A Lake Superior Solo Fall Sea Kayak Trip

“Whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god” – Aristotle

At Sinclair Cove, in Lake Superior Provincial Park, the put in for my 4 day sea kayak trip. Photo by: Kate Fox.

WAWA, ON - Being alone in the wilderness with a bear fucking sucks.

I’d encountered bears before, but it had been with others. Being 20 feet away from a 300 lb black bear, with nothing but a thin piece of nylon separating us, put into perspective the uselessness of the human body. We’re slow runners, low jumpers, awkward climbers, graceless swimmers, small, fragile, and, despite the size of our brains, a bunch of big dumb idiots. If you disagree, just remember that many of us hold wedding rehearsals. We think it’s worthwhile to practice for the wedding. And every wedding still goes to shit.

I was reading The Life of Pi when I heard the bear wander onto my campsite, so I wasn’t imagining a gentle omnivore who was, most likely, investigating the smell of the fajitas I’d just eaten. I was picturing Richard Parker, Yann Martel’s lethal Bengal tiger, silently stalking me with all 93 claws, 213 teeth, and using his x-ray vision to see inside my tent, where a 28 year old, red-headed, man- child was shitting in his pants.

I set off a bear banger- a small flare that goes BOOM- and heard Yogi run off. It was 6:45pm. I sat in my tent mulling over whether or not to move campsites. I thought, “I don’t like the idea of sleeping near a hungry bear during a bad berry year”. Then I thought, “I have no interest in paddling on Lake Superior in the wind and the dark”. And then I was waking to my 6:15am alarm. Apparently, when dealing with a difficult decision, my instinct is to fall asleep. This made me wary of the uselessness of my human body.

My route from Sinclair Cove, in Lake Superior Provincial Park, to Naturally Superior Adventures, just outside of Wawa, ON. Roughly a 90km journey.

Even before factoring in bears, it’s difficult to plan a multi-day trip on Lake Superior. To use a word I definitely didn’t just learn before I wrote this, it’s a cantankerous lake at the best of times and is well-known for its foul fall weather. In fact, on the first day of trip I was windbound at my put-in because the winds were pushing 25 knots and the waves were rolling in at about 2 metres.

If you’re unfamiliar with Lake Superior, don’t fret. Most Canadians don’t know much about Northern Ontario. Hell, most Ontarians think any town northwest of Parry Sound is nothing more than a Subway, an A&W, and a hardware store, and let me assure you, they are correct.

But Northwest Ontario is also home to some of the most pristine wilderness and best paddling in the world. If you’re unfamiliar with Lake Superior, allow me to briefly describe the greatest lake.

At approximately 560 kilometres long and 260 kilometres wide, Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world by surface area. In late September, winds regularly blow at 40 km/h and waves get up to 2- 3 meters. There have been approximately 350 shipwrecks on Lake Superior, over half of which remain undiscovered. To make a long point longer, it’s a dangerous fucking body of water.

Lake Superior Map. Sourced from https://www.superiortrails.com/superior-facts.html

A solo expedition provides an excellent setting to be alone with your thoughts, uninterrupted by the distraction of people, music, or screens. Once I realized this, I filled my days with anything that might prevent me from being alone with my thoughts; I talked to myself, I got decent at bottle flipping, I threw rocks into the air, then threw different rocks at those air born rocks. I wrote, I read, I swam, and, boy, did I paddle.

When I ran out of things to do and finally sat with my thoughts, I realized, “hey, these aren’t half bad”. I thought about how people who don’t wear glasses should be called “raw ballers”. I questioned why pears aren’t sold in twos. I mulled over how to define myself and what goals I should have for my life, and when that got uncomfortable, I thought about how budtenders should really just be called gardeners.

On my final day, paddling 44km from The Gargantua Islands to Naturally Superior Adventures, I was digging the peace, the quiet, the contemplative nature of time alone with my thoughts. As I paddled through the mouth of the Michipicoten and pulled onto the beach at NSA, I had already begun planning my next solo adventure, and I was hoping that it would be just like the one I was just finishing.

Maybe with one less bear.