Up North, Ya Know (part 4)

(WARNING: spider picture follows!)

Bearskin Lodge is conscientious because they only charge you for the things you use. We decided ahead of time that we wanted to have a canoe every day. Our family is, for the most part, dock-sitters, but occasionally, as I said, I get antsy and want to do All The Things. So it's nice for me to be able to hop into a canoe and tool around the Lodge end of East Bearskin Lake.

I'm not an expert canoer by any stretch of imagination.

I've been in a canoe plenty, but in the world of self-propelled watercraft, I'm probably best at a kayak. It was particularly noticeable this time how much I kind of suck at canoe. This time we had some days when the wind really pushed me around. Even with Mason sitting in the front, we'd get pushed so hard that the canoe would just go in a circle or slam up against the shore. Probably this had a lot to do with the fact that I'm crap at steering (we discovered on the last day, of course, that Mason is a natural!) but, regardless, it was both upsetting and hilarious.

As a bonus, we're pretty sure that the Bearskin web cam caught some of our antics.

Here's the view from the canoe:



We pulled off on a little island to tromp around a bit. Here's the wild explorer, Mason:



The views of the lake were spectacular:



Here's us heading off:



Plus, it turns out? If you sit on the dock all day, you might encounter one of these:



This is what Andy called a 'dock spider' which he gleefully announced, gets bigger--much bigger. The size of dinner plates by August, he said. To which Shawn replied, "That's why we come in May."

Apparently they're a a type of dolomites, a fishing spider. That's right... they can sometimes catch and eat small fish. Mostly they eat water skaters, though, which I saw plenty of, which is, I suppose, how our dock could support TWO of these beasts.

We kept seeing a snake around near our dock too, and according to Wikipedia, snakes and birds are dock spiders' main predators.

Ah, nature!