You Can Always Live on Rice and Potatoes

The Big Bang and The Big Crunch

• Posted on June 16, 2009 at 10:58 AM
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A picture from the last trip's prep session. This year's trip prep session is too scary to photograph.

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(This is my continuing blog on getting ready for my Missinaibi River trip, which starts this Saturday)

As used by cosmologists, the term Big Bang generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day... [according to some postulations] the universe [will] reach a maximum size and then begin to collapse. It [will] become denser and hotter again, ending with a state that was similar to that in which it started — a Big Crunch.

• Big Bang Theory, Wikipedia

I’ve often thought that God (a dedicated paddler with an amazing cross-bow draw) got the idea for creating the universe from packing for a canoe trip. Certainly, the similarities are striking.

Deep in the unknown darkness of my basement, a mass of camping, fishing and paddling gear lays in a disorganized jumble of bags and barrels, awaiting the divine spark.

In a tremendous and sudden burst of energy, Janine and I descend from upstairs and haul the mass into the middle of the basement, separating it haphazardly, spreading it across the entirety of the room until the place looks like a hand grenade went off in the middle of MEC. The poles for the two man tent are next to the minus 30 sleeping bags, the fishing lures are in the kitchen bag, there’s plant life growing on the water filter. I have one gaiter. Is this nalgene full of shampoo or suntan lotion? The dishes smell like Muskol. What the hell is this thing? Hey, five bucks!

With hard work and cursing, the various categories of gear eventually begin to conglomerate into recognizable constellations. Paddles clump with life jackets, forks find plates, fuel reunites with the stove, tents regain their proper rain flies. Like a black hole, one barrel sucks in all the stuff we don’t know what to do with and don’t intend to take anyway. The room becomes organized into slightly less disorganized galaxies of crap. Ticks begin to appear on lists. A meteor of optimism streaks across the firmament, until it fizzles with the memory that we haven’t grocery shopped yet (more on that later).

Then, when we’re convinced that we’ve managed to find it all, that the great work is finished, comes the Big Crunch. The room’s contents, having finally evolved to a discernable order, are drawn backwards into the yawning emptiness of the red and green rubber bags, the blue barrels. A great sucking sound of rattling metal and swishing nylon is followed by the clicking of clasps, the cinching of straps and the inevitable sound of cracking plastic that tells you you’ve broken something that may or may not have contained liquid.

We'll repeat this process about a dozen times before trip's end. But for now, like that other great paddler, we rest.

And try to figure out how many granola bars to buy at Loblaws tomorrow.

jm