Lake Archives - LaMontagne Art

Posted on August 31, 2017August 31, 2017 by Patrick LaMontagne

Lake Laziness

I almost didn’t go on this recent camping trip, but I fought my nature, listened to the appeals of my better angels and made the getaway a priority over the work. Winter is not far off and I need to put as much positive fuel in the tank while I can, before the dark and dreary cold season starts burning it away.

So, I let my newspapers know I’d be gone, gave them almost double the usual cartoons last week to keep them covered, and headed off Sunday morning to go camping with old friends. Three of us drove together in a little convoy to a regular meeting spot on Highway 95 between Radium and Golden. There we met up with another old friend who traveled from the other direction and we headed up into the hills. Three trucks, two trailers and my car.

It’s a dirt and gravel road for most of the way, some years better or worse than others, with the last 2km stretch resembling a goat track. That last bit requires driving in 1^st gear, maneuvering back and forth from one side of the road to the other to avoid large potholes and big rocks. My buddy Al described it best when he said the road was particularly ‘bony’ this year, making it especially tricky for the two trucks pulling small Boler trailers.

There are three BC Forestry campsites on the entire lake, all spaced evenly apart, so even when it’s full, the neighbours are quite far away. We have our favorite spot and while we might not always get it, we lucked out once again this time. It’s a big site, with plenty of room to spread out our two trailers and two tents.

British Columbia is incredibly dry right now, experiencing one of the worst wildfire seasons ever recorded. There has been a fire ban on for nearly two months. With an abundance of dead-fall in the area, firewood is usually never an issue, but with no chance of the ban being lifted, we brought a propane fire bowl instead. It provides some warmth when evening falls and is quite safe when handled properly. Most importantly, it’s legal during a fire ban.

With temperatures above 30C every day, we took extra measures like lining the inside of our coolers with Reflectix, laying soaking wet towels over the coolers during the day and keeping them in the shade. My measure of success was going to be if I still had ice for a rum and coke on the third night and cold milk for coffee on the last morning.

I still had ice in the cooler when I got home.

I’ve been friends with two of these guys for more than twenty years, and the third for not much less. I’ve been coming to this lake since the mid-nineties the year I got married, but my buddy Jim started going there the year I graduated high school. Most of my friends are older than I am. Our buddy Babe (his real name) is in his early seventies, but he’s still hauling his little trailer up the road with the rest of us.

As we didn’t have to cut, haul and chop wood this time, it was pretty much four days of laziness. We all woke at different times, only stayed up past midnight once, ate and cooked our own food, read books, listened to music, insulted each other non-stop, napped in our chairs, went swimming in the lake quite often, ate food, drank beer and other spirits, with no agenda.
I also tried my hand at wood carving for the first time. While the result was a pitiful embarrassment and reminds me of a grade school art project, I did enjoy the process and will try again soon. I must remind myself that I used to be quite bad at drawing and painting, too. You’ve got to start somewhere.

Many assume that when four guys head to a lake in the mountains, they must be fishing, but none of us do. It just sounds like work to us. There aren’t many fish in this lake anyway.
When it comes to his canoe, Jim has one rule. Anybody can use it whenever they like, with the exception of dusk. That’s when he heads out on the lake each night and paddles around by himself for an hour or so as it gets dark. This works well for me since I was the only other person who used the canoe and my favorite time to be out on the lake is first thing in the morning as the sun’s coming up, camera and coffee in hand.

The forest ranger came by every couple of days doing his rounds, making sure nobody was violating the fire ban and we enjoyed chatting with him. He said there weren’t many campers in the area, but all he encountered were being responsible, which was nice to hear.

There were some other campers on the lake the first night and some day-fishermen one day, but for the most part, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was so quiet. It was clear most of the time, but on the last evening, the smoke from one of the many BC forest fires rolled in and by morning, the trees across the lake were blurred of their definition, lost in the haze.
There were plenty of dragonflies on the lake, normal for this time of year. We’d sit on the dock while swimming and they’d occasionally land on our shoulders or legs, an enjoyable experience. While canoeing around in the morning, I’d come across one struggling in the water and dip the paddle in to rescue it, something I learned from Jim years ago. After a few minutes drying off, it would eventually fly away. I think I rescued three or four of them. Might seem like a small thing, but I imagine it mattered to the dragonfly.

I’m used to seeing a lot of ducks on this lake in the spring. Though I heard a couple one evening this trip, I only saw one solitary loon one morning, letting out his lonely call. It’s one of my favorite sounds in the world, especially when I’m out in a canoe.
The best surprise of the whole weekend was watching an Osprey one morning and I managed to get close enough to take some photos. On the last morning, after I’d already packed up my tent and most of the car, Babe was looking out at the lake and said, “There’s your Osprey over there.”

I grabbed the camera, paddled across the lake and got a few more shots before we left, a nice way to end the trip.

This might be the last camping trip of the year, but given that it has been exceptionally warm this summer, there still might be another before the snow flies. If the opportunity comes up, I will probably grab it.
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Posted on May 10, 2016May 10, 2016 by Patrick LaMontagne

Another Break by a Lake

There’s an annual B.C. camping trip that a group of friends has taken the first or second weekend of May since the early 90s. At one time, there were upwards of twenty people that attended and apparently it got pretty unruly. Thankfully, I didn’t start going up there until later that decade and it has been kept small ever since.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve written about this trip before, right around the same time last year.

Over the years, I’ve dropped in and out of the trip for various reasons. Up until last year, I hadn’t attended in eight years as I was pouring everything I could into my business and work was a priority. My little car was also showing its age. Fully loaded for camping, no matter how careful I drove, I couldn’t make it up the goat track section of the road without rocks and high spots introducing themselves to the bottom of my car. I don’t even want to know what it would cost to get towed out of there.

Now that I’ve got a little more of a utility vehicle, a Pontiac Vibe, I started going back up last year and it’s got juuuuuust enough clearance.

This year, The Calgary Expo was one week later and the camping trip one week earlier, just bad calendar luck. With only three days between the two, it was a scramble to draw enough cartoons for my papers, meet a deadline for an Autodesk/Wacom commission, and still be ready to leave Thursday morning, but I was determined.
Five of us in four vehicles, it was an easy trip up. A little rain on the first day, but three days of warmth and sunshine from Friday to Sunday, so no complaints in the weather department. With camping, weather is more than half the battle. Mosquitos are another foe, one I failed to conquer judging by the number of bites I’ve been scratching while writing this.

The last three months have been hectic, and I was glad to have it all out of the way for this trip. With nothing but my book deadline looming and the usual cartoons, I had three restful nights, even slept in ‘til 8:30 every day. For a guy who gets up at 5:00 most of the time, that’s an accomplishment.

Aside from the obligatory errand into the woods to buck up deadfall for firewood, and splitting/stacking it back at camp, there was nothing on the agenda. Didn’t even eat or drink too much, so no mornings marred by poor judgment the night before. A few old friends came up for a welcome afternoon visit on Saturday and aside from campers on the other side of the lake, we had the place pretty much to ourselves with plenty of room to spread out our tents, trucks and trailer.

I spent my time hanging out with the group, reading, paddling around the lake in the canoe, stalking ducks and squirrels with the camera and even managed some writing on the last afternoon. I did not, however, do any drawing. Not one sketch. Apparently I needed a little break from that, too.

The temperature of a mountain lake in May is a might chilly, but since we all chickened out on swimming last year, I was determined to go in this time. The first dip on Friday was quick enough to get clean and it was most definitely not the typical Canadian swimming temperature of “it’s fine…once you get in.”

The next day, I did manage to swim around for ten minutes before I began to lose feeling in my toes.

I don’t enjoy being idle for too long, and realized on the last evening, that I was ready to go home, which is a good sign. Too many lazy days and I get bored, so I was happy to make the drive home. Managed to pull over and take some shots of this black bear on the way back, too, which was a nice surprise.

On the drive home, I realized how very much I needed the camping trip this year. Next year, I might not. But it’s a nice option to have if the timing is right.

People will often tell me that I work too much, but they obviously don’t get it. I enjoy my work, even though it sometimes pisses me off (see: politics). As some of my friends are a fair bit older than I am, they’re either retired already or talk about it often. I’m of a mind that my best work is still ahead of me and my biggest fear is that some future malady or handicap will prevent me from working as long as I want to.

While I’m saving to be comfortable in my senior years, retirement is not on my radar. My work will change and evolve, I’m sure, but I can’t imagine wanting to stop. I thrive on it.

Camping trips and vacations are necessary to reset and recharge, but that means something different for each person. For me, two or three days doing nothing by a lake is ideal. Anything more than that, and I’d rather be working.

But every now and then, I still want those two or three days.

Posted on May 24, 2015May 24, 2015 by Patrick LaMontagne

A Break by a Lake

There’s a little lake in the Invermere Valley of British Columbia that I was introduced to almost twenty years ago by my buddy, Jim. He’s been going there every year without fail, for well over two decades. It was with surprise recently that I realized it had been eight years since my last visit. The reason for my absence was due in part to the demands of self-employment, building a business, and being a workaholic who has refused to take much time off since starting this gig full-time about that many years ago.

The other reason was that I had a little car I was trying to keep for as long as possible and when it was fully loaded with camping gear, it rode a little low to the ground. Given the nature of the road up to the lake, and the fact that on previous visits the undercarriage met with more than a few rock-knocks, I was reluctant to risk it on an often unpredictable road.

With the retirement of that car last year, and my upgrade to what amounts to today’s version of a station wagon, my Pontiac Vibe, I felt it was time to rejoin the world of camping, especially since I have all of the gear. I did splurge on a new instant pop-up tent this year, however, which worked like a charm. That’s the little green one on the far right.

This second weekend of May is an annual tradition for a number of friends, though people have drifted in and out of the group as time has worn on. This year, there were five of us. While it’s pretty much a guy’s weekend, our friends Babe and Susan come together, so she’s the exception to the rule.

The lake is an ideal spot that used to be a bit of a secret hideaway, but if you’ve camped anywhere in Alberta and BC lately, you’ll know that there is very little quiet and solitude to be had unless you’re off-road in the back-country. Fortunately, if you head out before the May long weekend, you might be up against unpredictable weather and a lake too cold for swimming, but you’ve got a better chance of finding a little peace.

I’d been looking forward to this weekend for quite some time this year, especially since the first four months of 2015 were very busy, with few chances for a break.

As if testing my determination to relax, our convoy of four vehicles was almost to the lake, and not yet on the roughest part of the road, when we stopped to enjoy the scenery and an unmistakable hissing sound announced that my front left tire wasn’t going to make it much further.

While I know how to change a tire, I’ve never actually had to, outside of my driver training course in the Army Reserves over twenty years ago. Believe it or not, aside from a couple of slow leaks taken in for repair over the years, I’ve never had a flat tire that warranted a roadside change. Not once.

While I began to unload my gear to get to the jack and spare, I’d barely brought it out before Jim and Al assumed the role of pit crew and had the tire changed, much quicker than I would have.

With the donut spare in place, half my gear loaded in the other vehicles, the others went on ahead to ensure we got our preferred spot, one of only three on the whole lake. I drove back down the road to the highway, headed for the Canadian Tire in Invermere. Thankfully, they managed to get my car into the shop in less than an hour. A sharp rock was the culprit, but in a good place for a patch. The mechanic told me it was a very common occurrence in that area with all of the dirt roads.

About three hours after discovering the flat, I was back up at the lake, enjoying a frosty beverage and the sunshine. Despite insomnia the first night (for no apparent reason), I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.
We had beautiful warm weather for four days, interrupted only by some cloud cover on Sunday and a few seconds of very light rain. Saturday morning, I rose early and was canoeing around the lake with my camera before anybody else had gotten up.

With plenty of time to read, take photos, play a little guitar, eat, drink and enjoy each others company, four days in the woods by a lake does wonders for one’s perspective. As there is barely any cell service in the area, the usual distractions from email and text alerts were conspicuously absent, though a short walk up the dirt road did allow for one bar of service, so our Moms did get their calls on Mother’s Day.

With no plans to stray far from home this summer, I’m already planning another camping trip in a few weeks, this time here in Alberta. If it doesn’t end up as dry as they’re predicting, or as wet as 2013, here’s hoping I can manage a few more of these outdoor breaks before the snow flies again.

It would appear to agree with me.