Viva la Hawk Lake

I was felt up by a total stranger today.

But hey, I’ve got two weeks of Canadian goodness to catch you up on, so let’s not get distracted.

So, here we were at the Hawk Lake cottage, sans power, propane, and running water. After a good night’s sleep, I wake up to find Kev and Chris plotting to head into Buckingham, a 30 minute drive, to gather supplies such as ice and propane. Not wanting to be left at the cottage with three total strangers (I’m shy until you break down my barriers) I hopped into the car with the boys. As we left, Marty appeared, barely awake, and asked what we were doing. Kev replied, “We’re heading into town for supplies” to which Marty drawled, “So… We’re making a stand” and went back to bed.
The trip to Buckingham was interesting, and I got to hear Chris and Kev chat about boy stuff, like video games. We found a much bigger supermarket than the day before, yet the bastards still didn’t stock Pepsi Max. We grabbed about 16 litres of water, and some other vital bits and pieces. I started to develop the awareness that some employees at ‘common’ stores only spoke French, so I kept Kev close by whenever we were purchasing anything. We grabbed Propane and bag after bag of ice, and sped to the cottage once more. I do mean sped.

Once the supplies were organised we had lunch (BBQ) and slipped on our swimwear. In two trips we travelled out to the island in the main part of Hawk Lake via the motor boat, to grab some sun and consume some booze (not me, Mum). The island is quite a popular spot, even though it’s quite small, as it has a smooth stone area facing north, perfect to sunbake on and a safe launch pad for entry into the water. We enjoyed a couple of hours chatting and generally hanging out, bothered only by the occasional insect. Marty swam the substantial distance to the other island, and was followed by Chris. Kev and I made the same journey through the superficially warm water (water more than 50cm down from the surface became uncomfortably cold so there was a lot of safety backstroke happening). Our return was met by complaints from the others concerning flies that bit – soon identified to be black flies. We decided to flee, so I went in the first run back home. The second load apparently was followed by a swarm of black flies that literally surrounded the boat and had to be outrun from the dock to the cottage! No one was seriously injured, but not many of us were keen to go back to the island.

We had, wait for it, BBQ for dinner, including some President’s Choice filet mignon that Kev’s mum was saving in the cottage freezer. Sadly it had defrosted due to the power outage so we thought we should do the right thing and eat it all. You’re welcome.

We had the rest of Kev’s team of friends arriving that night, supposedly for dinner, but we received multiple calls informing us that the arrival had been delayed… Meanwhile, we had been calling Hydro-Quebec, the electricity company, to get updates concerning our reigniting of power. At 6:30pm they said it would be back at 7:15pm. At 7:20pm they said “in 10 minutes.” But at 9pm, the glorious sound of a fridge groaning back into action evoked excited cheers from the team! Indulging in the electric lights and waiting for the fridges to cool, we played a super-fun card game called Asshole. I was never the Asshole, Kev frequently was. We finally tired of the game at 11:30pm, in time for Chris and Kev to meet the convoy at the Hawk Lake anti-hunter gate. I stayed up to meet the newbies – Tracy, Justin, Vince, and his bride whose name I won’t ever dare try to spell (if someone wants to email me the correct spelling, I’ll edit this). I figured that even though I was really tired, it would be best to meet Kev’s friends and then we’d all head to bed. Wrong. All the new arrivals wanted to chat and enjoy their first night of cottage-life. I stayed up as long as I could, but ended up piking at 1am or so, and Kev joined me an hour or so later. Dang those guys were loud, I may well have stayed up cos I didn’t get any sleep until the new crew finally went to bed at 3am or so. But that was fine – there was no pressure at the cottage to stick to a regular sleep-wake cycle, so sleeping in was fine. Chantal in particular enjoyed this freedom, often passing out in her chair at 7pm and sleeping until noon, with varying wakefulness in between. That girl even put my cat-like love of sleeping to shame.

The next day, Friday, some of us went for an early morning (well, 11am) swim near the dock. Had to be there moment that I don’t want to forget about – Justin swimming back from the far side of the lake, stopping briefly to ask which dock was ours, but without waiting for an answer swims to the neighbour’s dock, climbs up their ladder, takes off his goggles… Kev and I wave from our dock. “Your dock is red??” Gold. Almost platinum, if only the neighbours had been on their dock at the time.

We had some experimental sandwiches for lunch – deli meat, mustard, cheese, oregano… apple? We packed them into bags, mixed up some booze and some 5 Alive for Kev and myself, and made preparations to head over to the island. Kev and I did recon to check for black flies, but not a one was to be seen. We also boated over to the other island to see if there were any blueberries – there were but they were teeny. We headed back and started ferrying the rest of the team over to the island. I don’t remember a whole lot about the afternoon on the island – lots of chatting, relaxing, some shenanigans with Justin falling into the water and Vince telling us about his wedding. Tracy and Justin, who had done some rescue shopping on their way to the cottage to help our powerlessness (mozzie lamp, biodegradable shampoo, etc) had also bought a water pistol for everyone! So the island was rife with water wars – super fun! Sadly the weather was a bit patchy, very cloudy, and at about 4pm drops of rain started falling randomly from a very nasty looking storm cloud. Kev took Tracy, Chris, Vince and Lou back to the cottage, and while they were doing that the storm clouds disappeared and the sun beamed down stronger than it had all day. Chantal, aided by certain smoking materials, was eager to stay and enjoy the sunshine, and I’m also one to indulge in water activities wherever possible, so we leapt into the water. Marty and Justin were also suitably comfortable in the warming weather, so when Kevin returned we decided to spend some more time on the island. Chantal, Kev and I floated around with pool noodles, until the boys wanted to leave. Kev ferried the boys back, leaving Chantal and I to chat about stuff. She’s one cool chick.

One for Mum: on our way onto the motorboat, Kev spotted a frog in the grass – big as ya hand! I wanted to get a photo but it sprang into denser grass.

I love motorboats. I love the sun beaming down while the wind whips across me – hot but comfortable. I’d love to try water-skiing. I saw some families with an inflatable ring being towed behind speedboats, it looks so fun! One day…

Friday night was my introduction to “The Tick”, a defunct comedy TV show about superheroes that are a bit dysfunctional. Very funny. We then played “Cranium” which is a board game combining Pictionary, Charades, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble, sort of. We split our group into two teams using a random team allocation method, yet all couples were together except Kevin and myself. My team won. Aw yeah.

Saturday was a bit of a wasted day. I made pancakes for everyone’s breakfast, which were devoured passionately. We went down and sat on the dock for a bit. Watched a couple of X-Files episodes. Played “Scene-It” and then sat around the campfire (at 10pm) and toasted marshmallows and had hot dogs. Poor foolish Aussie girl me, I thought hot dogs were normal ones that you had to cook, you know, like saveloys. So there I was with my hotdog slowly turning black because I feared uncooked meat, until someone finally pointed out that these hotdogs were ones that were processed and people used them ‘raw’ in salads and stuff. Bah. It was good anyway.

I will let Kevin relate this tale in his blog, but it concerns $50, the dock at night-time, and wet shoes. Look out for it.

We all went back inside and watched “Batman Begins”. That night we were all very happy to go to bed.

Sunday was tinged with sadness as we packed up everything and prepared to say farewell to the cottage for what could be a couple of years, if not more. Luckily, some of Kev’s friends have very original ways of lightening a sombre mood:

Early in the week I had been told a story about a party that had been attended by Chris and family, and Tracy, and probably more people so that would be a small party. Apparently Chris’s mother over-indulged in certain beverages and walked through a screen door. Now, Chris also enjoys the odd drink, but on Saturday he was 100% sober. However, as we were arranging ourselves to be photographed on the cottage balcony, Chris managed to go inside for something, and upon his return… The screen door popped clean out of its frame and the door jumped the track a little. Hoo, my cheeks still remember the pain of laughing so hard, so long… We all smiled a little broader in the photos – except Chris, who claims he left the door open when he went inside so he didn’t expect anyone to have closed it. Fair, but still funny.

The team went down to the dock for a final smoke-up while Kev and I finished packing our things. Our leaving time was about 5 minutes away. Next thing we know, Chris and Marty come bounding in to change into their swimmers. It would seem that Lou, after enjoying a smoke on the dock, got up to leave but forgot she had her car keys on her lap. Kachink-sploosh! Fortunately, Tracy spotted the keys through the dock and Marty had no trouble diving in to fish them out. We were on our way at 1:30pm, only half an hour later than planned. Bye-bye Hawk Lake.

Chris and team drove us to Kev’s granddad’s place in Buckingham – it was a miracle of luggage manipulation that we all fitted into the two teeny cars. The farewell at Buckingham was fairly non-existent as we planned to see each other in Montreal. Had to say goodbye to Marty and Chantal though, which was sad. They’re a cool couple.

Next: the Yank family reunion in Poltimore. Now: time to board the plane to Reno.