I admit, it wasn’t a long swim, but I did swim. Not long enough to remove all the paint from my arms and legs (Note to self: don’t paint fire escape stairs in shorts and a T-shirt) but it was lovely. Sitting near the water at “our” lake on this gorgous day with the trees almost in full fall-colour mode.

Much nicer than painting the fire escape, our activity yesterday and the last couple of weekends… But that job is fortunately also progressing.

The real reason for my presence in Toronto is that Alison has a team building meeting with all the members of her team. And the partners were expressly requested to come as well, and dogs and children also. I left Poupoune and Pepe at home though, since they’re not allowed in the train and I didn’t want to drive that far after a busy week at work.

The meeting was held in one of Alison’s colleagues’ cottage in the Muskokas, a two hour drive north of Toronto. We rented a car and upon arrival we found that everybody brought their toddlers, so there were enough small creatures. And they all swam, canoed, kayaked, barbecued, tanned, and chatted. So now I can put faces to names when Alison mentions her colleagues. Halfway I started to order the huge amount of toys that belonged to the son of our hosts. All cars and bulldozers (O, I wish I had those Tonka trucks when I was a kid) in a row, all the spades together. And the balls, the buckets, the fishes, the rings et cetera, et cetera. In the end I made a huge and very unstable tower of a few toys that were hard to categorize. It stood upright for a couple of minutes, until a breath of wind cased it to tumble down… People enquired if I suffered from OCD, and that made me laugh. They should see the mess in my office.

Our nice tranquil lake, with boats nor cottages, surrounded by pristine forests, dotted with majestic boulders, with its beautiful sandy beaches, its coconut palms…

Okay, I’m carried away a bit. But our very nice secret lake, an hour from Montréal but almost never frequented by any other living creature than deer, moose and otter… Oops, there I go again. Anyway, that lake is going to be spoiled. A developer lay its filthy hands on it and now he’s going to build cottages around it.

We went there today and found big signs with “Domaine Privé” and “Défense de circuler”. We ignored them for now, since it’s construction holiday and also to investigate. The lake is just as pristine as ever, but there was doom in the air. The doom of big trucks, by and builders coming in, to build monstrous houses. (For some reason people who can afford a second home in the Laurentians have no taste.) Followed by loggers on a mission to create lake views for the owners by logging all the trees between the lake and said houses.

It’s only weeks before they put big steel fences around it and declare it a real No-go area.

So I’m going to spill the secret and give you all detailed instructions how to get there. Rent a car and enjoy this really nice lake while you still can get in, albeit by ignoring some signs. If somebody tells you to go away tell them you come here for years and nobody ever told you to go away. They probably tell you that things have changed but I bet you can stay for the day if you tell them you came all the way from Montréal.

How to get there

First locate the lake on this Google Maps map. Follow the included driving instructions from highway 15 North to the parking area in Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard.

From there:

• Park your car at the parking area on the Chemin de Val de Loire. It’s a rather big parking, for around 20 cars (so all readers of loglog can go at once; plan car-pooling in the comments), at the North side of the street, on the map above at the letter D (of “De-Loire”), just right of Lac Morgan.
• Get out of the car, pack your things (sunscreen!) and enter the area by going through the big gate at the east side of the parking lot.
• Turn left (NW) and follow the wide path. At a crossing there is a small cabin for cross-country skiers (there are not many of those around) and an orange plastic barrier.
• Ignore the signs, walk around the barrier and continue on the narrowing path. Enjoy the nice ferns at both sides of the trail.
• Cross a almost destroyed bridge (I bet one of those fat builders tried to cross) over a small stream.
• You now approach an open area, with on your left a pumping station for the municipal water supply of Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard since our lake is their main reservoir. To the right you see the newly constructed road that leads to the new cottages, surrounded by big boulders.
• Continue straight ahead, ignore another sign and follow the slightly sloping gravel road.
• We’re almost there now. After a slight bend you’re at the highest point of the road and the magnificent “Lac de la Cabane” is right in front of you.
• Follow the road 100 metres and there is the beach. Soon it will be a private beach, no longer accessible by us mere mortals, without hundreds of thousands of disposable dollars.
• If you follow the path that starts at the other side of the beach you can go to a nice private rock.
• A few hundred metres from the beach there is a large boulder, slightly hidden under the foliage.
• Just before it is a small path passing on the left side of the boulder, and leading to a magnificent flat boulder that is an excellent starting point for a nice refreshing swim in the crystal clear (the whole village is drinking it) water. Clothes are entirely optional. A pillow or mattress might come handy however, since the rock is quite rough on your bum/back.
• Enjoy your stay, don’t get sunburned, and please leave only your footprints.

Lakes should be public and not private. They’re part of the land that our ancestors stole from the natives. Well, maybe not my ancestors exactly, but you get my point.

If you don’t get my point you can always go to the developer’s site and buy one of the lots and have your dream house built. Be quick, they’re going fast. If you do, please invite me over once in a while. In return I can do some maintenance, I’m quite good at that. Then at least I can lay my eyes on “our” lake once in a while.

If you have access to other lakes please do not hesitate to email me.

Red-spotted Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens)

We both thought this was a salamander, that crossed our hiking trail in the Adirondacks, but after some research (thank you Google images) I found out it was actually a newt. I had never heard of newts, which is not so strange since names of animals in English usually don’t resemble the ones in Dutch. I often have no idea what to call the little and big creatures we encounter during our hikes. or so I looked for more information.

Newts are small, usually bright-coloured semi-aquatic salamanders of North America, Europe and Asia, distinguished from other salamanders by the lack of rib or costal grooves along the sides of the body.

So it was salamander after all. By googling the Linnaean name I found out the Dutch name is “Canadese watersalamander” which you can probably figure out without a translation. So this newt was in the wrong country. As many people are right now, but I digres.

Newts have the ability to regenerate limbs, eyes, spinal cords, hearts, intestines, and upper and lower jaws. The cells at the site of the injury have the ability to de-differentiate, reproduce rapidly, and differentiate again to create a new limb or organ. One theory is that the de-differentiated cells are related to tumour cells since chemicals which produce tumours in other animals will produce additional limbs in newts.

That would be so practical, especially for woodworkers. If you’ve seen Sicko you know why.

Many newts produce toxins in their skin secretions as a defence mechanism against predators. Taricha newts of western North America are particularly toxic; the Rough-skinned Newt (Taricha granulosa) of the Pacific Northwest produces more than enough tetrodotoxin to kill an adult human foolish enough to swallow a newt.

Mmm, a good thing Poupoune is not here, but is staying with the dog sitter.

This was the first time we went backpacking since a loooong time. We had the lean-to (a hut that is open on one side) for ourselves, even though it was the night before the 4th of July, American Independance Day.
We were afraid that all the nice spots would have been taken by Americans but we didn’t see a living soul (apart from the Newt) for two days.
Which was nice. Away from the busy job, the overdose of family the last couple of days and generally from it all. Relax a bit, even when that means hauling a heavy pack over hills. We should do this more often.

But with all Alison’s travel she’s glad to be at home once in a while. And we have to plan these things well in advance so we can reserve a spot at the dog lady.

Excuses, excuses, excuses…

In 2004, the Naked Bike Ride in Montréal wasn’t exactly a success, even though a naked picture of me made it into the Mirror.

Today was the second try for Montréal. So while in one part of the city one of the worlds’ most polluting events took place, the Formula One races, we protested against cars and pollution by riding our bikes in the buff. It’s also Clean Air Day, even though there is a smog warning in effect.

and it was much better. About 150 to 200 people showed up, and most of them bared it all and rode through the Plateau neighbourhood naked. Of course there were about 500 onlookers at the start and many more along the roads. The police escorted us and closed roads and intersections for us. All happened without any incidents.

Halfway my bike’s front tire was punctured so I spent the last 2 kilometres running with my bike in hand. I was surprised of my endurance, since I normally never run, and certainly not on my Teva sandals. I’m sure seeing me run must have been a spectacular sight.

If you want to see me naked on a bike watch the news tonight or read a newspaper tomorrow. I’ve seen so many cameras along the route that I’m sure they snapped me as well.

We had almost given up hope. It was getting dark, it drizzled and we were cold and exhausted. So we decided to leave the wild life viewing spot and hiked back to the car. And then there was a noise in the woods and a big moose crossed our path. He was very close and didn’t pay us much attention but just kept going its way. Our hearts were pounding, it was the first moose for both of us.

Too bad this photo was taken in The Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg and the moose in the previous paragraph was non-existant. We saw a lot of geese but no meese. Hecla island was almost deserted, the season was definitely over. The campsite closed, all shops closed and we couldn’t even find the hiking trail that was on our map. So we walked in a slight drizzle that later turned into rain along the shore over boulders and pebbles. We did see a couple of American Bald Eagles though, but they were pretty far away. Huge birds with a wingspan of 2 metres. And even though we had a bear cannister we didn’t see a bear either.

In the evening we decided to head back towards Winnipeg and camp somewhere there so we wouldn’t have to get up at 6 in order to catch our flight home.

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Mary viert haar 40ste verjaardag met een groot feest in haar cottage. Een weekend gevuld met zwemmen, barbeque (worst en hamburgers en zalm voor ons), kletsen, drinken, muziek en dansen bij het kampvuur en heel veel kinderen.

Ik kan ook nog de reddende engel spelen door iemand te helpen met mijn wegenwacht kaart. Ze had haar golf op een grote steen geparkeerd en hij wou niet meer voor- of achteruit.

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Met een aantal mensen wezen paddestoelen zoeken, met de bedoeling deze op te eten. Maar helaas vonden we niet echt veel eetbare exemplaren, en de paddestoelen expert in ons gezelschap kon de variëteit van deze exemplaren niet met 100% zekerheid vaststellen. Helaas.

Poupoune mocht ook mee, met een geïmproviseerd zwemvest.

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Toen het weer wat beter werd, kreeg ik mijn Canadese kano doop, samen met Mary, Alison en Poupoune. Voor Poupoune was het ook de eerste keer, maar ze vond het, in de armen van Alison, niet eng en eigenlijk wel reuze interressant.

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Met de metro (inclusief Poupoune, die alleen in de metro mag als ze in een tas zit; wat een hoop vertederende reacties bij omstanders veroorzaakte) naar het (kunstmatige) Jean Drapeau eiland, waar de olympische roeibaan is aangelegd tijdens de Olympische Spelen. Dit weekend worden daar de drakenbootrace’s gehoude. Een chinese traditie, maar de deelnemers kwamen uit alle culturen die Montréal rijk is. Ook veel vrouwelijke deelnemers, maar het kan dat dat een voorwaarde voor deelname is.

Na een paar race’s hadden we het echter wel gezien en gingen, na een vegetarische chinese lunch, een eindje wandelen in het park op het naastgelegen eiland. Maar eerst kwamen we Alison’s ex tegen, waar we een half uurtje mee in het gras zaten te kletsen. Inmiddels is ze aan de veranderde situatie gewend, maar een jaar geleden was ze niet in staat om met me te praten. Ik ook niet met haar trouwens, want ze praat nogal ‘plat’ Québecois.
Poupoune vond het ook maar vreemd (”Jij hebt me verlaten”) en was aardig neurotisch aan het doen.