Ok, I know it’s just wrong, and I’ve got tons of pictures and stories to tell from the great fall colour changes, but for now, I’m off to have a beer, since I’ve been working too much.

It was a bit of a rainy weekend on our favorite Algonquin park lake, but fun nevertheless. The unfortunate and undesirable part of camping is the drying out of gear after you get back. Right now, I’m just going to throw it all on the balcony, and hop in the shower.

I’ll update with a full trip report when I get a chance - it may be a bit of a busy week.

Although I’m not a fan of banning everything for our own good, this makes me smile. I’d have preferred if they just levied an environmental impact fee on buyers, but hey.

Read the article on the London’s plans to phase out bottled water.

There’s a good writeup CPAWs site about how our Boreal forests are going to be given a bit more protection when industrial development decisions get made. With any new policy or announcement that involves big business and the environment, I’m always a bit skeptical, but this seems like a great start.

Continued conservation of Boreal forests in Ontario means that the species that call it their native habitat have a better chance at surviving, and the hunting and fishing that goes on in those areas can be tailored to control the population to make sure the local species are not over-harvested, or grow in population too large for the land to support. More land means more flexibility for threatened species such as the Woodland Caribou, Lake Sturgeon, and Polar Bear - species that are also considered at risk in other areas of Canada.

So, lots of new things going on… I’ve got a new job and a new phone and probably a lot less time this year to go camping, but I’ll get a chance to check out the iPhone in the woods.

It has a gps, but I’m not sure how good it will be, since it relies heavily on being connected to the net. I don’t know if there’s any way yet to add local topographic maps for use offline.

One thing it will allow me to do is compose updates from remote areas. I know that I could just transcribe written notes, but let’s face it - if I were going to do that, I would have done it already.

One thing I’m looking forward to is trying out some solar cell chargers, since I like the idea of sustainable power. I don’t like throwing away batteries, but I also don’t trust rechargables enough to not bring alkaline spares.

A good solar system that would cover charging headlamp batteries, walkie-talkies, cell phones and cameras would be ideal.

Oh, and this is my first post using the iPhone!

Here’s a wonderful little comment I got on a past article:

“I found your blog via Google while searching for camping and your post regarding camping store Marathon having end-of-lease sale |  A Word in the Woods by Michael Zimmermann looks very interesting for me. I go camping every weekend during the summer months and I have found your site extremely valuable in some camping tips. Thanks!”

Now what bugs me is that they could have promoted their site quite nicely by actually posting something useful, and (well, let’s face it, not from my traffic) would have legitimately interested readers as potential customers. Instead, they manage to fill the internet with useless noise that makes everything harder to find, do, and learn. Along with the comment was a link to a site that I will now never endorse or promote. Good going. I’m sure everybody would be comfortable with the ethical promotional tactics they use, and I’m sure they conduct all aspects of their business with the same approach.

I’m going to continually mark these people as spam, and my apologies if you get a legitimate comment flagged - just don’t make it an obvious script-generated bunch of text (love the title in the above quote?), and you should be fine.

Please note that SPAM, the lunch meat, is quite a different story, and this is as good a place as any to applaud their great sense of humour when it comes to the unfortunate direction their trademark has taken with the internet. I’m sure many a family has much fondness for this wonderful loaf of meat in a tin, and the role it has played in many a car-camping trip.

I was inspired by my last camping partner’s prolific use of the fishing rod, and have decided to try catching my breakfast, lunch or dinner, and cooking it over the coals. I normally like things that need slow cooking to get into the coals, like potatoes, corn, and more recently, prime rib, but this time, I think I may try to do something with planking, à la BBQ cedar planked Tilapia. Lucky for me, I think at some point, I’ll be dragging the gastronomical obsessive from the previous link into the woods with me, so I’ll leave him to do the heavy lifting. I’ll hopefully be able to bring home the fish, if not the bacon.

This was a good trip for my friend Keith’s first time into Algonquin, in terms of what to expect for canoeing, since the Tim River to Rosebary, and then on from Longbow to Sitting Man Lake (our final destination) is a good mix of winding rivers, grassy marsh, ponds, and nice, open lakes with deeper water — a good distance to cross all of it in one day.
read about the rest of the trip - boobs, beavers, moose and strange fingers.

According to Moose Survey Research in Algonquin Provincial Park:

“Moose antlers are the fastest type of growing bone known on the planet. A Moose may grow a set of antlers weighing up to 25 kilograms in just five months!”

I originally used the term “Mickey” instead of flask, but it seems that it’s a bit more of a Canadian-specific drink-related term than I thought, like May Two Four (TwoFer), A cube (12-pack of bottled beer), and many others.

From Wiki:
“# Mickey, a term for a 375 ml bottle of alcohol in Western Canada and Ontario. In Eastern Canada a mickey is a single shot of alcohol, packaged in an individual bottle.”

Don’t confuse this with a Texas Mickey, also a Canadian term.

I’m thinking of something to just bring a standard few shots of whiskey with me every time I go on an overnight, no matter the trip. I don’t get drunk when I go camping, and I’m disgusted at finding broken beer bottles in the middle of the wilderness that I love, but I love a bit of Irish cream or whiskey in the evenings.

I missed it this time, and in the absence of cigars and apple cider, I found myself wanting a bit of a taste around the fire.

I don’t care how old this post is when you read it, if you’ve got a suggestion, please let me know.

Something slim, and not too much capacity, around the 200-300 ml range should do me fine.

Or should I just get a small drink canister, like a Nalgene-style or the fuel-bottle type ones?

Oh, speaking of which, there’s an interesting post I came across on the whole Nalgene/Lexan thing.

I think I’ll hang on to my old beat-up 1.8L bottle myself.