TOTAL BLACKNESS



October 16, 2000, 6:30 p.m. As the sun was sinking behind the horizon, we attempted to walk back to the truck in a hurry, but all in vain. The thick bush just slowed us down. The cold light of the remaining twilight was all we had. With the other end of the skyline quickly clouding over, the darkness imposed itself and we soon found ourselves in total blackness. We could not see anything in front of us. And we still had 2.1 kilometers of rough bush to cover before reaching the truck...

Earlier that morning, I had left Wawa to meet George, an old white-haired prospector, at Heyden, north of Sault-Ste-Marie. Just as I arrived, he showed up. I jumped in his truck, and we headed for Searchmont. We took several logging roads toward the Running township, about 80 km north of Searchmont. About one kilometre away from our destination, the road was washed out and we were forced to leave the truck. It was around 11:30 a.m.

Our job today was to find two old shafts, 1.8 km apart, on the east side of Quinn River. This assignment was part of an abandoned mine program launched by the government of Ontario in 1992. The aim of this program is to identify and address two issues: the hazards to public safety and protecting the environment. Annually, the government issues a list of potential mine hazards to be checked. First of all, we research these sites in files to identify the hazards (such as shafts, open stopes(1), raises(2), adits(3) or tailings(4)). Then, we go out in the field to locate them. All these potential hazards are mapped, video taped, photographed and recorded by GPS (Global Positioning System). If they prove hazardous, we recommend a remedy (such as backfilling, fencing, concrete capping, etc.) to the government.

I punched the estimated UTM's co-ordinates of the first shaft in the GPS receiver. It indicated that the shaft we were searching was about 2.5 km north of us. We bolted down our lunch before walking up the Quinn River. As we walked, we realized that the mixed forest would be difficult. There were small trees growing in dense clusters, sometimes forming impenetrable walls, and dead logs lying everywhere on the ground. No doubt, the area has been subject to savage logging in the past. Damn, I hated walking in this kind of bush! Fortunately, the area appeared flat.

We hiked with caution, aware of the risks of blinding ourselves in one eye or piercing our abdomen with a dead branch. Around 2:00 p.m., we found the first shaft after a half-hour search. It was located in low ground, near a swamp, hidden by mature regrowth cedars. The exploration shaft was filled with water, so it was not a hazard.

We hurried to hike to the second shaft, as time was flying. Arriving at the estimated target, we searched around for the shaft. No luck, only small trenches. With nightfall approaching, we chose to leave the place. Although we are usually successful in finding all the features, in remote areas like this one, the lack of daylight might prevent us from finding all that we were looking for.

Heading back, we came across a quartz float(5) about a hundred metres from the original target. We searched around and found major trenching but no shaft. It was around 5:30 p.m. when we decided we had better get moving. We headed for Goofy lake, a little bit off of our course, but according to a hunter that we had met earlier, there was a trail there.

As we reached the summit of a small hill, we surprised a big animal, resting less than 20 metres away from us. It darted away, but suddenly stopped short and looked back at us. It was a moose, a superb buck with large antlers and a coat that was half black, half medium brown.

It was twilight when we reached Goofy lake. There was no trail around. Before we lost all the light, I pulled out the 50,000 scale topographic map, took down the UTM's co-ordinates of the location of the truck, punched the numbers in the GPS recorder and turned it off to preserve the life of the batteries. I was ready to go forward when the darkness began to surround us.

This was the third time in my life that I was overtaken by the darkness. In two earlier occasions, starry skies helped me manage to find my way back. The situation was, however, a little different tonight: the bush was shrouded in total blackness.

Surprisingly, I felt very calm and confident. Perhaps the presence of George had something to do with it. In addition, my feet were dry and the night at this time appeared to be reasonably warm. I would not have minded spending the night in the bush and waiting for the next day., but George did not feel the same way. His wife was waiting for him, and she would be worried if he did not show up that night.

Just before we left, I lit my cigarette lighter to read the bearing of my compass. Later on, I discovered that the fluorescent strips on the red needle and the arrow on my compass allowed me to navigate in the dark. Good! I did not have to light the lighter every time that I wanted to consult my compass.

We poked along like blind men, advancing with outstretched arms to protect our eyes against dead spruce branches. Once in a while, we stumbled on logs. After a time, I learned to assess the soil with my foot before making the next step ahead.

Even as our eyes became accustomed to the obscurity and we could make things out in dark, I realized that there is a limit to the performance of the human eye at night. In the world of total darkness, distinctions are very subtle. I learned to use the play of shadows. For example, a white birch appeared lighter than the spruce or a canopy of thick firs was inky in comparison to the canopy of an open bush.

My eyes raked the darkness in search of lighter objects. My other senses, such as sight and touch, also came into play. I strained my ears and I grabbed the trees and branches around me. When George was leading the way, his white hair stood out in the dark like a reference point. I listened for the breaking sound when he stepped on dead branches, too.

After walking for an hour, we reached an open grassy swamp. We could hear a creek running in the distance. As I was not expecting to encounter a creek, I asked George to stop. I wanted to take a GPS reading and check where we were on the map. Blast, my GPS receiver had not properly closed and the batteries had run low! We needed that like a hole in the head! Without the GPS, we would not be able to go back to the truck.

Since this GPS receiver is not luminous at night, I had to read the numbers by the light of my cigarette lighter. George lit his, too. After a while, the whole lighter started to burn my hand, so I had to shut it down once in a while. The GPS reading transferred on the map confirms that we were at the right spot, but the map did not show a creek. Why not? I had not a clue! We were also a little bit off course (that was no surprise), so we corrected the bearing of our compass. The GPS receiver indicated that we had 1.3 km to go. It was hard to believe that we had already walked 800 metres because we were moving so slow. When we put out the lighters, we were a little bit dazed. Everything around us was in complete darkness again.

George proposed that we cross the swamp.

- Are you sure you want to cross the swamp? I asked him, remembering that swamps can be treacherous. Just two weeks ago, my usual partner, had suddenly sunk to his thighs in a swamp. It had given him the fright of his life.

- Yeah. Don't worry, he replied. I'll lead the way, since I've water boots. I let you know if I come across water.

So I followed George's lead. This time, I could see his shadow in the darkness. Suddenly, his shadow disappeared before my eyes. A loud splash followed. George had just fallen in the creek, up to his waist. He never saw it. He tore through the creek. With each step he took, I could hear the sound of his wet liners in his boots. He wrung his liners dry. With George wet, it was now out of question to spend the night in the bush. He could run the risk of hypothermia. So we chose to cross the creek by the bush.

As we approached the bush, the creek got louder. My first step in the bush gave me a strange sensation. My foot reached the ground before I expected, and I found myself a little bit off balance. The same thing happened with my next step. I realized that I was climbing an outcrop of rock!

There was a drop at the end of the outcrop. Judging by the noise, the creek was cascading right below. The drop below was inky in the shadows. I bent my left knee and tried to reach the ground with my right leg. Empty space. No luck! We did not want to go deeper in the bush, which would have taken us further off our course. Fortunately, we came across a log that was set up over the drop. I grabbed the branches of a fir with my left hand and checked the solidity of the log with my right foot. It appeared okay. What a pleasant prospect! Balancing on a log in darkness! Still holding the branches with my left hand, I continued further until I was entirely stretched. With my right hand, I tried to grasp at anything that would help me, perhaps there was an invisible branch or a tree across the drop. I touched something by a miracle: there were branches. I grabbed them and I finally succeeded in crossing the creek. George did the same. We wasted half an hour crossing the damned creek.

We returned to the swamp where we were before. Going down the invisible outcrop, I had the same strange sensation that I had while I was climbing it. At the swamp, George wanted to walk in the bush. I wonder why! I suggested that we walk along the edge of the swamp. We strode along and, before long, my feet were wet. No matter! This was saving time. In less than 10 minutes, we covered about 300 metres before getting back in the bush.

Pacing in his head, George informed me of every 100 metres that we had just covered. And gradually, the distance between us and the truck narrowed. We occasionally checked the GPS reading and corrected the bearing if necessary. The bush suddenly opened into a tangle-legs swamp. It turned out to be a nightmare walking through these copious scrubs. We stumbled along and often we sank up to our calves. We were barely progressing, and the dejection was written all over our face. While we never thought to wriggle free, we set foot on the road. Eureka! Right after, we realize that we did not have to go in the swamp because the road was right by it, but we did not know. Everything around us was so dark...

It took us about three hours to walk 2.1 km, which normally takes less than an hour to do. We arrived at Sault-Ste-Marie at 12:30 p.m. All restaurants were closed by this time of the night. I took a hotel room and went to bed at 1:30 a.m. We had walked about 8 km in total that day. Later that night, George's wife gave him a piece of her mind, worrying that he might have fallen into a shaft during the night. She pictured the headlines in the paper "Mine inspector found dead in shaft he was searching for....he found it!"

Since that adventure, I bought a luminous GPS and now carry a minuscule flashlight, an extra lighter and batteries.

1. Stope : an excavation from which the ore has been extracted, either above or below a level.

2. Raise : a mine shaft driven from below upward.

3. Adit : a nearly horizontal passage from the surface by which a mine is entered.

4. Tailing : portions of washed ore.

5. Float : terms for pieces of rock which have fallen from veins or strata, or have been separated from the parent vein or strata by weathering agencies or human activity.


written November 15/2000



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