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Hunger for Adventure
 One of the great pleasures I take in paddling Lake Superior is eating.
In a lot of ways canoeing and sea kayaking trips
take us back to the simple pleasures, like satisfying hunger and
thirst. Which is great when there’s plenty to eat. When there isn’t,
things can get nasty.
I’ve never yet run out of food on a paddling
trip, but I have come close. Flirting with true hunger never fails to
elicit an appreciation for the hardships of those who traveled the
granite-chiseled north shore hundreds of years before me.
Compared with the lean times experienced by
adventurer Alexander Henry more than 230 years ago, my dining
experiences have always been far less alarming.
Alexander Henry (the elder) was a fur
trader-entrepreneur who developed partnerships and even a copper mine
near Lake Superior. He lived from 1739 to 1824 and once worked out of
Fort Michilimackinac (now Mackinaw City, Michigan), but spent plenty of
time traversing the waters by canoe between Sault Ste. Marie and
Michipicoten. Henry wrote eloquently in his amazing two-part, nearly
350-page book Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the years 1760-1776. (This book can be read online at www.canadiana.org.)
Happiness is a well-fed paddler on Lake Superior. Photo by James Smedley
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Amid tales of his adventures – including capture
during Pontiac’s Rebellion, then rescue and adoption by Ojibway Chief
Wawatam – are descriptions of near starvation along Lake Superior.
Due to good planning and good luck, I’ve yet to experience the deprivations of Henry and his men.
Even well supplied, of course, it’s often a long
wait between meals outdoors when it’s not convenient or safe to satisfy
our budding hunger. Lake Superior’s brooding headlands hold long
stretches of angular shoreline, as beautiful as they are inhospitable
to landing. Attempting to land with anything more than a ripple on the
water would mean being de-boned and tenderized on sloping rock, so we
press on, paddling against pangs of hunger toward the next beach or
cove.
It’s times like these that I fear picturing my
dog, covered in a glaze, with an apple in her mouth or hallucinating
that lines will form, dividing my partner into ribs, shank and rump
roast. Such a raw powerful hunger gives me a glimpse at the cold
spectre of starvation that lurks beside the remote waters of Lake
Superior. That spectre haunted Henry.
Back in 1765, poor fishing at the Sault Ste.
Marie rapids compelled Henry up the coast in search of food. At a bay
north of the Sault, he was joined by some Indian people also suffering
from famine. A few days later, a youth wandered out of the bush,
claiming to have left his weak, exhausted family.
“His arrival struck our camp with horror and
uneasiness,” writes Henry, “and it was not long before the Indians came
to me, saying, they suspected he had been eating human flesh, and even
that he had killed and devoured the family which he pretended to have
left behind.”
No, cannibalism has never been part of my trips,
though I have been eaten … by bugs. On a recent canoe trip inland, some
warm, wet weather conspired with an awakening spring to usher in
throngs of black flies and mosquitoes. Despite bug shirts and
repellents, our lips and eyelids swelled from bites and we scratched
where tenacious insects burrowed into our scalp. Judging from a similar
experience in Henry’s memoir, the wrath of the flying insect was every
bit as sharp then as now:
“Mosquitoes and a minute species of black fly
abound on this river, the latter of which are still more troublesome
than the former. To obtain a respite from their vexation, we were
obliged, at the carrying places, to make fires, and stand in the smoke.”
Bugs were not a problem for me on the Nagagami
River once when the only thing swarming the early June skies were sleet
and snow. Even with our modern advanced gear, in the wilderness, you
are at the mercy of the elements. On Lake Superior, high winds and
waves have left me stranded on shore for days, extending the trip and
thinning supplies. On Nagagami, unusually high water meant fish that
I’d intended to eat did not materialize. In the unseasonable cold and
incessant precipitation, we went through our food supplies quickly.
Hunger is a strong appetite enhancer, turning
bottom-of-the-barrel meals – like plain pasta drizzled with a last
tablespoon of olive oil, washed down with peanut butter – into a
culinary triumph. We even made a thick tea with the tender inner bark
of birch trees to supplement our dwindling supplies.
A parallel adventure of Alexander Henry was,
again, more extreme. He headed from Michipicoten to Sault Ste. Marie
with three men and a woman. They brought few provisions, expecting to
fish. Their net washed off in a storm that lasted nearly two weeks.
With only enough maize for a day or two, their food supply was soon
exhausted. One of Henry’s men informed him that the other two proposed
to eat the young woman.
On questioning the men, they freely admitted
their intention, and, in Henry’s words, “were much dissatisfied at my
opposition to their scheme.” This is when Henry searched out and
harvested lichen, known as “tripe de roche” by the French fur traders.
It was boiled and eaten and led to a much happier conclusion for all
involved, especially the woman.
As I said, my hardships have never approached
those of Henry. I’d like to keep it that way. If you plan to paddle the
coast of Lake Superior, I advise you to bring more food than you think
you’ll need. Eaten outdoors in the company of great hunger, any meal
will be one to remember.
This issue’s Journal writer:
James Smedley, an award-winning
outdoor photographer and writer, is a family man from Wawa, Ontario,
who hungers to hang out in the great north woods. James has contributed
articles, fiction, humour, news, commentary and columns to U.S. and
Canadian books, newspapers, Websites and magazines, including this one.
He has won many Outdoor Writers of Canada and Outdoor Writers
Association of America National Communications awards.
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