Too small to kayak you say?

Our little Abby has been dying to go in a kayak ever since the 'big kids' came down to visit a few weeks ago. She sees other people going by in kayaks and she excitedly points them out. Mike has been working on  a kayaking fishing video for his Fish Temagami project and she loves to watch it.
The last few days Grandpa has been letting her sit in one of the kayaks in the morning after their daily Rhino ride. She loves it. She sits there and asks to please go out on the water.
Tonight was finally her night. Mike got out his kayak and put her on his lap and away they went. You can see from the picture that she was just a little excited as she and Daddy paddled away.They kayaked along the docks and over to the big rock near the island across from us. 
It was a very exciting end to a hot, busy day.
Thank you Mitchell for capturing the moment on video and in pictures for us!

A fun afternoon with friends

A hot afternoon in June, lots of water, Abby on my back in the carrier, and friends made for a great day! Some of the older youth from our church came down to Temagami to visit and go hiking. They have been finding new places to hike most Sunday afternoons this spring and had never been in the old growth pine forest in Temagami. Honestly, I haven't hiked that much in the White Bear Forest myself but have wanted to for a long time.




The White Bear Forest is 1242 hectares of land, most of which has never been logged. Gilles Bros. won the right to log it in 1928 but chose to preserve it for the enjoyment of their employees. I'm told that it is the most accessible stand of old growth pine in Canada if not North America. I still can't believe it's taken me eight years to actually hike more than twenty minutes down one of the many trails.

Apparently the trail maps are not entirely accurate so we planned to hike one hour into the bush and then turn around and hike back again. There are 28 km of trails in there so we wanted to be sure we knew where we were going. We took the White Bear trail. It is well maintained and marked and had I known where it would come out or just how long it really was we probably would have hiked the whole thing.


It was beautiful. Several types of orchids put on a real show along the trail. The pink lady slippers I had seen before but they were everywhere! We also saw some yellow star orchids which were new to me. I have done a bit of searching and have yet to confirm that they are actually orchids but the leaves and stem are similar to those of the orchids I have at home so I think they must be.

We were surprised by two grouse close by the trail who seemed to be protecting nests. The one actually hissed and came running at us. We soon discovered why: her nest of five eggs was right beside us on the trail. Had we been fooling around we could have stepped on it easily. I had never seen a grouse's nest or eggs before and certainly never heard one hiss!


Abby had a great time. We let her out of the carrier to walk for a while. She loved jumping over the big rocks with Daddy's help. She loved the moss and the 'big ones' - big pines that take two people to wrap their arms around them. I had thought she might fall asleep but she only dozed for about five minutes in the carrier as she didn't want to miss a thing. After all we were outside and spending time with 'the big kids' who are some of her favourite people in the world.


The trail had a lot of ups and downs and I could tell that I hadn't been hiking in ages. I was feeling the effects of having an 18 month old on my back and could tell that the number of candles on my cake this year are way too close to 40. That being said I enjoyed every minute of it. Spending time exploring as a family and with friends made for a great afternoon with lots of special memories.


When we came back from the hike almost everyone climbed the fire tower and enjoyed the view. I took Abby up as far as the first landing but she would have loved to follow everyone else to the top. We ended our fun afternoon with supper together and a bit of relaxation.

Interested in exploring the old growth forest with a guide? Check out this link for Orchid and photography tours by Northland Paradise Lodge, Temagami. Doug Adams is very interesting and knowledgeable about the area. It will be an unforgettable experience.

Have you voted for Temagami today?

Honestly, I'm not a sales person. Some people can sell fish to a woman with fish at home in her freezer (yes, that woman was me... and yes, I was duly mocked for it). I do not want to appear like I'm selling anything, ever. That's why I am so glad our houseboat vacations practically sell themselves. All I have to do is be friendly and helpful which is enjoyable for me and answer people's questions. Easy.
Mike is really working hard to help our community win this year. He has contacted everyone he can think of to ask them to vote. He has collected a list of over 50 emails from people who would like to vote but don't have regular internet access. He has enlisted the help of one of the towns in the American race for Ultimate Fishing Town to vote for us and he is helping them in return. He has contacted newspapers to ask them to ask their readers to vote for us. He has put up notices in the library and had the idea to have a laptop set up in our grocery store so people can vote when they come to shop. All he is asking me to do is write this blog post to encourage anyone reading it to help Temagami win the Ultimate Fishing Town.
But what to say? I don't like to ask people for anything. I feel badly about spamming all of my friends on Twitter and Facebook with posts about having voted yet again for Temagami. As if that is what they want to hear about from me...
But I want to encourage people to help Temagami win the World Fishing Network's Ultimate Fishing Town contest. There's $25,000 at stake, most if not all going to help our community's fish hatchery to help the walleye population in area lakes and some media coverage if we win first place. It's a close race between Hastings, Port Colborne and Temagami. We were briefly in first place earlier this week but we are slowly losing ground. We are a small community with only 1000 full time residents spread across Temagami and Marten River (32 km away) and it's pretty hard to convince everyone in town to vote four times a day or to vote at all. There are lots of people who are voting regularly and quite a few who are going above and beyond to help our town win but we need more help. Would you be willing to help?
Have you voted for Temagami today? http://www.worldfishingnetwork.com/uft/promote/temagami-on

Duck, duck, goose!

Goldeneye ducklings

DUCK!            Several years ago we had a couple of goldeneye ducklings waddle down our driveway. We were both excited and surprised to see them because we have never seen adult goldeneyes around. They had lost their mama but were determinedly on their way to find water! I did some reading about them and discovered a couple of reasons why they may have been on their own. It is not unusual for goldeneyes to lay their eggs in another duck's nest or even another bird's nest. I wonder if that may be what happened to our little guys, although I have doubts that eggs laid in a strange bird's nest would actually hatch or if the ducklings would survive the other bird's surprise at finding them there. They most likely just got separated from mama during their journey to the lake. Their nest may have been as much as a kilometer away from water and 13 meters up in a tree! I can't help but think the poor little guys would have a hard time keeping up to mama and their fellow ducklings if they had such a long way to go.

Female Goldeneye

Male Goldeneye 

DUCK!                  We have always said that the loons are the first water birds back in the spring but we seem to have been wrong. The ice is out early this year and our loon pair has yet to appear. Instead we have several pair of goldeneyes to watch. They were here as soon as there was a bit of open water to swim in. They have obviously always been around because we saw young ones two springs ago but we have never seen the adults. They seem to be quite shy so maybe that's why they haven't been around when the loons were here. We know the loons can be quite territorial, chasing mergansers away so they will have all the fish to themselves. Goldeneyes are not fish ducks but perhaps the loons have kept the goldeneyes away just the same.

Click here for more common goldeneye info and to hear their call. Just imagine this is what a guy had to do to attract a girl's attention :)



GOOSE!            Those of you in milder climates probably don't get excited when you see Canada geese fly over as they are a bit of a nuisance. In Northern Ontario we feel a bit differently. Geese flying north mean spring is really on its way. It has been a very early spring and we've seen flocks of geese flying north since the end of March. Abby is quite fascinated by them and talks about them all the time. She'll say "geese" and honk her nose ever since we first saw them. For a while it was the last thing she talked about before she went to bed at night. They fly quite high above our house so it was quite exciting when she got to see some up close when we were in North Bay this week.

Our last hunting trip

For the first six years of our marriage Mike and I went houseboating at the very end of the season when most of the other houseboats were up on shore. It was a time to really relax knowing that another busy year was almost over. We say we went hunting but really we usually did more hiking than hunting. Oh, Mike carried a gun and has a small game license but that doesn't mean we'd come home with our fill of grouse. One year we had fun shooting squirrel for pate at our Chamber of Commerce's Wild Game Dinner because there wasn't a grouse to be seen. It was entertaining to say the least and we did a lot of joking about our big catch!

I don't know if we make too much noise - Mike has tried to train me but perhaps it is useless - or if the grouse are already spooked by the time we get out in the bush but we just don't seem to have that much success. Nevertheless we always have a great time. Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year. The crisp air, the colourful leaves, the frosty nights, the anticipation of my very favourite season - winter, and the winding down of another busy season all combine to make it a special time.

The last chance we had to go hunting was indeed a memorable one. Our houseboat was the very last one in the water and we headed out a week later than usual. I don't think we caught a single grouse but we certainly had a lot of fun hiking in the bush, playing our favourite German board games at night and relaxing. Our big catch that year was a collection of beer cans to cash in at the liquor store to buy us a nice chicken dinner when we arrived home!

We had a friendly squirrel on the small island we were camped at. He visited us regularly as he busily stored whatever he could find to get him through the coming winter months. Our first morning there we woke up to the sound of him dropping pine cones on the roof of the houseboat.We had fun helping him stock his larder with good things and laughing at his antics.

The most memorable thing about that trip however was our last morning on the lake. We woke up to two inches of snow! It had been a bit chilly at night but the heater had kept us comfortable and warm. The snow was perfect for snowmen and we built this one before we left for home. It was such a special return trip: the water was a deep charcoal and perfectly still and calm. The snow laden trees contrasted beautifully with the lake's dark calmness. There wasn't another boat to disturb our trip through the heavy, still water all the way home.

It seems that our hunting days are over for now with little Abby here but the time will come again when we'll be able to go 'hunting' in the fall. I know our little girl will love tramping through the bush and playing in the leaves but I'm sure we won't ever be quiet enough to catch anything, not even squirrels!

Houseboating and the environment

It was a few years ago now that the realization hit me that my garbage doesn't just vanish when it goes to the dump. I know that's a fairly elementary idea but I really hadn't thought about it before. Living in a small town we do not have curbside recycling so it is much easier to say that it's too much work to recycle. It was an article in National Geographic about our high tech garbage ending up in third world countries where people scavenge it for the precious metals by burning off the plastics that cover them. I was horrified to realize that my world is so neat and tidy because I allow those who go without to deal with my problem. That was when I began to recycle and to compost and why I've chosen cloth diapers. Having to deal with my own garbage is certainly more messy than just sending it off to the dump but I believe it's worth it. It's a bit overwhelming to personally take all of our houseboaters recycling to the blue bins but I did do it until our little girl was born. Now it really is too much but that doesn't mean that each of our customers can't take their recycling to the bins when they return from their vacation.



With our houseboat rentals we have tried to make them as environmentally friendly as possible. Protecting our environment is about taking responsibility for the garbage we make, protecting our natural resources and limiting the amount of pollution we create. We live in a nearly pristine part of the world and we want to keep it that way. But the question is how do you define environmentally friendly?As long as we use motors on our boats some people will say that they will never fit the definition. At the same time we can say that we are using very fuel efficient motors thereby making our houseboats better for the environment as well as more economical. Our Yamaha 9.9hp four stroke motors may seem small but they are designed to push barges through the water very efficiently. They motor along at about 5 miles per hour - just the right speed for enjoying a beautiful day on the lake. And when you don't run them at full throttle a little bit of fuel will take you a long way.



When people inquire about our houseboat rentals we are often asked if we have showers and running water on board and the answer is no. For one thing our holding tank does not allow for that much water usage. The other option would be to have the grey water from your sink or shower run directly into the lake but we would rather not see that happen. Lake Temagami is a beautiful lake with clean, clear water and we want to protect our water quality as much as possible. Just remember that whatever is dumped into the lake is what you will be swimming in later in the day and using to wash your dishes. We encourage guests to take their grey water up on shore to dispose of it and give the soil a chance to filter it before it reaches the lake.

Our houseboats are also equipped with garbage cans and toilets. We hate to receive reports from our guests who have arrived at a campsite only to find it strewn with garbage. We encourage our guests to leave the campsites they visit as clean as when they arrived. We live in a beautiful part of the world and we want to keep it that way. It's simple to burn what you can in your campfire and to pack the rest out in your garbage can.

Also because our boats do not travel at high speeds they have little impact on the shoreline because they do not create a large wake.  They are unlikely to cause damage to cottagers' property or to wildlife habitat along the shoreline like this loon's nest.

So back to my question: how do you define environmentally friendly? What more can we do to limit our impact on the environment?
Post Script: I did a quick search and found that the National Geographic article is available online at the following link if anyone is interested in reading it. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/carroll-text

A peaceful day on the Tetapaga

One of our favourite spots to stop on our way home from a houseboating vacation is at the mouth of the Tetapaga River. The campsite marked on the map is quite shallow and rocky for houseboats but there is an unmarked campsite on the mainland which is perfect for several houseboats to tie up together. We have stayed there with my parents in their houseboat, a pontoon boat, a 14" fishing boat and Mike's bigger service boat all alongside and been quite comfortable. The shoreline is nice to troll for pickerel at night and there are some nice weed beds to check out for northern pike and smallmouth bass. If you are there at the right time of year there are lady slippers blooming just behind the campsite. It is fairly well protected from the wind making it an all round great place to stop while houseboating. In fact my parents like this spot so well they stayed there for almost two weeks last summer relaxing, fishing and watching a loon chick grow up and learn to dive.

If you are looking for a nice day trip with your canoe or kayak the Tetapaga is the perfect place for you. It is a shallow narrow river which in the middle of summer can be less than two feet deep in places.

I've been up the Tetapaga several times. The first spring of our marriage we spent an enjoyable sunny day in a 14' steel fishing boat. We traveled as far as we could and explored the shoreline at the other end. It was my first time to see wild rice and I was quite taken with the uniqueness of this special spot. It seemed like there were ducks at every turn as well as a great blue heron that seemed to keep just ahead of us. Mike humored me and took me down all the little trails through the wild rice to see where they went.


It was also my first experience boating in such shallow water and needing to watch for potential hazards in the river. I have to say I was more than a bit nervous that I might not notice a rock but as I watched the bottom there was a special surprise. I was excited to see moose tracks on the bottom of the river! I kept my eyes open for the rest of the trip but didn't actually get to see the majestic creature that had left its mark.

The cutest painted turtle was sunning himself that day, the first I had ever seen in the wild. We watched each other for a while with curiosity and then Mike and I left him alone to enjoy his spot in the sun.

We followed the turns in the river past this cute little island and pulled the boat over a fallen log before we reached the end of our journey. We had a lot of fun exploring the shoreline. I wanted to hike through the bush to Tetapaga Lake but it was really too late in the day so we checked out the remains from early logging days and then headed for our houseboat. All in all it was a beautiful, peaceful day on the Tetapaga.