So what’s the deal with Kouchibouguac National Park? After all these years of traveling to the Maritimes, I’m afraid I still don’t completely get it. Yes, it has a nice sandy beach, some interesting lagoons/bays, and lots of flat boggy coastal forest. But it really does not seem much different than all the surrounding area or a big enough deal for such a large national park. In any case, the crowds flock here when it’s a nice warm summer day. With the first sunny weekend of the summer coming up, all the full service sites in the campground were already taken when the Vances showed up yesterday. The remaining sites were being taken up pretty quick too. They also got a backcountry permit for me to camp at a boat-accessible site on Pointe-a-Maxime today. I later found out that those sold out as well.
Packing and getting going was a different challenge this time since I had to carry everything with me for tonight and tomorrow. Since there was no threat of rain, I opted to go without a tent. More about that later on. The choice to camp at Pointe-a-Maxime was partly a matter of breaking up the distance, but I also figured it would be good to let the Vances have more time on their own without having to deal with my needs.
I had been told by Herman back in Miramichi that I should check whether the seals were ashore at the Kouchibouguac gully yet. So I paddled first over there to take a look. No seals, but there were plenty of big brown jellyfish being swished out by the tidal currents. So I headed on southward toward Baie de St. Louis. There were a few other canoes and kayaks in the area, probably rented from the park. I later found out that the Vances ended up renting a canoe to paddle around for a while. Before long I realized that I’d forgotten to pack my tennis shoes to change into in camp. Since I couldn’t reach Kevin on the cell phone, I just had to go on without them. After about three hours, I got to Pointe-a-Maxime, which was easy to find thanks to some big bright dome tents. I picked one of the four sites, unloaded a bunch of stuff, and ate some lunch. Some of my neighbors showed up in a motorboat after hanging out somewhere on the outer beach.
I tried to time my departure up the Kouchibouguacis River so that I’d reach St.-Louis-de-Kent around 6:00. I figured that way I could be assured of cell coverage to call my wife when my free minutes kick in. The timing actually worked out pretty close. I’d also wanted to take some photographs of a sort of Catholic shrine that the town has for being the “Berceau du Drapeau Acadien”, which I think basically translates as the “hometown of the Acadian flag”. People had commented to us earlier about how closely tied even their flag is to Roman Catholicism. (The flag has no political significance, but is very widely used as a symbol of the Acadian culture.) It turned out that there was a wedding party at the shrine when I arrived. So it was my first change on the PrayerPaddle to pray for a bride and groom. I also decided to take a picture of a small creek flowing into the river that was called Ruisseau a Baptiste (Baptist Brook). It seemed like an interesting name in a town where the only church is Roman Catholic.
Arriving back in camp about thirty minutes before sunset, I quickly got a fire going and started heating up some water. And began the battle with the “maringouins”, the mosquitoes. My freeze-dried meal was good and filling, but the mosquitoes were fierce. I’d hoped that I could get a little more breeze to help by putting the sleeping back closer to the water (well above tidal range), that I could cover my head with a jacket if they got too bad, that the bugs would get better an hour or two after dark, and that some DEET would help with any remaining problems. Nothing really worked adequately though. I was able to keep most of my body safe most of the time, but didn’t have much luck with my head. I could keep most of the mosquitoes away from my head by covering up, but every now and then one would still get in. I could only go so long without getting overheated and having to stick my head out for fresh air. On and on it went for most of the night, being able to sort of relax a bit but not really sleep. I even tried laying down on top of the picnic table to get more breeze, which helped a little bit but was kind of scary when I’d find myself near the edge. Meanwhile the other campers partied until about 1 am, and mocked Kevin’s attempt to give them a Bible earlier in the day. As physically miserable as I may have been during the night, I was thankful that I could be at peace while the partiers kept having to dull their emptiness with alcohol and drugs.
No comments:
Post a Comment