Fellow travelers, I was on a 25 day trip in August of 1959. Rod Beebe was the leader and Dave, Duncan I think, was the good guy medical man. We arrived at camp a day late due to a RR bridge being out and a detour into Ontario, were hustled through a morning of paddling assessments, packed up and left. I was 15, not very big and pretty young and so became a bowman. We paddled up the lake (which one?) camped and coped with setting up everything, had a short portage, paddled across a pond, took a shockingly difficult long portage, at least for this unprepared boy, and set off down a narrow marshy river and into wilderness. I'd love to know where those were if anyone can decipher our route so far. We went north ... Gouin Reservoir spending a night at Obedjuan native village ... Chibougamou where we saw our one lightbulb and one road in a month, along with a very shortened Chrysler that had hit a moose going 110 ... crossed Lac Mistassini ... and turned south again. I did not know the names of the rivers and smaller waterways we lined up and ran down,and would like to, but the last few days retraced our original outgoing route. It rained for 21 of the 25 days. I had a great stern man named Billy, loved the fishing including a 6-foot pike Billy caught after dinner and we carried across the morning's portage, one short stretch of stream where the wildest small trout smashed into our monstrously large ruby eyed wigglers and red/white daredevils -- we all ate well that night -- walleyes, and one crazy small copper colored pike that we caught 6 times from the shore. Further recollections: bannock in a reflector oven, excellent small axes for firewood sharpened on those round whetstones, experiencing crap logs, singing Everly Brothers and Elvis songs across lakes at the tops of our lungs, being unable to lift the baby for the first two portages, being utterly lost on one because it took so long to lift the baby that I was alone, clattering through quiet woods with the wanigan, leaving a sneaker in muskeg up to my crotch on some trail, being triangulated and affirmed as being at the exact end of a rainbow -- sadly too deep for the reputed pot of gold -- drinking from my paddle, almost walking right into a bull moose on a trail in the alders and having that monster somehow vanish silently, a few thousand mosquito bites matched fully by a few thousand no-see-um bites, carrying a log under a tarp in a storm to a woodless island campsite in Lac Mistsassini and capsizing as the wind knocked us over, then panicking until Rod told me to calm down and stand up -- the bottom was clean sand 3 feet deep! -- and retrieved the wanigan and our knapsacks, and resisting bathing and being horrified to see a filthy stranger in the mirror back at camp. Once I realized that there was nothing to do about how hard it was but to carry on, I got tougher. Now I am 74, am still in love with being outdoors, and am still telling tales from this experience as a storyteller to youngsters. I'd love to hear from anyone who was on my trip, and from anyone who might shed light on the rivers we likely followed. RIP, Rod, Mum and Dad. You gave me quite a gift.
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