Whenever we go camping, my Mom likes to bring "almost" everything. This usually causes frustration and heated debate before we leave on a trip. This Victoria Day weekend we made our annual trip to the Lake of Two Rivers campground in Algonquin Park. Unlike previous years, this was our first experience and encounter with the infamous little black flies. They were so small I didn't think they could do any harm at all; boy, was I wrong.
On the second day at the campground, we were pestered and bugged by those tiny black flies.By the end of the day we had bites everywhere! During the day, we decided to go canoeing on the Lake of Two Rivers. Again there was some discussion about what to pack into the small canoe. In the end, my mom won and we jammed bags into every crevice. At first, the water was calm and relaxing. In the distance we spotted a small motor boat coming across the lake. As it passed us, the entire canoe heaved left and right. We quickly decided to stay closer to the shore edge just in case a bigger boat came our way. As we started to paddle we spotted a bigger motor boat headed right for us! We were paddling as fast as we could looking for a place to hide from the boat.
In the distance we saw another family in a canoe entering into a small opening. We followed them. As we entered through the small opening, we entered a wide canal and water again felt peaceful and calm. Suddenly, we heard a "Thud !" from the bottom of the canoe. My dad leaned over the canoe and realized that we were stuck on a pile of branches under the water all clustered together. We all pushed with our paddles and the canoe finally heaved and plunked into the shallow water on the other side. As we started to paddle a sudden haze descended and we quickly realized it was a huge cloud of black flies. In a couple of seconds we were surrounded by black flies in every direction. They were biting us and buzzing in our ears. We couldn't paddle as we were too busy fighting off the attack. We couldn't even scream as they were crawling everywhere. Suddenly, my mom remembered that she had packed bug suits for each of us. We struggled to put them on, but as soon as we had, we got out of the little creek as fast as we could and headed straight for the beach where my grandparents were waiting.Now my whole family knows the importance of being prepared for those "just in case" situations (to quote my mom) and pack a lot of essentials because you never know when it might come in handy. If it wasn't for my mom who packed the bug suits for us, we might have been eaten alive. But thanks to my mom we were able to continue canoeing and enjoy the rest of the trip. She always tells us that you can never be too prepared.
From this experience I learned to always come prepared.
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