DAY 1: Rendezvous at my house at 14:30. The plan was to meet here and be ready for Emily who would be able to get out of her PD Day by 15:00. Everyone was extremely punctual and we headed out into the weekend rush hour traffic.

We reached White Pine Cottages at around 19:00, where I finally succumbed to my carsickness. It was kind of close, but luckily I was able to find the washroom in time. Afterwards, we were able to get a good look at the cottage, which was very cozy (two bedrooms and a common area with a pull-out couch) and complete with almost every amenity you could think of (even a cheese grater and whisk).

I was supposed to make dinner but Jocelyn volunteered to trade with me and made the meal while Emily serenaded us with the guitar. We had a great (and very filling) dinner of salmon pasta and sautéed broccoli. We sat around the table after dinner while Jocelyn regaled us with stories from the airport. At around 22:30, Boni and I considered walking out to the payphones that we had passed on our way to the cottage to call our parents to inform them of our safe arrival (since all of us with cell phones couldn't get a signal). We considered asking the proprietors if we could borrow their phone, but it was late and their cottage looked very dark. We got out the door, then turned back to grab some sort of light source. We also brought one of Jocelyn's walkie-talkies. We made it out to the road when we realized exactly how spooky it was. The little headlamp that we had cast an eerie blue glow about ten feet in front of us, and the rest was pitch black due to the overcast sky. Wind in the tall trees made it extremely cold and extremely creepy as it whistled through the branches. It was a scene straight out of a slasher flick. We peered through the darkness to see if we could see how far away the phones were but couldn't see past the hill. So we walked as far as the top of the hill, noticed a very far away point of light through the trees, then decided that the calls would have to wait, and headed back to the cottage.

The rest of the evening was spent preparing the veggies for breakfast and lunch the next day.

DAY 2: After a very restless night (for some it was the creaky hard bed, for others it was the heat from the furnace), we woke at around 07:15. Kimmy made some huge omelettes, then we bundled up and got on the road to Highland Wilderness Tours. Penny (the owner and our tour guide) started us off with some basic dogsledding instructions (how to stop, how to steer, and how we should hold onto the sled if we fell even if it means being dragged along the trail). Then we all got to help harness the dogs and hook them up to the four sleds. At this point, all the dogs knew that they were potentially going out for a run, and so they all started barking at the top of their lungs and jumping up and down. There were a couple dozen dogs in the dog yard, so you can imagine what that looked and sounded like. It took two of us per dog: one to sit on him/her to hold him/her still, the other to attempt to put the harness on. We finally got them ready and Em, Jocelyn and I were the first three out. Kimmy and Boni stayed behind to snowshoe around the property.

It was an incredibly fast ride to start. The turns and bumps on the trail were pretty treacherous initially. Then one of Em's dogs somehow escaped from its harness. We stopped, and while Penny attempted to fix the problem, my dogs became very confused and tried to turn around and go back up the trail. Penny waded through the snow to set my dogs right again. The next mishap occurred when we were taking a sharp turn and Jocelyn, who was about to hit a tree, fell off her sled. In an effort not to run her down, I slammed on the brake and subsequently fell off my own sled. I have no recollection of falling. I can only remember jumping up and running after the sled. Our two teams of dogs met up a little further down the trail, stopped and looked at each other, then continued down the path. Em was able to stop Jocelyn's sled while mine was stopped when the sled hit a tree. We made it back without further incident, then Em and I traded with Boni and Kimmy. They took off while Em and I figured out how to work the snowshoes.

I got cold really quickly and decided to head back to the dog yard while Em went off to explore a little more on her own. No sooner had I gotten back to the start, when I heard the dogs and saw the teams had already returned (it had only been about ten minutes). Honey, one of the lead dogs on Penny's sled, had become injured and was limping, so Penny took her off the sled and tied her back up. Jocelyn traded with Em for the third run, but because we took a little time to get things organized, the dogs got restless and a couple of them started scrapping. The girls took off while Jocelyn and I first secured Honey back to her post (she had jumped up and slipped the metal ring of her chain off the post), then made calm soothing sounds while we took her harness off (she was upset about being left behind). We walked out to the start of the trail and met up with the teams again, then Jocelyn, Em and I went out for the final run. This time, there were no mishaps, except near the end when my sled went off the track and into the deep snow. The dogs, feeling the resistance, stopped. I had to push myself off with one leg, and regain my balance after the dogs suddenly decided to take off again. We helped to unharness and tie up the dogs, then we drove quickly back to the cottage for a bathroom break, then ate lunch (Boni's very yummy tortilla wraps) in the car while we drove back to Highland for the afternoon horseback riding.

A couple, Maria and Darren, joined us for the horseback riding. I rode Cowboy, who, while we were in the paddock, decided to sit in the snow and roll over. I quickly jumped off him in order to avoid being crushed. Penny helped me back up, and no sooner had I gotten back on, Jocelyn's horse Maggie decided to sit and roll over as well. Apparently, the horses were itchy. We got everyone on their horses, and headed off down the trail. The ride was somewhat bumpy because the horses kept punching through the top layer of the snow, causing the riders to lurch back and forth in a manner I likened to riding a camel or an elephant. Due to the trail conditions, Penny led us back to the paddock and we played a little "Simon Says" before we dismounted. We hung around, helped Penny with the horses, took photos, and then got in the van and drove to the cottage owned by Highland to see the nearby waterfall (which we were unable to find). Good thing Jocelyn took that time to look in her wallet because she had left her credit card behind. We stopped briefly at Highland to retrieve it. On our way back to the cottage, we stopped at the payphones to make our calls (it turns out they were almost 1 km away from the cottage!). Then the van became stuck in the deep snow, and four of us had to dig and push it out.

Back at the cottage, we thawed out a little, then I strapped on my skates and went out to the lake, where Glenn (the proprietor) had been kind enough to clear off a patch of the lake for us to skate on. It was a little dicey at first, because I was out there alone and the ice kept cracking (!). But Em and Boni came out soon after and we figured that if the snowmobiles can drive across it, we should be okay (we later learned that we were correct: the ice was about 3 feet thick, and the cracking was just due to its own pressure, so there was no danger of us falling to our icy deaths). Jocelyn snowshoed around the rink while we skated, and Kimmy opted to stay indoors and try to get some studying done.

I went in early to start dinner (vegetable risotto and chicken with mushroom sauce, along with leftover pasta and leftover omelette). We ate, Jocelyn did dishes, then we sat around and did "work" - Kimmy was studying, Em was marking quizzes, and Boni and I were writing in our journals. That lasted all of 10-15 minutes, then Jocelyn brought out the "Stacking Chair" game, and the four of them played while I continued to write.

We ventured outside to look at the stars, which was amazing. We sat in the bank around the rink and gazed for a while before we got cold and came back inside. Hot chocolate with marshmallows and S'mores were consumed while we played games (Scattergories and Taboo). We didn't get to bed until 03:00.

DAY 3 (departure day): I heard the alarm around 08:00 but slept in for another forty minutes. Kimmy made some excellent pancakes and scrambled eggs. The girls took the snowshoes and cross-country skis to go out moose watching while I took another spin on the rink. I actually spent most of the time lying in the snow sunbathing or just sitting in the chair and taking in the scenery and quiet. After I accidentally gouged a bigger hole in the ice with my blade, I decided to go back inside. The girls radioed in to say that Kimmy had gotten stuck in a snowbank (I asked if they were helping her out and she said they were too busy taking photos of her), and they were going to trek across the lake, so I put all my stuff back on and went outside. We started across but I kept sinking in the snow, so I went back to the car for the toboggan. I strapped into the old school snowshoes, and Kimmy and Jocelyn took turns pulling Boni while Em forged ahead on the skis. We made it all the way out to the snowmobile track, which was about 3/4 of the way across the lake. At one point, we had stopped for a break when we heard a hollow thud, like someone had hit an empty oil drum, except the sound came from underneath us. I recognized it as the sound of the ice cracking from the pressure, and Kimmy became very nervous. We abandoned the plan to walk all the way across the lake, and Em plowed ahead to get a start on lunch, but I had the house key. We yelled at her but she didn't hear us. She eventually realized it and came back to meet us.

We helped make enchiladas while Em made calls to her contact at Medeba to say that we were going to be a bit late (we were going to make a quick detour there on our way home). We also ate the leftover tortilla wrap from yesterday's lunch as well as the risotto and chicken from the night before (the one thing we did not lack that weekend was food). We cleaned, packed, said goodbye to Glenn, Linda and Emma (their golden retriever), then headed to Haliburton at about 16:00.

We got to Medeba an hour and a half later, and Em and Jocelyn took a tour while the rest of us stayed in the van. We were back on the road by about 18:00, and after a quick stop at a Tim Horton's in Gravenhurst, we got back to Em's house by 21:15.