Destination: Canada : Quietest Quebec, by Canoe : On a wilderness river trip, life is distilled to an essence of water, meals, companionship--and a pinch of luck

Sparkling in the late afternoon sun, the eastbound Via Rail Canada train pulled into the small, spotless station in this western Quebec town smartly on schedule. Ten of us watched in eager nervousness as the baggage car stopped almost where we were waiting.

Lined up beside us near the platform were five canoes, 14 blue waterproof bags holding more than 400 pounds of food, sleeping bags and tents lashed to personal packs. There were sturdy packs carrying the community gear that would be necessary for two weeks spent paddling 130 miles of the Megiscane River, through endless forests of balsam, poplar, jack pine and white birch.

The baggage doors slid open. A conductor leaned out. He waved to us to hustle everything aboard. We made quick work hauling the canoes and gear inside, then walked back to a comfortable coach car.

It was the auspicious start of a Sierra Club-sponsored wilderness canoe trip, to be led by yours truly. We had met as a group only a couple hours earlier in the office of an outfitter in Senneterre. Several of us had driven up the night before; others had spent the night somewhere north of Montreal and arrived that morning.

Now, the air was filled with the friendly chatter of people getting acquainted. Among the participants on this paddling adventure were five with limited camping experience and novice canoeing skills: Ellen and Mary, retired schoolteachers in their 60s; Tom, a singing waiter in his 20s who coddled a small guitar on his lap, and Jean and Ed, a recently married, well-traveled Manhattan couple in their early 50s. Four with previous wilderness canoeing experience included Rell and Bill, outdoor enthusiasts in their early 30s; Stephanie, an education specialist in her 40s, and my assistant, Kevin, a dedicated paddler who had arrived at the station with his own canoe and all the food and community gear for the trip.

For the next three hours the train sliced east through two walls of forest before reaching Monet, a whistle-stop of three buildings. It halted barely long enough for us to unload the canoes and toss out our equipment in the gathering dusk.

The train whisked off. There was a brief moment while we organized personal gear, then began a series of treks to crystal Lac (lake) Octavie, where we set up tents along a wide, sandy shore.

Our first wilderness dinner was a copious fresh-food farewell-to-civilization: crunchy raw vegetables, broiled steak, a rich tomato-basil soup, steaming corn on the cob, frying-pan biscuits, a modest red wine, coffee and chocolate cake. Stuffed, at ease with the world, we sat around the fire embers and talked about what lay ahead.

I explained that Lac Octavie was one of several lakes and streams that form the headwaters of the Megiscane. The waters flow west and north across Precambrian shield country, the most ancient land surface in the world, eventually emptying into James Bay.

For miles the Megiscane is gentle, but it also has rapids, roaring Class Vs. At times it flows into wide lakes dotted with dozens of islands. The detailed topographic maps I carried held the secret of weaving our way through to the outlets.

As there would be no bosses on this journey, so there were no slaves. We worked together, daily rotating the four key camp jobs, each handled by a team of two: fire and water; safety and area cleanup; bull cooks--a north-woods term for KP--and, their royal highnesses, the cooks. The hour was late. The stars were vibrant diamonds in a velvet sky. We bid each other good night. I crawled into my sleeping bag and zipped it shut against the chilly night air. A loon’s sudden laughter echoed through the quiet.

Fog smothered the lake when I awoke to the sound of the fire and water team noisily starting the fire. By the time we had eaten, broken camp and loaded our canoes, the sun smiled through on a day of exquisite beauty. I reminded everyone that this was seldom-traveled backwoods country. “Don’t lose me. If you do, you’d better have a map and a compass and know how to use them.”

“Don’t lose us,” Rell shouted. There was an outburst of laughter. What a warm and cheerful group, I thought, an impression that was as true the day our canoe trip ended as when it began.

We paddled casually across the lake, the novices practicing how to keep a canoe pointed in the direction they wanted to go, to where it emptied into a small, rocky river. Around noon, we stopped for a lunch of creamy Brie and crackers, sun-dried tomatoes dipped in olive oil, our own version of gorp--a plastic bag brimming with minced dried fruit, raisins, mixed nuts, and M&Ms--and; lemon powder for each to make his or her own drink.

We paddled another two hours, searching through the thick trees for a clearing the outfitter had marked on the map as a possible site for our first night’s camp. Finally, I brought our tiny flotilla to a halt and announced that since our first camp had simply disappeared we would have to scout one on our own. Both banks were steep and heavily wooded but leveled off about 20 feet up. Kevin and I scrambled up. What we found wasn’t exactly as level as your lawn, but we could pitch tents between the towering trees.

We all grunted and groaned and moaned our way up the steep bank, carrying everything that could be carried, including one canoe. At the camp area, we tipped the canoe upside down, wedged chunks of wood under the bow and stern, and, behold, a kitchen table, a fixture at every camp. That night, as he would every night after dinner, Tom wandered alone into the darkness and entertained us with the gentle strumming of his guitar and haunting folk songs.

Day Two was again gorgeous. Temperature in the low 70s. Light tail wind. No clouds. Then came our first portage, where the lake outlet was far too shallow to paddle. We unloaded our canoes and followed a procedure that would become all too familiar in the days ahead. First, shouldering the canoes in two-person carries, we trudged through brush across a narrow, rarely used rocky portage trail. Then we returned for the gear. Paddlers were responsible for everything in their own canoe--and the canoe.

There was one delicious compensation to the sweaty work--blueberry bushes awash in rich, thick berries. By the time we got back into the water everyone had blue lips and fingers to match.

We started paddling. A voice yelled out to look back. A sturdy black bear had wandered down to watch our departure.

The wilderness became a part of us as the days disappeared under our paddles. Our five canoes were always in a small group. Sometimes we paddled in a single strand, sometimes side by side, exchanging the latest camp gossip, long-forgotten jokes, and now and then dropping in our own personal astute observations. Life was reduced to uncomplicated essentials. The wind. The weather. The meals. Where we would find enough of a clear for a camp. How long the next portage would be. We startled beaver working at their lodges. Our eyes followed eagles soaring through the cerulean sky. Standing in the shallow water off a point of land, a huge moose gazed solemnly at our passage. In the quiet pace of canoeing this corner of Canada, we shed the frustrations of civilization and, for one glorious interlude, lived each moment to its rich fullness.

Around the middle of our trip the sky was blanketed with black, scurrying clouds. Eden was swept with rain. Light misty rain interspersed with an occasional wild storm and, even in mid-August, a couple of short snow flurries.

Late in the afternoon of the third day of endless wind and mist and rain, we neared a bend in the river. All eyes were desperately searching the wooded shore for space large enough for our tents. And what appeared through the misty rain as we rounded the bend? A sumptuous wilderness lodge surrounded by two acres of clearing. A pier.

The lodge was unoccupied. A side door was unlocked, in keeping with a tradition that wilderness travelers could use it. It turned out to be a corporation’s executive hideaway.

Fire and Water quickly had a bed of dancing flames in the fireplace. We strung ropes. The huge living room was festooned with wet clothes. The cooks gave thanks to the gods that they could cook tonight on a large wood-burning stove rather than huddled over a fire under a shelter pounded by incessant rain. In the morning, after packing our dry gear, and a vigorous house cleaning, we signed a guest book. In the past six years, only four other groups of passing canoeists had signed their names.

Now let me recount “The Tale of the Missing Portage and the Valiant Courage of Those Who Participated Therein.”

The outfitter had especially noted one long portage to bypass a stretch of perilous rapids where the river flowed for several miles through a steep canyon. Nearing the portage, I heard the thunder of foaming rapids, which seemed much too close for the start of the portage.

“Everyone ashore,” I signaled.

We beached our canoes. Kevin and I studied the maps. I realized the logical start of the portage had to be at least half a mile back from where the outfitter had marked it. “We can paddle back and find the portage, or line down until we get past the rapids.”

“It may be a little rough,” I said.

Like a Greek chorus before tragedy strikes, the paddlers shouted: “ONWARD!”

Lining sounds easy. You tie one rope onto the bow, another onto the stern, then, with each paddler holding a rope, walk along the shore next to the canoe and jockey it through a foaming stretch of river.

But in seriously rough water, half the time one or the other paddler is up to his or her bellybutton in the rapids, pulling a stuck canoe off a rock. When the rapids are broiling, most of the gear is carried on weary shoulders struggling along a rocky shore blocked by house-size boulders.

Despite the generous cooperation of paddlers constantly helping each other, we couldn’t get through the canyon that first day. Near sunset we came across several huge slabs of flat rock. By dark we had set up three tents on the rocks, with scarcely room alongside for a couple of sleeping bags.

The next morning was a repeat of the day before, but about midmorning I detected a welcome change in the roaring crash of water. Around the next bend the river turned magically calm. A short distance ahead, the left bank was a sandy beach big enough for a company of canoeists.

We quickly loaded our canoes and paddled toward the beach for a rest stop. Before stepping out of my canoe, I checked the maps, noting the remaining distance to our takeout. I held a quick gathering.

“How about a layover day tomorrow? Right here.” Not one objection marred those welcome smiles. And that is exactly how we pampered ourselves. And washed our clothes. And aired our sleeping bags. And rearranged our packs. And did nothing. Wonderful nothing.

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GUIDEBOOK

Can You Canoe?

Getting there: Air Canada has daily nonstop flights from LAX to Montreal, American flies direct through Chicago and connecting flights are available on Canadian International, American, Air Canada, Northwest, USAir and Delta, with fares beginning at $377 round trip, excluding taxes.

From Montreal, take the daily Maheux Bus from the Voyageur Bus Depot to Senneterre, about $54 one way. Via Rail Canada fare from Senneterre to Monet is about $20, baggage charge per canoe about $15.

Canoe trips: Among major outdoor organizations offering Canadian canoe adventures are: the Sierra Club, 730 Polk St., San Francisco, CA 94109 (tel. 415-776-2211, fax 415-776-0350); The Appalachian Mountain Club, 5 Joy St., Boston, MA 02108 (tel. 617-523-0636), and Outward Bound, 0110 S.W. Bancroft, Portland, OR 97201 (tel. 800-243-8520).

Among commercial outfitters are Nahanni River Adventures, Box 4869 Whitehorse, Yukon B1A 4N6 (tel. 403-668-3180); Smoothwater Outfitters, Box 40, Temagami, Ontario P0H 2H0 (tel. 705-569-3539, fax 705-569-2710), and Gunflint Northwoods Outfitters, 750 Gunflint Trail, Grand Marais, MN 55604 (tel. 218-388-2294).

A guide to outfitters in Quebec, “Adventure Unlimited,” is free from Quebec Tourist Office, 1 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020; tel. (212) 397-0200.

Trips usually cost $100-$125 a day; some include a canoe, others charge extra or you bring your own. Most will send brochures and trip descriptions on request. Make inquiries early; many spring and summer canoeing trips sell out as early as the first of the year.