The 'easier' way was to take the canoes in on a very shallow (a few inches) stream that ran a considerable way through a bottomless bog. For a good chunk of the way, the stream was too shallow to allow us to sit in the canoes and paddle or push our way along. The bog, however, had the consistency of a gigantic pudding .... a thick, soupy mix of liquified peat and black water from the tannic acid. If you stepped out of the canoe in many places, you would simply disappear. If you found 'solid' ground, it would undulate under your feet, suggesting it was floating on a soup underneath. The solution was for all of us to put on life preservers and, while hanging on to the canoe for support, feeling around with our feet or paddles to try to find hummocks or something semi-solid under the ooze to push against. In this manner, we slowly made our way through the bog. We did this a few years in a row and got to be pretty good at it, although there were moments when we would be almost helpless with laughter. If anyone saw us, they would have thought the whole family had lost our minds, laughing uncontrollably in the middle of a very large bog, with the nearest solid ground at least 100 yards on either side. Those were great times. Few things have brought our family closer together than our two decades of heading into the remote wilderness.
In the photo below, you can see a light blue object in front of my wife. That is a bucket-type car seat containing our oldest daughter, Sarah, aged 3 months at that time. Sarah had a tiny life preserver on and my wife's number one priority if the canoe ever went over was to attend to the baby. (Sarah is the one in the figure skating video I posted last spring, taken 17 years later). Our four sons are also in this photo, a second daughter was not yet born. In the second canoe, you will see a gun case containing a Marlin 94 44 Mag levergun, which is why I labeled this post only 'almost OT'.
I sold the little carbine about a dozen years ago and now use a 30-30 carbine for my wilderness gun.The effort was worth it. The lake was loaded with Northern Pike. I had to make a rule for the kids that they were only allowed to use lures with a single barbless hook, as we were just catching way too many fish and it was a pain to be constantly unhooking them.
