Joined Goose and Coach LD for paddle down the Humber River from Duffy's Lane to Hickman St. For some reason - probably because it requires a car shuttle - we'd never done this paddle before, even though it's only 15 minutes from home. It feels like wilderness in the Humber Valley, but we came ashore in the heart of downtown Bolton - very cool.
The pooches enjoy paddling, so we brought them along. Not such a great idea, as they found the sights and smells of the narrow river much more stimulating than our usual flatwater trips, and they didn't want to sit politely. At one point, BulletDog leapt out and started swimming when we ran aground, then panicked that we were going to abandon her and tried to do chin-ups on the side of the canoe to get back in. She seemed poised to leap out much of the time, and when we met the odd dog or hiker along the shore, she went ballistic. ThunderDog was more sedate, but kept switching from one side of the canoe to the other, throwing our balance off at odd moments.
All of this wouldn't have been too bad on flat water, especially with the ballast of canoe packs to stabilize us. It wasn't so great on moving water, and it would have been nice to be able to focus on paddling this section of river properly, i.e. with 2 hands on the paddle! I guess it's Class 1 - you'd have to work hard to get into trouble at this time of year, but it still wouldn't be fun to tip.
We had some good wildlife sightings - a couple of deer that bounded by and splashed across the river, a beaver swimming with a twig, and a great blue heron that can be seen taking off at the right side of this photo. Fun little adventure!