Got to go to the cousin’s family cabin in the Georgian Bay of Ontario again this September, and lucky to have Sara go along, too. My cousin Christine and her husband John were there again this year, along with one of their daughters, Allison, from Chicago.
Sara and I flew to Seattle in the afternoon, and overnighted in Seattle. The next morning we flew to Milwaukee, where another of my cousin’s daughters Aileen lives with her husband and 2 young kids. We dropped a suitcase of Sara’s at the daughter’s house, and took off for Canada late in the afternoon.
Last year we overnighted in Blind River. This year, we stayed at Bruce Mines – a really quaint-in-a-good-way town on Lake Huron. I went to the town cafe the next morning to get my thermos full of coffee. The waitress happily made a pot of coffee and filled my giant thermos, and then wouldn’t allow me to pay the $20 I offered – she insisted I take the $10 change she offered. I got a really nice vibe about that town. Seems like we were there post-tourism rush and the town’s people were breathing a sigh of relief to get back to school and the rest of the year routine. Like winter for me in Juneau.
On day 2, we shopped at a store in a little town south of Sudbury for groceries, and got to Camp Dore’ in mid-afternoon. We bought a couple Culligan water kegs for drinking water, launched and loaded the boat to overflowing, and ran the Key River. We stopped at the Key River Lodge and Chris dropped off a couple Iowa steaks for the couple that runs the marina, where we get propane, boat fuel, Canadian candy, ice cream, and fishing gear. We charged on to Cash Island. This was my second season captaining the boat through the rock piles. I followed my Garmin Boating app track laid down last year, while starting to memorize the navigation markers as well. By the end of the week and another two trips back and forth to the river mouth, I got to feeling comfortable making the trip.
We arrived late in the afternoon with plenty of daylight left. We got the 80 year old log cabin opened up. John and Allison got the window covers off. Sara and Chris got the linens on the beds. I got to getting the water system charged. I hauled the water pump down from the cabin, hooked up the intake line and threw it into the Georgian Bay. Then connected the discharge line up to the cabin some 100 feet uphill of the water. The engine started after I primed the pump, and I headed up to the cabin to wait for the water tank to overflow. The engine quit after about 5 minutes. I restarted it after awhile, but could not get the engine to run longer than 5 minutes. I looked up the symptoms on the University of You Tube, and diagnosed a bad coil. We carried buckets of lake water up for the bathroom and hand washing and dish washing for the evening.
On day 3, the big forecasted blow rolled in, and we had rain all day. And not just light rain. A real downpour. What luck! I filled all the buckets and coolers with rainwater off the roof, and that saved us a lot of uphill water hauling from the lake! There’s a fire pump set up at the cabin I’d never tried to run. They bought it the year of the big wild fires in the Henvey that luckily spared Cash Island somehow. The fire pump uses cam lock fittings and roll up discharge hose, and I was lucky enough to cobble together fittings from the spare plumbing parts bin to marry the fire pump hose camlock fittings to the ½ in hard plastic water pump lines up the hill to the water tank. I got it all set up, but the fire pump engine would not fire. When it started to rain again, I quit that project for the day, assured that with all the rainwater, we were set for cabin water for awhile.
Day 4 dawned clear and sunny. It would stay that way the rest of the week. I changed out the old gas in the fire pump engine with fresh fuel, then pulled the spark plug and soaked the electrode in gas. I reinstalled the plug, pulled the starter cord, and it fired right up! When it started pumping water, I saw after a short while that water was squirting out of the base of the plastic Pacer pump housing. Uh oh. When the pump was fully primed and maxing out flow through the discharge flat hose, the water blew out a crack in the bottom of the pump. But it kept pumping! Maybe water got left in the pump over winter some year. I scurried up to the cabin and could not hear water going into the tank. I thought water wasn’t pumping up the hill somehow. I returned to the pump and turned it off. I moped back to the cabin, again defeated by engines. I met Sara this time – she said the tank HAD filled with water and water was gushing out the overflow pipe. So, it was working after all. Now we had water covered for the week. We’d take the pumps back with us to the states for repair, and keep taking them back from now on at the end of the season so they could be tested before each season.
While the tank was full, no water was now coming out of the faucets somehow. The only place I could hear water moving was from the big overhead tank into the empty propane-fired hot water tank. We left that mystery for now and let the tank fill up. John and I went fishing.
We lost our first two smallmouth bass on the jump, and a nice pike that flipped out of the net. The next bass we landed. It seemed kinda like a slow day fishing at the spots that were so productive last year, but really wasn’t that bad. We just lost 3 out of 4.
When we got back to the cabin, we got more good news. Water was flowing in the faucets. More like a trickle than a flow, but they were working. The 80 year old iron pipes are likely caked nearly closed now with mineral and rust build up. But they made it one more season.
On day 5, John, Allison and I went fishing. We caught a bass and small pike. Slow fishing again, but beautiful fall weather again, with a high in the 60’s. Nights were down in the 40’s, so great sleeping weather. Lots more mosquitoes this year than I remember last year.
On day 6, Allison fished with me in the morning, as her dad (and mom) are not early risers anymore as they enter their 9th decade of life. We tried trolling rapalas near the bottom, using propane fittings as a drop sinker a few feet in front of the lure. Not a bite.
After breakfast and a short nap, John and I ran up the Henvey further, and tried the deep trolling again. Nothing. Then we tried casting off some grass beds at a few places, and scratched a couple bass. We also did some trolling in the shallows with the rapalas and got a small pike. A dinner for 5 was now secured with today’s catch and the previous two-days-worth. Fishing certainly humbled me this year. We caught enough for dinner every day last year, and took some surplus fish to my cousins. Not this year. But lots learned. The crew gobbled up the fish I fried for dinner, and there was lots left over to cook for the next evening’s dinner, too.
We didn’t fish on day 7. With plenty of fish left to cook from yesterday, we puttered around and did some preclose-up chores. We stripped our beds. The sheets go home for washing and blankets into the pest-proof bench. John and Allison started putting up the window covers. I filled all the buckets and pots with water from the tank, and then started draining the water system, as it took hours to drain it last year. With the 80 year old iron pipes almost choked tight, it’s time for a new system. The tank finally drained dry after a good while.
Allison and John took a kayak trip around the island and just missed catching me taking a bath when they passed at the end of their circuit. Sandhill cranes that they kicked up flew by as I was bathing. A first for me here. We saw a bald eagle or two, a mink, mergansers, loons, and other puddle ducks this year. No large mammals like bears, moose or deer that we saw last year.
Day 8 was leaving day. We finished closing up in what seemed like record time. I updated a list of items for next year on some lined paper I left on the table, and I took a picture of it for my files. Maybe we’ll make it back next year.
The run back through the rockpiles was the first time I kinda felt confident doing so, running the markers without peeking at the app track. We made it back without issue and were on our way early in the afternoon.
We got through the border and stayed overnight at Sault Saint Marie. I really liked breaking up the trip, overnighting each way, rather than a marathon 12+ hour drive straight on through. We don’t have to be in a hurry anymore. It’s enjoyable. We had a great dinner at the Applebee’s next to our hotel, and saw the photos of the area hockey teams, snowmobile races, and dog mushing. Looks like winter is a fun time here. My kind of place.
We got back to cousin Aileen’s place mid-afternoon. Sara and I ran over to Karl’s to get loaded up on Karl’s brats and Wisconsin cheese. The next day at TSA, the officer took my bag loaded with Wisconsin goodness to see what I had. Turns out the most dangerous thing was Vern’s cheese curds. She kind of blushed and thanked me for supporting the Wisconsin economy, and I thanked Wisconsin for making such great cheese.
We overnighted in Seattle, and I left Sara there for meetings when I headed for the airport before 4 am. We’d taken the light rail to our hotel downtown, but it didn’t start running til 5 am and I didn’t want to risk missing my flight due to busy TSA lines, so I took a cab. I had a nice chat with a Somali driver who was raised in Kenya and had worked out at the Unisea plant in Dutch Harbor once upon a time. We made it to the airport in light traffic, I breezed through TSA and was soon guzzling coffee at gate D3.
The flight was early into Ketchikan, and I was soon checked in on Island Air for the flight back to the Island. Fall is in the air and I scanned the rainforest on the way home for deer hunting spots I’ll never reach.