Adventure #10: Eaten Alive on Herb Lake

    As the weather warmed up, my brother asked if I would head out on a canoe trip with him and his girlfriend for her first-ever backcountry experience. Taking advantage of every opportunity to get into the backcountry this year, my answer, of course, was yes! Originally, the offer had been made to both my boyfriend Jeff and I; however, Jeff was unable to take the time off, leaving just the three of us to navigate an adequate route. My brother and I set to work a few weeks in advance to plan our trip, deciding on starting out at the Herb Lake Access Point in the Haliburton Highlands Water Trails. As Friday, June 26th -our scheduled departure date- neared, we filled our packs and food barrel, as well as loaded up the canoe and my kayak the night before to ensure we could leave bright and early to be on the water for as much of the weekend as possible. This trip was my first ever backcountry trip using my kayak instead of a canoe, and I was excited to test out how it would work! 

      

                                     

   

    Friday morning, upon arriving at the access point, we loaded up the canoe with all three of our waterproof packs and all of our fishing rods, leaving the food barrel to strap on to the back well of my kayak. The paddle to our first site was fairly quick, taking about 30 minutes, and the breeze on the water made for a very comfortable paddle. Once at our site, number 106, we did a quick exploration, finding a snake curled up on the rocks, before stopping for a snack and then scouting out a good spot for the tent and my hammock. The site didn't have too many options for either sleep setup, but we were able to find adequate spots nonetheless. After setting up the tent and hammock, we put together our little camp chairs before digging into the food barrel for a lunch of wraps with peanut butter or ready crisp bacon. Once we were all refuelled, we set up a bear hang for the food barrel, before heading out on the water to explore some nearby lakes with our fishing rods in tow. 

                                                            

   

   

        

    We made the short journey towards the Minis Lake portage, where we were met with a small waterfall and a rather large turtle sat sunbathing on the rocks. Unfortunately, the turtle wasn't feeling very photogenic that day and slipped into the water before I could snap a pic. Before crossing the portage, we floated around at the bottom of the falls while my brother's girlfriend took some time to fish, catching her first little guy of the trip. After a short time, we made our way across the short 78m portage into Minis Lake, paddling through Minis Lake, spotting another waterfall before crossing the 142m portage into Knife Lake. The entrance into Knife Lake was swampy and the bugs were intense, yet once the lake opened up, the wind cleared away the bugs enough for us to do a bit more fishing as we toured the lake. After an hour or so, we made our way back across both portages, into Herb Lake. The wind had picked up a bit more, rendering the paddle back to our site a little more challenging. 

 

    Once back at our site, I decided to go for a swim to cool off, meanwhile, my brother had a quick nap and his girlfriend fished from the site. As the day progressed, so too did the intensity of the bugs increase which lead me to apply some Watkins bug lotion in an attempt to hold off on putting on my bug suit just yet. After a bit more relaxing on the site, it became dinner time and so we set to work cooking some Knorr Sidekicks on our stoves. We had two stoves going with two different types of pasta sidekicks that we shared amongst the three of us. Once dinner was done, we began washing our dishes, and as per usual, once my hands were occupied with dishwashing, the bugs took full advantage to feast on me. I had to stop partway through the dishes to put on my bug suit because they had intensified so much! My brother had collected some wood and started a fire in an attempt to clear away some of the bugs, yet it wasn't helping very much and so I decided to call it a night, retreating to the safety of my hammock. The two of them stayed up a bit longer to fish but quickly followed suit and called it a night.

          

    We had a few rain showers through the night; however, we awoke to everything being completely dry which was a nice surprise. Not so nice of a surprise was the swelling of all of the bug bites we had received the day before which led us to keep our bug suits on for most of the day. We began our day by packing up all of our gear before sitting down for a breakfast of some dry cereal. Once we were finished, we loaded up the canoe and kayak to make our way to the next site we would be staying on from Saturday to Sunday. 

                                     

    We paddled under overcast skies to the end of Herb Lake, finding the portage into Ronald Lake. We had booked site 90 on Ronald Lake which meant we would need to carry all our gear over the 504m portage. We opted to double carry, meaning we all took our packs for the first trip. My brother tried to take both his pack and the canoe, but once discovering how narrow, uneven, hilly, and buggy the trail was, he set down the canoe to the side of the trail partway through. Once we made it out of the bush, we discovered that the portage actually continued alongside a swampy creek before opening up to the lake. While in this swampy area, the wind became nonexistent and the bugs intensified. It wasn't very pleasant, to say the least, and we figured our site wouldn't be much different. Taking this into consideration, as well as the difficulty of the portage, we pulled up the reservation system on my phone to see if there were any sites available on Herb Lake for that night as we weren't too keen on carrying all of our gear to Ronald Lake. The only site that ended up being available was 106, the same site we were on Friday night. We took our chances with it being close to noon that the site wouldn't be booked for that night if it wasn't already and carried our packs back across the portage before setting back out into Herb Lake towards site 106. 

    

    I don't recommend doing what we did as it is definitely not permitted; however, we had made the decision that Ronald Lake was not worthwhile, and opted to take our chances to see if anyone would book 106. Luckily for us, the site never booked up and we were able to spend the night. It seemed very silly for all of us as we began setting up our gear in all the same spots all over again, but we were saving ourselves marginally from the bugs on Ronald Lake. We still had a lot of bugs to deal with on site 106, with the bites to prove it; yet we were still able to enjoy the rest of our day fishing from the site and just relaxing in our camp chairs. The day was fairly overcast, looking like it might rain many times, but we lucked out with only a couple of drops the entire day. We cooked some Mr. Noodle for lunch and enjoyed some Backpacker's Pantry and Alpine Aire freeze-dried meals for dinner. Once again, the bugs intensified as the evening came, forcing us all to retreat to bed early. 

             

    The next morning, we woke up and packed up all of our gear, eating more dry cereal for breakfast before heading on our way back to the access point to head back home. Overall, the trip was a nice escape and the lakes were quite nice; however, the bugs were definitely intense, tiring us all more than usual. At one point I counted all of the bites I had on my left arm and it was upwards of 40 bites! Thankfully, my brother's girlfriend was able to look past the bites and enjoy herself enough on the trip to see the beauty in canoe tripping, promising to go again once there are fewer bugs. I was quite pleased with the way my kayak handled the trip, although, despite discovering that my pack would in fact fit where I had put the food barrel, I still much prefer my canoe for tripping with. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty successful trip that has taught me that I need to invest in a better bug suit for next time to avoid getting absolutely eaten alive. Anyone else have any similar bug horror stories to share? Feel free to leave them in the comments! 

                                                Until the next adventure, 

                                                                         - Megan