Adventures while Kayaking Eye Lake - July 9/13

Today was a busy day but a fun day. We camped at an unmarked but very well used campsite at the entrance to Eye Lake. Abby was up early so she and I explored our new campsite despite the hordes of mosquitoes. There is a lot of space that has been cleared under the trees and several trails to explore and there's nothing Abby loves more than to go on an adventure. Then I taught her how to play tag and we ran around until 8:30 when I decided we must have some breakfast.

After we had eaten and cleaned up I packed a picnic lunch and some snacks for our kayaking adventure. We had 'camped' here because I was interested in exploring Eye Lake with Abby and more than an hour and a half in the kayak gets to be a bit long for her. I also wanted to hike the portage trail into Devil Bay. My plan was to have our picnic there and I hoped that it might be a nice spot to swim because our campsite had a pretty dirty bottom for wading and splashing in.

We had a nice paddle and I continue to be amazed at how well Abby sits in the kayak. She must really like it since she doesn’t complain at all when she gets the occasional bonk on the head. Of course I can’t see her face either so maybe it bothers her more than I think but she really doesn’t fuss about it all.

Eye Lake isn’t very big and I was surprised to find a cottage hidden on one of the islands. Abby wanted to check out all of the beaver huts along the way to see if there were any minnows at them so that took our adventure to several little bays we might not have explored so closely. There were at least five beaver huts along the way but only one of them seemed to be in use right now.

Some of the giants' stepping stones

Mike wanted us to make sure we saw the giants' stepping stones across the back bay of Eye Lake and they really were quite interesting. The ‘grain’ of the rock is on an angle and it looks as if they were placed in a row by a giant long ago.

We found a bed of white water lilies which was beautiful. They bloom later than the yellow water lilies and these are the first I have seen this year. That may be because the water is warmer in Eye Lake than in the larger, deeper Lake Temagami.

In a sea of water lilies

Abby was fascinated by the wild rice and wanted to paddle through it whenever we could. I saw something unusual flying around as we glided through the rice but didn’t get a good look at it until we were almost back to our houseboat. As we paddled through one last patch of rice I finally saw one at rest on top of a green stalk of rice. It was the most beautiful ruby red dragonfly I’ve ever seen. Once we’d seen one we saw many many more and we spent a while hunting  them down just so we could get a good look at them. Of course Abby wanted to pet them but we were never that close. Unfortunately the Gopro wasn't on anymore when we were dragonfly chasing or I would definitely share pictures of our discovery.

Devil Bay in the background looked beautiful and made me want to explore the lake here too.

Our hike to Devil Bay was nice. It’s a well used trail and the first half of it has no rocks. It’s an easy hike with no steep inclines We saw several groups of canoeists head that way in the short while we camped here. However, I learned a valuable lesson. Don't bring more than can be put into a backpack when hiking with a two year old. I had way too much stuff with me and only a small backpack which contained our long pants in case the bugs tried to carry us away. I also had our small cooler with our picnic in it and a largish waterproof camera case. The portage trail is just over 500 meters long so it wasn’t too long with a two and a half year old Abby except that she had a little tumble early on and was tired and hungry. Soon I was carrying a little girl on my shoulders and had hands full of cases to carry. I will definitely do things differently if we go hiking like that again.

If you just want a trail to hike on to burn some energy this is a nice length for younger kids and not too difficult. Unfortunately there is no clearing at the other end. The bush was hot and buggy and my hopes of swimming once we reached our destination were not realized because the trail ended in a pile of smelly pollen. A bit later in the season or with the wind in a different direction the pollen would not have been an issue and we may have been able to get cooled off a bit. As it was we went just a little way off the trail and had a bit of a picnic lunch because we needed to eat. The bugs knew they were in for a treat as well and feasted on any part of us that wasn’t covered. Abby’s bug jacket worked great. I unzipped it and put it on top of her head so her neck and most of her head were still protected but she could have some food to fill her little tummy . Her ankles and hands didn’t fare so well but she barely complained about her bug bites she was having so much fun.

Getting cooled off!

We had a little splash when we returned to the kayak because we were so hot but there was lots of tree and leaf matter on the bottom that stirred up as soon as you disturbed the water so we didn’t play there long. We had a better swim at our campsite but then needed a ‘bath’ on the back of the houseboat to get really clean. All in all we had a fun day and it was definitely an adventure to remember.