javier, a Venezuelan lawyer, was particularly fascinated with such possibilities for two reasons: he had never seen a bear, and we had hung our food from a tree directly above his tent.
"Should you play dead or fight?" I asked Robin.
"That depends if
it's a black bear or a grizzly."
"But how can you tell in the dark?" asked
Javier.
"Climb a tree," said Robin. "If it's a black bear, it will follow
you up the tree and eat you. If it is a grizzly, it will push the tree over and
eat you."
With this advice, we retired to our tents in the dark forest.
The next morning we set out to climb Silver Peak, the highest point of the La Cloche Mountains. Although unspectacular in height, the mountains of La Cloche were revered for millennia by Killarney's original inhabitants as a place of powerful spirits and magic. Young Ojibiwa braves climbed these peaks to fast in solitude, awaiting guardian spirits from the netherworld. Legend told of the great spirit Manitou using a secret subterranean passageway to travel beneath the mountains of La Cloche.
Lacking access to the Great Spirit's elaborate shortcut, we opted to hike a portion of the Silhouette Trail, named for the famous Carmichael painting La Cloche Silhouette. The Silhouette Trail to Silver Peak is an arduous hike up 330 metres of uninterrupted elevation. The trail is littered with boulders and soft sedimentary rocks that easily crack and break. At points we had to scurry up smooth rock faces on our hands and knees.
The white quartzite rock that makes up 75% of Killarney are the remnants of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. Less than two billion years ago, the La Cloche Range towered as high as the Rockies; the grinding of four successive ice ages transformed the range into a cluster of white-capped islands and low peaks, of which Silver Peak is the highest.
As we continued our ascent, the surrounding forest was increasingly dominated by huge maple, beech and oak. The drought and heat had created a faux autumn all around us, rendering the landscape all shades of rust, yellow and red.
From the summit, the lakes of Killarney glowed turquoise against the lush green of surrounding forests. Sixty kilometres to the north, Sudbury's smelters visibly chugged smoke; to the south, Georgian Bay spanned the horizon like a vast inland sea.
No trees lived on the windswept rock of Silver Peak. The thin soil supported mainly blueberry bushes, many peppered with dehydrated berry husks. The bears that are a common fixture on this peak in August were notably absent, presumably getting hungrier by the moment. "And angrier," I reminded Javier.
The cooling winds on the summit were powerful, eliminating the flies for the first time in days. Robin and I wandered barefoot on the smooth white rock, watching Broadwinged hawks divebomb from impossible heights over Manitolan Island.
The descent was dangerous. Already fatigued from the ascent, heat exhaustion became a real possibility, as did serious falls along the steep, brittle rock trails. By the time we launched the canoes into Bell Lake, I was angry at the heat, flies and especially my comrades, who refused to stop for a swim. My journal entry at this moment betrays my state of mind:
"I'm [expletive] exhausted. Difficult paddle back from Silver Peak with Mary-Anne. Is she just a wimp, or am I just an incompetent steerer? We always edge over to my side; my paddle-stroke always over-corrects and we slow to stopping while I wait for her to get us straight again. Meanwhile everybody just blows past us while she goes on ad nauseum about who her favourite authors are…"
Back at base camp, a cloud of mosquitoes emerged with the setting sun, prompting us to employ an arsenal of stinking repellent oils and aerosols. Huge dragonflies appeared on cue, zipping around us at kamikaze speed, devouring our tormentors.
We were mesmerized as Cygnus the Swan, The Northern Cross, Mars and Cassiopeia intensified in the darkness. Satellites were ubiquitous. Occasionally a shooting star would blast by and dissolve before our eyes.
Resolving to spend the night outside beneath the stars, we discovered that sleep was near impossible. Mosquitoes constantly buzzed in and out of ear-range, crickets made an ungodly racket from all directions, and waves of brown toads periodically invaded our rock plateau, leaping over our sleeping bags in a mosquito feeding frenzy.
Sometime after 4 a.m. I became aware of crashing sounds near the food hang. My British companion Kerran was awake, staring at me in alarm. In the moonlight, her bulging eyes seemed to engulf her entire forehead. "It's best not to investigate," she whispered. "I don't want to know what's over there."
I agreed. Conditioned by dozens of American horror films, we knew that the brave and curious always suffered the ultimate price. It seemed prudent to ignore the sound and hope it went away. Fortunately the noise stopped soon after.
The dawn sunrise was obscured by rainclouds from the west. After weeks of drought, it finally appeared that Killarney would receive the rainfall it so desperately needed. Perhaps this way the bears could still forage enough berries to keep them alive through the winter.
Ominous V-shapes reappeared high above as we paddled our canoes back to the Bell Lake access road. The sun burnt through a parting of the rainclouds, bathing the tinder-dry landscape with oppressive rays.
A small party of canoeists came into view on the shore, preparing to embark. One girl struggled to close the broken zipper of an overstuffed backpack, while her companion frowned into a make-up mirror, bitterly complaining about the heat. The leader puzzled over a crumpled map on the grass, turning it clockwise again and again.
I had assumed the vultures were escorting us back to the comforts of civilization, but I was apparently mistaken. They were waiting for the crowd on shore.