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As it gets warmer, folks in the North Country are dusting off their canoes, and we’re starting to see more and more boats out on the region’s rivers and lakes. In early May, I set off with two friends for a quick overnight camping trip on Lower Saranac Lake.
We put two canoes in at the Second Pond boat launch, filled to the brim with firewood, camping supplies, two big coolers of food, and fishing gear.
The water was still quite cold, so we wore life jackets and Will Madison came prepared with the appropriate footwear, too: muck boots. “Normally in the warmer season I would just wear my Chacos,” he laughed. “But the water is still a little chilly, so I’m going with the muck boots today.”
Madison took a solo canoe, and Zachary Rose and I took a two-seater. Around 5:30 in the evening, we pushed off from shore, and started paddling towards the lower locks. It was a quintessential late-spring, early-summer day. The trees were still mostly bare, but it was 60 degrees, bright and sunny, and best of all, there were no bugs.
We saw a single loon bathing itself in that late afternoon golden light. The water was fairly still, and a beautiful deep blue color. We paddled across Second Pond and into a smaller, tighter channel, where it became wondrously quiet.
We stopped to fish, and Zach caught a small-mouthed bass. A little further on we decided to make camp at the Cold Brook lean-to.
We pulled the canoes onto a sandy bank next to a picnic table. Set further back into the woods was the lean-to. It’s a pretty popular spot in the summer, but in early May, we were the only ones around.
After making camp, we started a small fire, and as the light faded, we cooked dinner on the coals: potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil, ears of corn with the husks still on, dunked in the lake water and put straight on the fire. Porkchops fried sizzling hot in a cast iron pan. We hunched around the fire, balancing full plates on our knees.
Before bed, as the fire died down, I walked back out to where we’d pulled our canoes up the sandy bank. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, and a bright half-moon bathed the shoreline in silver light. It was one of those moments where you feel impossibly lucky.
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