A rather chilly day here in Santa Clara as last night’s wet snow continues to melt. I completed a few small projects this morning so I figured it was a great time to share some recent experiences and follow up with part two of a story that I wrote a couple months ago.
If you read my last post then you know that hunting has been occupying some of our time lately. We haven’t had any luck coming across any bucks but continue to see a few does. We have added a couple tree stand locations to our hunting strategy.Simple affairs that provide absolutely no shelter from the elements. Getting off the ground is totally beneficial. Last Sunday afternoon as I sat watch in a chair while scouting a new location, a deer spotted me soon after walking within sight. Busted! The doe didn’t get too excited but she did wander off in the opposite direction. Hiding behind a tree wasn’t enough it seems. I was too obvious it became apparent.
Autumn rain and winds have removed most of the leaves now around the farm property. I have spent some time clearing out sections of our old tractor roads lately. Totally overgrown with weeds and berry bushes not to mention fallen trees. What a mess! I also cleared out a bunch of invasive wild honeysuckles in several areas. The “ battle of evermore” I call it, borrowing the name of an old Led Zeppelin song. The title of a post of mine years ago actually. Zane and I have been discussing a long term strategy for maintaining the farm property. It’s going to take some time and effort but past efforts have yielded modest success. Various small clearings exist where the invasives once held dominion. Much still needs to be done.
It seems like it was a very long time ago that I was in Quebec fishing and exploring. I suppose the change of season has something to do with it. There have been quite a few different tasks completed since I returned home actually. But never enough, it can feel like on occasion. Getting back into hunting was a good choice and I remain committed to creating a nice hunting preserve on the farm Homestead. Trails, trees, and time. Perhaps the title of a future post?
I go down to the St. Regis River here to see what a beaver has been doing since discovering it was living so close back in September. It’s a short trail to get to the river that I have cleaned out some for walking. Some of it was an old road once but it’s almost unrecognizable as such. From the top of once was an old bridge foundation, there’s an excellent view of the river. Off to the right sits an old beaver lodge that a beaver has taken over in the past few months. At the moment it has been extensively repaired as the beaver prepares for winter. I say beaver in a singular sense as I have sat by the river several times until dark and have only seen one. There could be another I suppose but based on the size of the winter brush pile that the beaver has accumulated next to the lodge I estimate only one. The brush pile is small if there are actually two beaver. I sometimes cut some small poplar near the house and leave them as offerings for the beaver. They always disappear along with brush I cut from the trail. Handy for both of us! Going to the river is quick and easy for me. It’s a nice respite when there’s not time for a longer jaunt.
Watching the beaver activity here makes me think about my camping trip in Quebec that inspired the post “The Damnation Of The Beaver”. I certainly got peeved at the beaver on my journey into the lake on our two day camping trip! If you read that story then you know that I left the story as I went to bed on my first night at Lac Sairs. Out of firewood and wondering what to do to solve that problem the next day. TP Island had its downsides besides toilet paper left all over the place! But I was committed to staying another night.Consider reading that post if you haven’t if any of this is vague. That should fill in more blanks. I now rejoin the story as I wake from my first night of camping at Lac Sairs.
Morning came after a somewhat restless night and I was very sore from sleeping in the tent with no air mattress. No pillows either. Something that never bothered me years ago. I didn’t need a fire to make coffee as I had brought my butane rocket stove. It works well for cooking too. After coffee and morning camp chores, I headed to the rift drop off to try for walleye. I only got one small one though. After trying fishing for a while longer without any luck,I decided it was time to decide how to spend the day. After my rough night on the hard ground I wasn’t feeling up to my original plan of portaging the river rapids and trying for the Turner Chute. Something seemed off about the idea anyway. I can’t say for certain what was causing the misgivings. Something was creeping me out about the whole expedition. I was kind of torn about it but in the end I listened to my sixth sense. I decided to table the adventure until I had someone else with me some other time. My body wasn’t up for it at any rate so I followed my gut instincts.I wouldn’t be reaching the falls in 2025 unfortunately.
After some late breakfast I decided to paddle down the lake to explore a couple distant islands. The lake was fairly calm and I knew that my upper body could handle the trip no problem. Lugging Gracie around has its pros and cons. Her weight holds the front of the canoe down nicely. Handy when it’s windy. But 85 pounds in the front is a dead weight to paddle around when you need to paddle into the wind.
I tried more fishing but it was a bust. The fish finder indicated that the bigger section of the lake was rather deep. 30’ plus in most spots. I bypassed the first island and approached the high ridge of the second one nearby. It was high,rocky, and covered with pines and a mix of hardwoods. I figured that there might be some good firewood to be found. We were going to need some or have an evening without one.
As we rounded the curve of the island, I noticed a nice beach landing where there was an unoccupied campsite. There was a lower fire ring closer to the beach and a higher one up in the woods. There was a small amount of garbage laying around but much less TP than on TP Island. People were being a little more considerate here. There was a small pile of cut firewood near one of the fire rings that I decided to load into the canoe. Plunder of a sort. I bagged up some garbage to take out as a trade. There was an old fuel tank from some unknown vehicle or something laying in the rocks near the beach. Oddly out of place I thought. I had time so I decided to scout the island more.
Near the beach there was a trail headed up to the ridge. It was well worn and obviously used frequently. I hadn’t ventured far up the trail when I noticed that some rock piles looked man made. Further investigation revealed excavations and evidence of some simple mining. There were some interesting green rocks laying around and I put several nice pieces in my pocket. The green mineral deposits were in the face of the excavation running in what appeared to be veins. Interesting! What was all this about? I certainly hadn’t expected to find anything like this on a remote Quebec lake in the ZEC territories! But things were about to get even more interesting!
Further up the ridge there were other excavations hidden in the trees. I spotted something lower down in the trees and went to check it out. What I found surprised me! It was an old abandoned air compressor. The type used to run jackhammers and rock drills. Someone had been seriously mining on a small scale here! But why had they abandoned the air compressor? It must have been a costly piece of equipment to get out to the island in the first place.
I was perplexed by the green rocks and finding the air compressor really got me thinking. There was more to all of this than I was seeing. At this point I was happy that I had abandoned my quest for the Turner Chute. I had been led to the island to discover something different. Spirit energy can nudge us at times. That’s what I chose to believe anyway. Gracie and I left the island with the wind picking up some making for some tougher paddling. But we eventually arrived back at TP Island after stopping to investigate another campsite near the mouth of the river near the rift. We were needing an anchor to better fish The Rift and I had an idea. And we still needed firewood for the evening. But it had been a great morning and I felt that the island mine had been a noteworthy discovery! ( to be continued) ✍️