Kissinger Lake near Nixon Creek

2007 12 Caycuse Main

There is an RCMP truck in my rear view mirror. I'm in the middle of a logging road, deep in the inner forrest of Vancouver Island, cruising along with my canoe on top, looking for Kissinger Lake, and this cop is suddenly on my tail and I pull over and he goes past. I guess the forests really aren't safe.

The road has changed since the last time I was here. Frost covers the dormant broad leaf maple trunks and the wintery sun ricochets light through a mist hanging in the grey boughs. I turn around and head back toward Cowichan Lake, then decide to check out the Kissinger Lake Recreation Site, what used to be called a forestry campground. The campground road leads to the lake. What a surprise. I see why I missed it now, they switched roads, started using an old one. It's marked as a dotted line on the map, usually a deactivated road or trail. But they must have ressurected it. The shifting roads disoriented me. That seems to be how I feel whenever I drive through an area of "active logging." No map maker can keep up. 

The lake is beautiful; a slight mist rises off it. I  hear a grader grading a road in the distance. 4 young men, load ATV's into the back of 3 large trucks. They had fun today. Slightly drunk, one of them sings along to a country song playing on one of the truck's radios. I talk to him. "Were just leaving" he says, throwing some garbage on their fire. They climb into their rigs and drive off, leaving me to unload my boat in the dwindling light, the smoke from their fire acrid in my nose.

I paddle onto the lake, the silence closes in behind me. Out on the misty water I rest, the canoe drifts to a stop. Somewhere in the dark I hear a fish break the surface.

2007 12 Kissinger Lake at Dusk