A Brief Time in Heaven: Wilderness Adventures in Canoe Country

By Darryl Blazino

What starts as a simple fishing trip becomes a cathartic experience in the untamed wilderness of Ontario’s northwestern canoe country.

A nine-day fishing trip turns into a profound life-altering event and marks the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the untamed wilderness of Canoe Country in northwestern Ontario. Author Darryl Blazino describes how he became entranced by the beauty and wonder of a land that beckoned him back again and again.

This collection of personal stories captures a range of experiences and emotions highlighting the very best and very worst of times gleaned from more than 12 years’ worth of adventures in the great outdoors. Incredible close-up, intimate encounters with wildlife, harrowing brushes with danger, the challenges of wilderness camping with small children, and moments of intense splendour and serenity are told in descriptive detail and illustrated with breathtaking photography.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Feb 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781459708099

Darryl Blazino

Darryl Blazino has explored, camped, and fished on hundreds of lakes over the past two decades and spends nearly 50 days a year pursuing his love of the out-of-doors. His articles and photographs have been regularly published in The Boundary Waters Journal. He lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Heaven on Earth

First Impressions

Wonderful Wildlife Encounters

Spirits

Phenomenal Fishing

Making the Most of Tough Times

Best of the Best

Close Calls … Tempting Fate

Canoeing Adventures with Children

The Terrific Twenty

So Many Lakes, So Little Time — Canoeing Outside the Park

Timeless?

Bibliography

To my wife, Michelle, for all of her support and to Rod MacKenzie for introducing me to this wonderful land.

What adventures we have shared.

Foreword

For those in the know, Quetico is a canoe-tripper’s paradise with its 1,500 kilometres of interconnected waterway routes. Exploring this vast network is a passion for Darryl Blazino who is definitely in the know . It shines through both his stories and photographs in A Brief Time in Heaven: Wilderness Adventurers in Canoe Country as he describes the tangible and intangible treasures discovered in over two decades of Quetico canoeing adventures.

In 1983, while paddling across Canada, we threaded the park’s southern boundary. We vowed we’d return with more time to explore the incredible landscape that lay to the north of us. The summer our daughter Sila turned six, we mapped out a circular, month-long route including lakes such as Pickerel, Sturgeon, Darkwater, Argo, Kahshahpiwi, and Chatterton. Even then it was only a fraction of the routes that First Nations people had been traversing for thousands of years, and, later, the European fur traders. Darryl describes an uplifting personal journey leading from frenetic-paced professional life to a time when he discovered wilderness canoeing as a way to slow down. His subsequent family adventures capture what is truly most important in life.

This is the kind of book you can open to any page and begin reading. His accounts of camping with his children remind us of an evening when Sila caught her first three fish, of the day she learned to swim, of the awe of seeing moose and eagles and otters up close. Quetico’s benevolent spirit rewards those who take the time to appreciate its beautiful campsites, towering pines, and rocky shores. But it is far more than an experience of what one can see.

Take the night for example. With darkness, we have a view to that great starry ocean. We marvel not just upwards, but outwards and inwards, too. The darkness blinds our eyes, allowing our other senses to gather the stories of our surroundings. The forest rains down health-giving perfume that fills our lungs in every breath we take. All around us, myriad creatures go about their nocturnal business rustling, chewing, tapping, hooting, and, if you are lucky, howling.

In Darryl’s stories, he makes the important family connection between elders and youth; his boys and their grandparents out fishing. Whether the canoe journey into Quetico is for a short time or a long time, he reminds us that these journeys are gifts — often the best that life has to offer.

Joanie and Gary McGuffin, authors of eight books including Where Rivers Run, An Exploration of Canada by Canoe and Quetico:Into the Wild

Goulais River, Ontario

May 2012

Acknowledgements

Life is serendipitous. I often marvel at how some of the minor events in our lives end up having the most profound and lasting effects. Chance encounters from decades before have shaped our everyday existence. From my first introduction to the wilderness and canoeing to my first attempts at writing and photography, many people have helped influence my life in a positive manner.

As you will read, Rod Mackenzie was the person who introduced me to canoe country. It is something for which I cannot thank him enough. He has been a tremendous friend and travelling companion and the main impetus behind my first written stories. I am grateful for his constant encouragement to tackle a full-length book, and I have cherished recounting all the fascinating adventures we have had together.

Morning on Basswood Lake.

Many of my first writing attempts were submissions to The Boundary Waters Journal, published quarterly by Stuart and Michele Osthoff out of Ely, Minnesota. Stu’s feedback and criticism were instrumental to my development, and I am especially grateful that he has allowed me to use many stories and sections of articles that have appeared in his fantastic magazine over the past twelve years.

The support of the Friends of Quetico has been critical to the publication of this book. Robin Reilly, Bill Ostrom, Reijo Peltoniemi, and Ruth Chapman, among others, have helped in making it a reality. Through my involvement with the group I was fortunate to be introduced to some of the most influential personalities in the world of canoeing, camping, and environmentalism. There are few people in this world more appreciative of the wonders of nature than Gary and Joanie McGuffin. Their enthusiasm and passion for the outdoors is infectious, and I have profound admiration for their endless environmental initiatives. While I could never match their exquisite photography, their numerous books have been a huge inspiration for me and have been the source of several gifts to out-of-town friends.

I doubt there could be a more magnetic personality in the world of canoeing than the Happy Camper, Kevin Callan. As an author, speaker, and now filmmaker, Kevin proves that a positive attitude and a great sense of humour will always result in a successful trip. He is truly one of the friendliest people that one could ever meet, and helping him organize the debut of his film, Wilderness Quest, on behalf of the Friends of Quetico was an absolute delight. During one of our many conversations I mentioned that I was toying with the idea of writing a book based on canoe country. His assertion that I absolutely should do a book was really the tipping point that convinced me to commit to this project.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jon Nelson for his countless suggestions and honest and insightful critique of the first draft. In addition to Kevin Callan and the McGuffins, I also received a wealth of advice in regards to the world of publishing from the quintessential canoe adventurer, Rob Kesselring.

My photography background is purely trial and error and my armamentarium rudimentary compared to real photographers. Greg Johns of ImageTech helped guide me past the realm of SLRs, countless filters, and expensive lenses to my beloved prosumer Fuji Finepix, which fits perfectly (literally and figuratively) into my shoot-on-the-go style of gathering images. The encouragement and feedback of Ron Jason and my sister Sheri Nickerson were also invaluable.

Being able to experience the gift of this incredible country with others makes it all the more special. For well over a decade I have had the privilege of sharing a campsite with some incredible people: Rod, Aaron, and Andrew MacKenzie; Devin Speziale; Shawn Mizon; Dave (Cecil) Harris; Ian Sinclair; Rob Nickerson; George Danio; Joe Mykietyn; Bob Baxter; Doug Penna; Dan Vaillant; Denny Duffy; Roger Smith; Steve Blazino; Kevin, Kathy, Allegra, and Dawson Kortes-Miller; Dave Wood; Mike Naith; Logan Ollivier; Alex, Kyle, Cameron, John, and Teresa Hughes; Craig and Patricia Paul; Fernando and Leonard Cenedese; and of course my phenomenal wife, Michelle, and the joys of our lives, Tyler, Adam, Eric, and Alyssa.

Finally and most importantly is the love, support, and understanding of my family: my parents, Jerry and Anita, and of course, my soulmate, Michelle. It is a tremendous understatement to say that many spouses would not be supportive of being left as a single parent to four children for long stretches of time every June. The hundreds of hours required to write, edit, organize, and promote this project have even further pushed the limits of tolerance, and yet we are still happily married. Her sacrifices have certainly not gone unnoticed, and I am so grateful to have her with me to share this wonderful life together.

Quetico Park.

Courtesy of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Copyright 2000, Queen’s Printer, Ontario.

INTRODUCTION

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

— JOHN LENNON

Like so many people, I had spent much of my life working obsessively so that life would be better in the future. As a teenager I took a condensed course load supplemented by summer school in order to complete high school a year early. I studied feverishly in university while playing Junior A hockey (which meant twenty-hour bus trips every third weekend) in order to gain acceptance to dental school. After four strenuous years I graduated youngest in my class and returned to start a busy dental practice.

In retrospect I guess it should have come as no surprise that my midlife crisis came early as well. I had hoped my days of sixty-hour work weeks would finally be behind me, but a busy practice had left me tired and frustrated. I loved dentistry, but no matter how many lunches I worked through, evenings in which I stayed late, or breaks that were filled with emergencies, there seemed always more to do.

In about 1996 I was beginning to burn out. I wrote a letter and placed it in my top drawer in an envelope labelled 2000. It was hardly a great work of prose, merely a basic message. When I was to open the envelope in the new millennium, I hoped to find that I was less stressed and was spending more time doing the things that I loved. It seemed my life was slipping by, and if I didn’t make a conscious and concerted effort to take control I felt true happiness would always be a dream for the future.

The message was simple but elusive — spend time doing the things you love and eliminate those you dislike. Among my interests were travel and a wide variety of sports, but a chance meeting with an old friend led to a wilderness fishing trip, and over the course of the summer I came to realize just how much I loved the outdoors. Soon I was introduced to canoe tripping in Quetico Park and found it to be a watershed moment in my life.

I hired an associate, which increased my leisure time and flexibility dramatically. Dentistry became enjoyable again, and more importantly I discovered the time to explore. Canoe trips had become an obsession, and they became the dominant feature of every summer. There is a Buddhist proverb which states that when the student is ready the master appears. In much the same way, I was introduced to Quetico when my eyes and ears were ready to appreciate its beauty. I wanted to experience every aspect of this magnificent land.

My mother laments how this passion for the outdoors blossomed just a few short years after the passing of her father. I have fond memories of fishing with him for walleye and perch at his beloved camp at Whitefish Lake. It was his home away from home for months of the year and a base for mushroom and berry picking and hunting expeditions for duck, grouse, and moose. We were the regular recipients of his walleye fillets, moose steaks, and ice cream pails full of plump blueberries; each one a special treat, the marvellous fruits of his labour.

As a teenager I lost the patience for fishing and seemed always immersed in one sport or another. I regret the missed opportunity of sharing time with a wise and passionate woodsman. More than that, as a parent now I see the tremendous value in grandparent time for all involved. He was such a good soul. He was a great mind with a kind heart, and I know our relationship could have been so much stronger than it was.

My dad’s father and I connected through our love of hockey, and this Blazino tradition has been passed on in a similar manner between my sons and my father. I am well on my way to ensuring that the boys have plenty of outdoor memories with their Nono (my wife’s father). Already there is a photograph of a proud Nono posing behind smiling young boys struggling to lift a hefty stringer of fish. A similar photo from the 1970s is one that my younger brother and I cherish — one of the few I have with a person I wish dearly could join me on a wilderness adventure.