The Brent Run 2008

I have known about the Brent Run for a few years. My counselor, Adam Newton, did it with Ivan Lapzcak in 2003 in thirty-three hours. At that time I was fairly sure that I would never try to do something so ridiculous.

Leaving at 5

The Brent Run is a long established circuit in Algonquin Park that goes from Canoe Lake to the Brent Campground on Cedar Lake and then back to Canoe. This used to be one of the major stretches between two railroads that went through Algonquin Park. The total circuit is 162 kilometres in length; about 142 kilometres is paddled, the other twenty must be portaged. The most common route is to start on Canoe Lake, head north to Joe Lake, north to Burnt Island, north to Little Otterslide, north to Otterslide, paddle down the Otterslide Creek, head north west on Big Trout Lake, portage onto Longest Lake, north to Burntroot, east on Pervey Lake, continue east on Catfish creek, north up Catfish lake, east down Narrowbag Lake, across Cedar Creek, and paddle across Cedar Lake to the campground. Then turn around and head back to Canoe Lake.

Although most people think the Brent Run is crazy, it has always fascinated me and I have contemplated an attempt since I was a CIT. After seeing two CIT's complete the circuit in 2007 (in just over forty hours) I was committed to doing it. I spoke to various people about the trip through the winter months and contemplated logistics. My closest confidant was a long distance running partner, Jeff Hunt. Jeff is an experienced adventure racer and his input and constant attention while I planned out the route was invaluable. However, all the preparation is useless if you do not have a good Brent Run partner. I thought of Jack Keenan, a very strong athlete, good on the water, good on the portages; I facebooked Jack with this idea, I got no response. My other candidate at this early juncture was Drew Gray, my Barron River partner from July 2007, but Drew kind of disappears from contact outside camp, so I'd have to wait until the summer. At that point the idea was put on hold but I told Lee McPhail, my Stilson partner, that I was very committed to doing it but was unsure about a partner. Lee, who is in good communication with the camp office year round, informed me that Mike Dobson was coming back to camp for a final hurrah. I was not very close with Mike, as he was three years my senior and always in different circles at camp, but I suspected he would be into some crazy adventure like this one.

Hour 1

I got to camp six days before the campers arrived and was placed into the Senior Section with Mike Dobson as my section director – my boss. I first spoke to Jack and Drew about a Brent Run attempt and they did not seem enthusiastic. Jack was spending three weeks in Kipawa for July and Drew had a big section to keep tabs on. I still thought Mike was a perfect guy to do it with, but I felt I didn't know the man well enough. During meetings with Mike about my expectations for the summer, I told him I wanted to do the Brent Run. Unexpectedly Mike showed immediate interest, but wanted more time to think about it. I told him to take his time as I planned to leave more than halfway through July; sometime after my Senior Park trip.

My canoe trip was a good one, straight north up the park doing several of the lakes on the route to Cedar and back down doing the rest of the lakes and portages. Going from Canoe to Cedar and back seemed like a long trip to do without stopping, but leisurely paddling the route seemed like excellent preparation for a Brent Run attempt.

At the end of trip, I pass under the Trading Post Bridge and see a terrific orange "Welcome Back Seniors" sign, a nice way to get back. During dinner, I hear a rumor that Mike and the Head of Trip, Ryan Benson, were going to tempt faith and try the Brent Run. I decided not to bring anything up and see how things would play out. They turned out well. Ryan balked, and I got a full commitment from Mike to attempt the route. This was on a Friday and we planned to leave the next Tuesday, at 5:00 pm, having no real idea what time would be best.

Picture Number 3

Preparing for this type of project is stressful, and we tried to gather as much information as we could before we left. Chuck Beamish wrote a piece in the Fires of Friendship book and Dave Standfield was very helpful as well. The second big issue was supplies. All I wanted to bring for food was Gatorade and Powerbars. We ended up taking about twenty five energy bars and enough Gatorade powder to make sixteen liters worth. Next we had to get a canoe. You would think this would be an easy step, but in the middle of July, the best boats for trip are already out on trip. We wanted to take an Algonquin Special, a superb tripping canoe, designed and built at Ahmek. However, no Specials could be found on the dock or trip racks. We asked Dave Stanfield what to do and he said he would quickly patch up a hole in the only Special at camp and have it ready for us by Tuesday. For paddles, we had a big Stilson race paddle for the bow and a short Special by Ray Kettlewell for the stern.

When Tuesday rolls around, it's windy and a little overcast but everything seems a go for the 5:00 pm planned departure. After breakfast, I get the boat from maintenance, and Mike and I rig it up for the trip. The rest of the morning, we prepare mentally, visualizing the 162 kilometres. During lunch time announcements, the Program Director Tony West announces that we were leaving for the Brent Run this afternoon. He asks what the total distance is; I say 140km, ignorant of the real number because we hadn't figured it out yet. Then he asks what our target time was. I said twenty six hours. Coplen Rose, a TSC lifer, screamed out: "You won't break thirty."

Picture Number 4

Sitting at lunch, thinking about the Brent Run, I figured it might be a good idea to bring some pasta on our trip – carbohydrate energy. The kitchen offered no help and made me cook it myself. After I finished cooking and yelling at the kitchen staff, I went to my cabin for a short nap. Mike was programming activities for the senior section during this time. Just before 4:00 pm I head down to main camp to rally Mike. I'm dressed in full running gear, carrying twenty power bars, two cans of Gatorade powder, two margarine containers full of pasta, a paddle and a lifejacket. As I pass the stables, Chloe Tennyson asks me what I am up to. After I explain what I am up to, she tells me I am insane.

When I get to main camp, I find that Mike is a little concerned about our trip. The weather report had a very high percentage of precipitation for Tuesday evening. Rain did not scare us; it was the low visibility of a cloudy night sky that was unsettling. Looking out on Canoe Lake at 4:30 that day, it was a little windy, but there was hardly a cloud in the sky. I told Mike I wanted to go. There will always be good excuses not to attempt the Brent Run and today seemed like a pretty good day. After a bit more arm-twisting, Mike was ready to go.

Hour 12

We brought our canoe under the Trading Post Bridge to make that our official starting point. All of our gear fit in a small schoolbag: two Nalgenes, two flashlights, a cell phone, a camera, the energy bars and Gatorade powder. At the very last minute, we strapped an extra paddle under the thwarts and we grabbed a map. We almost did not bring a map. We left just before 5:00pm, with timers being started by ourselves and a few people at camp.

Our planned strategy was to work hard for fifty-five minutes, and regardless of where we were, take a five minute break. Whether we were tired or not, during this break we would stop moving and stretch a bit or maybe lie down awkwardly against the middle thwart or stern deck. We would also have a bit of Gatorade and split a Powerbar. We thought it would be a funny idea to take a picture of each other during these breaks. They ended up a pretty good visual documentation of our progress. (Hopefully they have made it attached to here).

I started off in the bow of the boat and there was a considerable wind coming from the south. Turning around Hayhurst gave us a smooth tailwind right to Joe Lake. We do the first 395 metre portage tandem; Mike carried the pack and I took the paddles. As we passed under the Joe Lake bridge, we tapped our paddles and hoped for good luck. Farther down the lake, we see a man sitting on a rock and are tacitly hoping he asks where we are headed. As we get closer we realize the man is naked and there is not much conversation. It was time for our first break just before the end of Joe Lake. After skipping a portage because of the high water levels, we tandem the 400m portage onto Little Joe Lake with great rhythm. The tailwind carries us to the next portage – to Burnt Island Lake – and halfway through, a bear runs across the path no more than ten feet ahead of me. We were both so focused on the task at hand that we did not break stride, just kept moving forward.

Hour 16

Burnt Island Lake was a breeze, we figured we were paddling 8-9 km per hour with our big tailwind. The next portage is 800 metres onto Little Otterslide Lake. We move quickly, hoping to get through the Otterslide Creeks before nightfall. We saw a moose, but paid less attention to the animal than he did us; probably a rare occasion in Algonquin Park. The Otterslide Creeks are about seven kilometres of windy narrow passages getting very shallow in some parts. There are five portages and a couple of beaver dams. Heading north is downstream, and so the current helped us reach Big Trout well before dark.

Our wonderful tailwind continued on Big Trout Lake and we watched the sunset trying to ignore the menacing clouds creeping up the horizon. It is pitch dark when we reach the end of the lake and it took a while to find the portage. We decided to carry the canoe solo with the other partner in front lighting up the path. Mike ran ahead of me on this portage and with both of our lights and the reflectors on Mike's shoes and backpack, I had great vision and ran swiftly. We tried to maintain our quick pace on Longest Lake, but the portages to Burntroot were swampy and some were around significant rapids so we proceeded cautiously. Around this time we noticed we kept paddling over lily pads and reeds, the dark making it nearly impossible to avoid the water foliage. This was frustrating because of how much it slowed us down. We were able to find the next few portages without too much trouble and cruised down Burntroot Lake with negligible wind. The breaks seemed to be working and we both felt strong.

Hour 21

At the end of Burntroot, things started to go awry. It took us a while to find the next portage and then we hit Pervey, our least favorite lake of the whole trip. Pervey is long and narrow with small bays on the side and seemed to drag on much farther than the map showed. We got to the end and after a few quick portages were on Catfish Lake. I was excited here because we had planned to switch positions so that I would be in the stern. Right from the portage I led us through a long bed of lily pads and a bit of a tour of the lake when I picked the wrong bay trying to find the next portage. A light rain had just begun and the clouds did not help navigation.

After finishing Catfish and the next lake, Narrowbag, we came to our longest portage of the trip, 2350 metres. I started off carrying the canoe, planning to switch with Mike around halfway. Our pace was still pretty quick and Mike appeared drained halfway through his turn. I took the canoe for the rest of the way and for the next two portages. This led us to Cedar, a big beautiful lake and the halfway point of our trip. It was about 4:45am and the sun was just rising. The paddle across Cedar to the Brent Campground was a very long thirty minutes.

We pulled up our canoe and planned to spend about thirty minutes to rest and eat. It was 5:15am and we were exactly halfway. Nothing was open and no one was awake. We found a bench outside the Brent Store where we sipped Gatorade and ate some delicious pasta. After fifteen or twenty minutes our bellies were full and we started to get cold. We cut our rest short and began the trip back to Canoe Lake around 5:35 am.

Hour 26

I carried the canoe on the first couple of portages to give Mike a rest and then we tandem carried the entire 2350m, which was now uphill. The wind was blowing strong on Narrowbag Lake and it was no longer in a favorable direction. At this point we had been tripping for around fifteen hours and the five minute break seemed like heaven. We ducked behind a small island to eat some power bars and ingest something called Rocket Fuel, a turbo version of Gatorade. Mike kept splashing water on his face to wake himself up and then we were off, feeling surprisingly strong. Around this time we noticed how powerful the sun was – even this early in the day – and subsequently realized how ill equipped we were for protection. Mike brought an old pair of sunglasses, I had nothing.

Catfish Lake posed no problems the second time around. We alternated carrying the canoe for the next few portages and marched along solidly. Pervey Lake nearly killed us with a monster headwind and the feeling that the next portage would never come. Adding insult to injury, we realized this lake was on more of an east-west line than straight south to camp where we wanted to be. It is unfortunately the only route. Around this point I began to feel the pain of monotony. Paddling and portaging, paddling and portaging. I felt like I was going crazy, but I pushed hard and the craziness stayed away for a little bit. We struggled through Pervey and Burntroot – where Mike pulled out an iPod for about an hour – and then Longest and Big Trout. On Big Trout, we saw a trip from Camp Pathfinder up ahead and hoped to gloat. We barely had the strength to continue paddling, and did not catch up to show off. Farther down the lake, we spotted three green canoes and felt the excitement of running into Wapomeo. Mike had a slightly awkward conversation with one of the staff members, Verity Sylvester. It was awkward because the girls did not really understand what we were doing and because we had been tripping for twenty hours straight we weren't really explaining it very well.

Twenty-six hours thirty-two minutes

Before getting to the Otterslide creek, we had another helping of the turbo juice to get our energy up. We start the creek and there was basically a traffic jam. They were mostly Pathfinder canoes, and we tried to work our way around them. Going upstream made turning the boat tough and because my knees were too sore to kneel for long, my draws were not as effective. We bumped into their boats a few times. As we passed another trip dragging our canoe over a beaver dam, I tripped and fell into the water. Normally I would have been embarrassed with my lack of grace but I could not have cared less.

Once on Otterslide Lake, we realized there was a chance we could get to camp during dinner. This gave us great energy, and we worked hard to get to Burnt Island. We started to tandem carry the canoe again and were moving pretty well, or so I thought. It was during this stretch that the craziness came back and I began to mildly hallucinate. Rocks looked like little kids playing in the water and I saw strange canoes all over the place. Mike saw Dining Hall decorations hanging in the woods.

Done!

We finally got to Burnt Island where we faced a huge headwind. We paddled as hard as we could and finished the lake in decent time. The mental and physical exhaustion we felt at this point really made it hard to exert any energy and we came down Joe Lake about as slow as you can move in a canoe. I had trouble sitting in any position for more than ten minutes and paddling on the right side was very painful on my elbow. We still had quite a headwind as well. Finishing the Joe Lake Portage never felt better and coming around Hayhurst, we forgot about the wind, and focused on the Trading Post Bridge. A sign hung that read "Welcome Back Brent Run" and there was a small crowd. We fell out of the canoe and checked our watches – Twenty Six Hours and Thirty Two Minutes.