by John Fitzsimons
Once again several dedicated members of GLSKA held their noses for the annual clean-up weekend this past September and ventured out to Franklin Island to see what man (the motorized type) had wrought. You will notice I have given up totally on the euphemisms and refrained from calling this an end-of-season trip, fall rendezvous, or the like. It was another fine weekend though, perfect for solo star gazing on Friday night while listening for that one bear that had missed out on the Cheetos and Fruitloops and, given that there were few berries this summer, was looking for that one last meal before hibernating.
As part of environmental stewardship activities in the area of which GLSKA plays a part, groups in Parry Sound had been busy this past summer constructing new thunderboxes, and it was my intention to erect a few of these where needed but it was not a time for being overzealous as it turned out. White Squall generously donated a nice Kevlar canoe for the purpose of getting the thunderboxes out to Franklin Island. Tim and company at White Squall, along with the Eastern Georgian Bay Stewardship Council, had maintained roving clean-up crews in the area for almost the entire summer. While this is a sure sign of the growing popularity of the area, it reminds us that without adequate attention things on our favourite islands could deteriorate quickly if not treated with care.
We were fortunate in our particular endeavour in having Kim and Laura along who are working on a new prototype for an onboard thunderbox that will need some slight modification to get it ready for kayak application. Sam having almost finished his new house was looking for construction opportunities and had those thunderboxes assembled in jig time. Ed being the engineer knew exactly where to dig the holes directing me first here then there while Sarka recorded the event for posterity and Debbie marvelled at how the men were able to slash through masses of roots with my trusty pick without benefit of the shears.
Having noted on Lenice Island just off Franklin Island, that it was no place for a fully assembled thunderbox after finding several strategically hidden almost camouflaged in the brush, we moved back to Franklin Island. After playing that contest, find the most remote thunderbox on Franklin Island, which Sam seems quite gifted at, we moved on to our first location for a new thunderbox near Henrietta Point. Even though there were a few thunderboxes present already, we were reminded by the inhabitants that you can never have too many thunderboxes, but we didn’t go into the details. We promptly looked for the first place with two feet of soil, then one foot of soil, and settled for nine inches I believe it was. Yes we thought that would do fine and you see we made it extra long and while it might take some doing, still provided lots of ‘capacity’. The next thunderbox was positioned at the south end of Franklin Island, an area that appears over-run with campers based on wall-to-wall tents this past summer; so definitely we could not go wrong here. The last thunderbox went into a small bay south of Regatta Bay. It seems to demarcate the transition from the really inconsiderate to the only mildly inconsiderate motorboaters, since there were only eight tin cans in the fire pit instead of the usual two dozen. The last of three thunderboxes was in place roughly eight hours after we started, hence my point about not being overzealous.
I had thought about bringing out five thunderboxes but didn’t think it fair to Kim and Laura our two canoeists, to send them out in a canoe with only a couple of inches of freeboard. On Sunday a group ventured out to Snake Island which was quite clean in comparison. This leads me to conclude that once again Franklin Island as much as we might dislike it especially the east side, has been a bastion against the further range extension and ensuing environmental degradation of homo motorboaticus.