"Yesterday's Dream": June 22nd: Lake Temagami, ontario, Canada

Randy and Cindy's daughter and son-in-law bought an island Lake house on Lake Temagami Ontario. There were numerous projects and upgrades planned and I was invited to come along. Anything I do with Randy and Cindy (R&C) is always fun so of course I was in. Randy was sufficiently recovered from kidney stone surgery that we were able to head north to the island.

Supplies going to
the Island house

We spent a couple days shopping for food and supplies. Cindy pre-cooked a lot of meals because there is no electricity to the island. There are propane stoves, refrigerators, a large generator and solar panels but we weren't sure what to expect. All systems would need to be checked, fired up and figured out.

We would be opening the property for the season so we had a great deal of stuff. Fortunately R&C have a nice truck. But we still couldn't fit everything in the truck bed. So Randy decided we would go up! Cover everything with a tarp. My experience with covering stuff with a tarp on the highway doesn't go well, but he was in charge.

Loaded truck at Temagami Marina

Randy is a master at packing. I couldn't believe how much stuff we got into the truck. Cindy sat in the back seat in about 2 feet of space while holding her 3 foot tall tomato plant. Fortunately, the trip was only about 2&1/2 hours to get to the marina. Of course, then we needed to unload everything into two boats and transport it to the island, unload again and put all the stuff somewhere.

We arrived at the marina. Nick and Nikki (N&N)'s island house included four boats. We took two of them to the island house. I neglected to take pictures but you can imagine how filled they were. It was pretty windy but we were taking it easy so it was okay. One thing I know is to always familiarize yourself with a boat before driving it. I only sort of did that and set off following R&C. Once we were in deeper water I wanted to put the lower unit lower in the water to ride better. I looked at the dash, saw "Down" and thought that must be it. As soon as I did that the anchor dropped off the front of the boat. Uh, oh, it had a power winch. Before I could stop the engine, the anchor rope wound around the prop and stalled the engine. Not good. R&C were pretty far ahead of me so I tried calling. Went to voicemail. I knew they would eventually look back and notice I had trouble.

The wind was blowing me backwards toward a rocky shore but fortunately the anchor caught. I waited for R&C and they gave me a tow line so they could pull me forward to take the pressure off of the anchor line. That worked but I couldn't get the outdrive high enough to try to get the anchor line off of the prop. Finally I climbed over the transom and sat on the outdrive, wondering about how to get back in with no swim platform. I was able to unwind the anchor line with my foot and was able to get back in the boat. It was quite chilly but I had an enclosed cabin. Disaster averted thanks to help from friends and we proceeded to the island house.

Boat house and unloaded boats

By this time we were all very tired. We unloaded only what was necessary. My boat was completely enclosed and the other boat was in the boat house. We knew all the systems were shut down for winter. No electricity, but we did have a large generator and solar power converted to 120 volts. Also had a propane stove and refrigerator. We came prepared to not need the propane systems which was good because we had trouble getting it started. A nice little butane camp stove served us well and a giant Yeti cooler took care of protecting our food.

It was pretty cold, in the 40's but the buck stove made the cabin toasty. It was a good first day. We only toured the main house. I slept on the comfy couch and R&C had a nice bedroom.

The next day I was given a tour of the island. The property was much larger than I expected. There was the boathouse, the main house, a guest house for R&C when the kids arrived, a "Bunky" for me, a Sauna and shower building, a maintenance building, a lean-to which housed supplies and a snowmobile.

The adventure was under way. We have been very busy. Nick, Nikki, Liam and Mia will arrive Friday and we want to have everything up and running. More to follow in the next blog, but here are a lot of pictures.