by Natalie Weist

Well, I guess the presence of one dog on one kayak doesn’t entirely mean the place is going to the dogs, but it is an interesting adventure.

Some weeks back, I put a last minute note out on the HCC List about a trip to Lake Charlotte, as a replacement for the cancelled Women’s Trip. Only Linda Day, and her dog Chipper, took me up on it so we had a lovely float through the swamps.

As you can see, Linda has a unique doggy carrier for Chipper, a 10 lb. toy poodle. Mighty spiffy doggy PFD as well, which she demonstrated as an effective dog carrying device.

The water was quite high, at 10’, so finding the passages was sometimes rather challenging as one could paddle almost everywhere and not see any dry ground. I exhibited what has become a too-frequent navigational derring-do; my map of the area got left at home on the kitchen table; and my GPS (and you know I’m an inept operator…) was right next to it in the cabinet! Luckily, since we decided to try some of those tricky Miller-Mud Lake connections, Linda had her GPS with her, and it had several critical points already loaded on it. Too bad the maps lacked detail. I can state now that I was thoroughly lost way back in the swamps but serendipity came along at just the right time and I recognized that we were in Lake Pass – having missed Miller Lake entirely in our wandering about the swamps.

Here we are emerging from Lake Pass into Lake Miller. You can see from this photo that Chipper never doubted that the right path lay straight ahead – right on through the duckweed and thickets!

For those who would like to find the Miller marker at Lake Miller, here’s what you are looking for: As usual at this water level, the only dry land we saw on our trip was this shore of Lake Miller.

Ellen was my canoeing partner. Somehow in all the years we have paddled together I have failed in my educational mission; she seems to be taking fewer and fewer paddle strokes as we go along. With winds reaching 20 mph on the Ellington gages, this made for an excellant cardiovascular workout for moi as we headed into the winds, or directly across them. We all had a marvelous trip – I never tire of paddling into the swamps in this region. It’s always beautiful and there is always something new and different to see, and new routes to be discovered.