Wednesday, August 15, 1984
It was ghastly cloudy again! So we drove up and down PR 60 looking for moose, then decided to hike the Mizzy Lake Trail.
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| Mizzy Lake Trail map |
This was a new trail, still a little rough, and longer, about six miles. We followed a small stream that had some foamy pollution in it. We passed a tiny pond, and came to another held back by a dam. We saw a couple frogs, but not much else that was exciting.
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| Moose grounds |
In the undergrowth we heard a fluttering, which were birds flitting around so fast that we couldn’t identify them. We crossed a bog area and came to the rather large Mizzy Lake.
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| Mizzy Lake |
We saw a couple kingfishers, and the sun started to peek out. The mosquitoes were terrible. Along the lake we saw several piles of “moose” droppings, round things about an inch in diameter. We also saw a messy pile of excrement that we guessed belonged to a bear. Further along we found a fairly clean bear paw print.
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| Bear paw print? |
We came to a boardwalk over more bog areas, and stopped for a breather.
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| Kathy on the boardwalk |
It was getting hot. The trail then joined an old railroad bed, so the walking was much easier. We saw lots of dragonflies, and a Monarch butterfly that flew along to tease Kathy who was trying to get a photograph of it. It never a lit anywhere for long enough.
We began to see a lot of moose prints on the railroad bed, all heading in the same direction we were going. There were frogs in the pools along the path. We came to the boggy West Rose Lake, and took a good look around. Nothing to be seen! We continued along, and later spotted a deer way across the lake. All of a sudden Kathy exclaimed, and we saw three noses swimming along. They dove when they spotted us, flipping up long skinny tails. Otters! They surfaced, periscoping their heads to look around, and snorted at us. They continued for a long while, diving, periscoping, and snorting as they moved along the waterway, and eventually across the lake away from us. Very entertaining.
We continued to Wolf Howl Pond, and saw turtles all over the place.
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| Turtles |
There was a blind in one of the trees. Some of the turtles had large white numbers painted on their backs. We also saw a heron in their pond. We left the railroad bed to head into the woods, and found the guestbook. We meandered along, and the mosquitoes were a pain! There were lots of itsy bitsy toads to avoid stepping on. A large variety of fungi was there to admire, in all shapes and colors. Every once in a while you got a whiff of the fresh pine scent. The only sound was a plane flying overhead. We came to a real boggy area, but found a flat rock to sit on, away from the mosquitoes. We took a water break and watched minnows in the water.
We hiked on and on, up a hill and down, and around to March Hare Lake. There we passed a family with two kids. We sat on a bridge to eat oranges, and the family passed us. We could hear them talking almost the whole way back. We continued the ambitious hike through the woods and came out on a boardwalk over a boggy area of Dizzy Lake. We had nearly caught up to the family, but slowed down to let them stay ahead. Beyond Dizzy Lake the trail went into the high woods, and we came out at the parking lot. There we saw a garter snake. So although no moose, we did see plenty of wildlife on this hike, which had taken us 5-1/2 hours. It was about 14:30.
We drove to the Lake of Two Rivers Store for Coca-Colas, then to Mew Lake Beach to think about swimming. We changed into bathing suits and shorts, but decided to go to the Lake of Two Rivers to canoe. We paddled off around the edge of the lake to the Madawaska River. We had to fight the wind and current to enter the river, and worked pretty hard to go upriver. Kathy began teaching me the different strokes, sweeps and digs, so that I could more effectively help in steering the canoe. It was beautiful and sunny. The river curved this way and that, and had several stagnant offshoots, but we just followed the main current. I had to keep a lookout for submerged obstacles. Then we came to some rapids and I successfully guided us between two majorly large rocks, only to bump into a third one in the middle of our path. Fortunately no damage. We rounded a curve to come to a very low bridge, and decided to go under. The front of the canoe didn’t fit under, so I moved forward to weight the canoe low enough to go under, and laid backwards to limbo under the bridge, pushing against the bridge hand over hand to move us along. I sat up to paddle as Kathy did the limbo and got the back of the canoe through. We continued along, passing another canoe going leisurely downstream (the occupants just lying in the canoe!). We began hearing a pleasant roar, and wondered if it was a waterfall, or the wind through the trees. For a long time we convinced ourselves it was the wind. Finally we decided it was a waterfall, and after rounding another bend, we saw the falls (of course, we were at the bottom!). We found the portage point, and parked the canoe, walking up to view the falls from a bridge.
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| Madawaska River Falls |
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| Kathy at the portage point |
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| Low bridge |
We met up with the young couple with a child whom we had seen struggling at the mouth of the river, and they were crosswise in the river and nearly broadsided us. Kathy gave the alert command to back paddle, and we avoided the collision, but had to maneuver a bit to get everyone straightened out. We continued along the Lake of Two Rivers, passing a couple windsurfers. We arrived at the beach and got the canoe packed up, and headed to camp.
Cooked up a dinner of scrambled eggs and chicken-flavored ramen noodles.
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| Kathy in our camp dining room/kitchen |
Every night we had to chase away tiny toads from our fire place before we started a fire. We had just enough firewood for our stay. The tent was dry when we came back, so we moved our things back in. Went on a garbage run, and this time the bag kept falling off the hood of the car. Before going to bed we played Trionimos. Heard the pit pat of rain. Oh, no! But it soon stopped.
Thursday, August 16, 1984
Kathy gave me the choice of sleeping in, packing up, or going to see moose. Of course, I chose the latter! We drove up to Weldwood Road and parked at the Hardwood Hill picnic site. We walked into the wilderness, and the mosquitoes were fierce. We saw lots of animal prints, mostly deer and moose, some wolf and maybe bear. We reached the railroad bed and went to check Source Lake without success. We continued on the railroad bed to West Rose Lake, arriving about 8:30. Lots of moose prints. I pointed out a black stump across the lake, and saw that it moved! A moose!
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| Moose! |
A female eating breakfast. We stopped to watch, and were joined by a few other hikers. After a while, the moose lumbered off into the woods. We had finally found a moose!
We hiked back the way we came and returned to the camp site at 10:00. It took us a half hour to break camp. On our way out we left the camp site questionnaire and the garbage bags we didn’t use at the camp office. The camp personnel were surprised as we were the first ever to return bags, and we were certainly welcome to come again!
We headed down on PR 62 and I was afflicted with narcolepsy. At 13:30 we arrived in Belleville and had lunch at the Pizza ‘n’ Mug, which looked like a Pizza Hut. We got the luncheon special for $4.59 each, with a tomato soup and salad bar, and all you could eat pizza and spaghetti.
We continued towards the U.S. of A., breezing through customs. We reached Liverpool about 17:00, unloaded and unpacked, and went to Wendy’s for dinner.
Friday, August 17, 1984
I left after breakfast at 8:30 to drive home to RI, arriving about 14:00. Did laundry all afternoon.
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