Ed Hardy 2008
Ed Hardy grew up in Washington D.C. He first attended Blackburn Junior College and then spent three years at Penn State where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering. After leaving Pennsylvania, Ed encountered many job opportunities including Wright Aeronautical Company, enlisted three years in the Marine Corps working with the Navy Department, and later worked twenty-eight years for Ford Motor Company. Ed was active in the Boy Scouts for over thirty years. He has now been retired for thirty-three years in Boulder, Colorado after earning a pension from the volunteer fire department of Sugarloaf.
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A Canoe Trip In Canada
Off and on, I had been a member of the Boy Scouts of America since I was 12 years old. In July of 1977, at age 58, I went on a canoe expedition through Algonquin National Park, which is located in Canada. The park sits just north of the Minnesota-Canadian border. The park was chosen for the trip because it has a large number of lakes and rivers. Unfortunately, the larger bodies of water were not all connected, and so traveling between them was difficult. We would have to walk and carry our equipment. Some of the portages were only 100 feet long, but the largest was a mile long. Our crew consisted of seven scouts, two adults and one guide in four canoes. I was one of two adults present to oversee the scouts and go along for the ride. Dave Woodendike, the man who organized the trek, was in a different crew.
The trek started in Ely, Minnesota at the Charles Somers canoe base, and we paddled to the Canadian Border. We ate fairly quickly on the first day so that we would make it to camp before dark. After about 5 hours, we made it to the first camp. We wore long sleeved shirts and special canoe shoes. These shoes were special because they had rubber soles and the upper was made of canvas. The purpose of this design was for easy drainage of water, because when we got out of our canoes to go ashore, we would have to step into the lake. In order to take the canoe out of the water, you would use the leverage of your hip to hoist the boat up and onto your shoulders. From there, one man would carry a canoe and the other two crew members would carry the equipment in monster backpacks.
Much to my surprise, at the beginning of the trip the guide asked me to cook for the whole crew for the entire trip. Normally, we would have expected to rotate the cooking so there’s a different person who cooked each day, but for some reason he decided that one person would do it and for some reason he chose me. I was pleased to do it because this way I didn’t have to clean up. Mostly, it was just meat and potatoes boiled in a big pot, sitting on a coupe rocks. It could be difficult to keep the fire warm enough because the fuel would be constantly depleting, and there were multiple dishes to be timed. The canoe base was well organized because the dried food rations were well planned. At that time, you could just take the water for boiling out of the lake. That night, I fixed some sort of meat dish, and we ate around the campfire together. Our food was separated into packages, and rationed so that all the food for one meal was in one package.
The Shortcut
One day, our guide looked at the map and decided to take a shortcut with our equipment to a lake that was over a mile away. This shortcut had a lot of trees close together to the point where the canoe would get stuck between two trees. This would turn out to be a problem because the lake was a mile away. One of the scouts ignored the guide’s instructions and didn’t wear a shirt, and soon he was being assaulted by mosquitoes. Then, to make things worse, the guide had a sprained ankle. He could walk but he could not carry his canoe. We still were not to the next lake and so I volunteered to deliver my canoe to the next camp, and then return to the start of the detour to get his and bring it for him.
Throughout the trip, the fishing was pretty good, and in the evenings some of the boys would catch their dinners from the water. In addition to this, there were blueberry bushes everywhere. We could look at a patch of blueberries, and the scene would just appear blue because of all the berries. They tasted good, and we even made pancakes with them a couple times. Of course, we had to be wary about bears because of all the potential food around us. There was not much we could do about the bears, but the crew’s supply of food was all hung inside of a bag suspended from a rope tied between two trees.
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On the last day, we spent the whole morning cleaning the pots, which were black from five days of cooking over an open fire. We had to keep scrubbing until the pots shined, or at least the pots shined.
Our route went in a large circle around the park, so that we could end in the same place that we had started. The last day that we were out, we had left over food that hadn’t been eaten yet and so I cooked everything. It was really impressive because it was about twice as much as we normally ate, and we ate it all. We rested the entire day and canoed by moonlight. We were out until midnight and all of the flat campsites were already taken. We ended up settling on one that was sort of on the side of a little hill. We pitched one of our three-man tents and all ten of us slept in it. We all slept really well, but when we woke up in the morning, we were surprised to find ourselves in a pile at the low end of the tent.
The next day we packed up everything and returned our canoes and equipment to the canoe base. Then, we turned around and went home. After two days’ travel in a van, we were finally home. After a week of camping out, I was happy to go home to see my wife again, have a bath and some home cooked food. This was one of the most enjoyable scout trips I've ever been on. The beautiful lakes and woods gave me some idea of what the early settlers saw when they arrived here in the 1700's. The trip gave me the chance to have an old-time adventure like a French voyager. I was pleased to find I was able to throw a canoe to onto my shoulders to carry it.
Recently, I talked to Eliot Snyder, a scout from the trip. He has been active in scouting for over 30 years. He also remembered details about the trip that I’d forgotten, like the crystal clear water that was clear enough to drink. Despite the differences in our ages, we both agreed it was one of the most enjoyable trips we’d ever been on.