Gulls will dive-bomb you with poop

I've spent half the last 2 weeks driving to and from Ontario. The other half was spent *in* Ontario -- the Quetico park to be exact -- caneoing and camping.

Suffice to say, it rocked. Pictures will hopefully be available soon, but until then, several highlights:

--Seagulls will poop on you to save their chicks. We innocently canoed between a rock with several adult gulls on it and their chick which was in the water. The adults went nuts! I didn't get hit, but they came damn close -- think multiple bombs dropped on a strafing run, with tracers and everything. One of the others in our group wasn't so lucky; she got hit on the shirt.

--The 3rd day out, the squirrels attacked. Apparently other people had been feeding them and they learned that packs==food. We'd chase them away from one pack and they'd head straight for another. So we set up a trap using a large saucepot, a stick, and fishing line. Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote all the way. And we caught not one, but TWO of the little monsters. I know you don't believe it but it's true. Each time, we carted them over to another island and set them loose.

--Other than gulls, saw a big snapper turtle, lots of smallmouth bass, and several bald eagles. Some of the more determined members of our group managed to see a moose and a wolf.

--Speaking of smallmouth bass, they were so easy to catch we literally got tired of taking them off the hook. And I'm by no means an experienced fisherman; this was the first time I'd been fishing in about 20 years.

The park itself was gorgeous. Some of lakes were dark water (lots of tanin from organic matter) and others were clear down to about 20 feet, but all of them were CLEAN. Most were off-limits to motor boats (assuming they could even get in -- we had to carry the canoes into most of the lakes). Many, many islands, from bald rocks sticking out of the water to fully-wooded estates with campsites. Lots of evergreen trees, along with healthy amounts of birch and aspen. Shallow water grass beds and lily pad beds were plentiful (one particular place was loaded with hundreds of lily pad blooms).

Despite being as far as 17 miles or so away from rudimentary civilization (and without powered transportation), we were hardly roughing it. We had solar-heated bag showers, coleman stoves for cooking, sleeping pads to smooth out the rocks in the ground, tons of food (far more than we needed), electric razors, and even a kitchen sink! Still had a lot of fun.

Needless to say, I had a great time and yes, I did the #2 in the woods. Several times.