The end of the road and the crazy cabin murderer

10.08.2008

Today was the day to pack up our campsite and hit the road!

Keith made some hot chocolate, because it was a little bit cool this morning, and after that he went for a shower while I headed down to the front of the park to reserve a rental car. This is quite the journey, so I try not to do it very much. The thing about Yellowknife is that some cell phone companies don't provide coverage there. One of them happens to be Rogers, which is the phone that Keith has. So we had to walk maybe 1k each time we wanted to use the phone. Not a big deal when you want to get away from it all, but it becomes a bigger deal when you want to rent a car. Renting a car sucks, and they didn't have my work discount company in the area, so I couldn't decide on a place. I ended up phoning all kinds of places, and settling on Hertz, because this was the only place answering the phone for me still. Anyway, we got a nice blue one, and a lady named Lorreen or Lorraine came to pick us up. She was a heavy metal rockin' chick, who moved to Yellowknife a few years ago. She said she would never go back.

OK OK OK, Keith has insurance and I don't, so he drove. We went and bought some lunch, then we went straight to that art gallery, and I bought the northern lights painting I wanted before. Next on the agenda was finding the END OF THE HIGHWAY. This is the most north you can get on any Canadian road, so we had to go there. We found the Ingraham Trail and took it straight to the end. Most of it was not paved, but we were informed by many signs on the roadside that Canada was working on it. "Canada is making Canada more beautiful. Because really, who else is going to do it?"

So after about an hour of driving through beautiful lakes and hills with lots of lilypads and stuff, we found ourselves at a stop sign. This is the END OF CANADA and all there is, is a stop sign? You've got to be kidding me. Talk about anti-climactic... We took a photo anyway.

We were also advised to go and see Cameron Falls, so we took our sandwiches and headed down there. Definitely worth the trip and the rental car. Again, one of those things you have to see to believe. I grew up near Niagara Falls, but still, I'm amazed every time there are rocks and water rushes past them, I don't know why. Maybe it's in my blood. After a lunch of croissants, we briefly spotted a black bear across the river and said hello to a couple of other hikers.

So, Keith has a little bit of an adventurous spirit, which is usually a good thing. However, as it turns out, not today. He went climbing all over the rocks, and he looked like he was having so much fun, I couldn't resist. I followed along, absentmindedly putting my camera in my hoodie pocket. Yeah, I know. We had to climb over this little stream and my foot slipped on a wet rock, when what do you know? My camera falls right into the water. I jumped in after it and picked it right up, but it still broke. Heartbroken and plagued with a major soaker, I continued on. Keith's camera was also acting up, and only taking photos from what looked like Jupiter. But I think we can fix them in Photoshop later.

As we continued down along the river we were not surprised to see a lovely, very professional looking bridge, spanning the river I didn't have to jump across. Had we only seen this bridge, my camera could've been spared. Alas, this was not to be the case. Happily, I had my Flip Video in my bag, so I took some videos of the rest of Cameron Falls.

We kept driving in search of a place to stay for the night. I saw a sign that said there was supposed to be cabins at Prelude Lake campsite. We drove down the long driveway, and asked the guy in charge if they had cabins.

"Not officially, no"

"Hey, didn't I see you hiking at Cameron Falls a second ago?"

"Yep, I sure did. What are you guys doing here?"

"Looking for a cabin."

"You can come stay in mine, $50. OK, can I get a ride with you, and then I'll show you?"

"Yeah, sure."

So we drove down to Bruce's cabin, which was very nice. But I started to get a little leery when I noticed some well-packed suitcases, still in the room he said we could sleep in. I asked him about it and it seemed to me like he was over-explaining the reasons these people had to leave in such a hurry. Keith noticed a giant hatchet by the front door. We started to rethink our decision to stay here, when Bruce cheerily chirps.

"You know what guys, you can stay here as long as you leave behind good karma."

"Ummmmmmm, OK, sounds great. By the way, where do you go for food around here?"

"Oh, you know what, I've got some food in the freezer, I'll come bring it over and we'll eat, don't worry."

"OK, thanks Bruce."

So I'm pooping my pants thinking this guy's going to drug us and then torture and kill us, and Keith goes along with him to see where he gets the food from. I'm imagining that Keith has already been bludgeoned with a blunt instrument and now Bruce is coming for me. I don't even have a set of keys for the car! I'm completely helpless!

Keith and Bruce bring back stewing beef and some vegetables and we cook a stew in the slowly setting sunlight. I didn't see the package the meat came in, so I'm imagining the meat is from his former houseguests, the ones that had to leave so fast last time. Oh god, I'm probably going to eat people, and then other people are going to eat me! Holy god, let's get out of here! I glance over and notice a JAR OF RELISH on the kitchen table. All the literary elements for a cheap and dirty horror novel are RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. I'm recognizing all of them, but WHY am I ignoring them? Because I have some strange notion that people are inherently good? Oh yeah, I have to continually remind myself of that, each time I suspect someone is trying to turn me into an unwitting cannibal!

OK, so I'm not dumb. I SAW Wolf Creek. I let Keith drink the roofie-water, and I had my own grapefruit pop that I brought with me, so I drank the rest of that. I carefully observed his body language, so that I could react at the first sign of drowsiness he displayed. Keith was my canary in the mineshaft.

Luckily, the stew was delicious and the water potable. We had a pretty nice chat with Bruce, shared some of our croissants and ate stew by candlelight and talked until it was dark.

That's all there is folks, you can't go north