Monday, August 03, 2009

Superior Circle Tour - Day 2

Across the street from Nays Provincial Park was Nye’s Diner and Camping. We stopped there to get some ice then decided that we were actually very hungry. The pups were OUT! I’m not sure they slept very well last night. It was a little cold. But we’ve been in colder. Lorrie had eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and toast while I had a burger with fries. The place was very clean! The owner was cooking and did a great job! He also loaned me a couple wrenches to try and tighten my bike rack. They weren’t terribly busy but he said they have a lot of business in the winter with snowmobiling and snowshoeing in the park across the street. It was a small convenience and souvenir shop as well. I would definitely recommend stopping there.

As we were driving, we somehow missed Pukaswa National Park. Not sure how except that there was construction in the area and maybe the signs were down. Instead we stopped for a hike at White Water Provincial Park and were directed to Clear Water trail, which was an out and back to Clear Lake. As soon as we left the car, mosquitoes and gnats swarmed us. We’ve spent enough outdoor vacations being eaten alive by bugs and that was not in our plan for this trip. Besides, I couldn’t find the Deet. So we left to find Lake Superior again where it’s chilly and windy enough to keep the bugs away. We stopped at Agate (?) Provincial Park but they didn’t have any sites along the water. So we pressed on toward Superior Provincial Park.

Once there, our trip was over. And this becomes more of a personal than “outdoor” blog. We parked and went in to get information about sites. About 10 seconds after I left the car, I heard something. Can’t say exactly what that something was but I knew to run back. Which I did. Emma Blue had bitten Tori. She’d been excited when we stopped but I’m not sure what happened after that. I can speculate. I went to the other side of the car and moved her to her own window. Then started working on separating them better for the small drive to the site. Lorrie came to Tori’s side and saw that she was bleeding. I hadn’t seen that from my angle. Well, she was bleeding very badly. And it was around her eye. Lorrie ran in to get help from a ranger. They were quite ill-prepared for as out in the boondocks as they are! They didn’t know first aid. But at least they had a kit. Some campers were walking by and asked if we needed help. Lorrie told them what was happening and someone said something about some kind of vet training. Who knows? Anyway, this woman checked out Tori and put gauze on her eye and wrapped her head to hold it in place. It was not enough. She bled so much! Lorrie also called 411 to get the number for a vet in Sioux Ste Marie. They had an emergency system where there is a vet on-call all the time. We were a 90-minute drive away. With nothing in between. NOTHING! I drove like a crazy woman while Lorrie held Tori and told her it would be okay and to hold on. At one point, Tori moved around a little much and blood got everywhere. It was horrendous! We were crying, Lorrie screamed once, and we were trying to keep in touch with the vet who we kept losing because of the mountainous roads. To add to all the stress, the gas tank was nearly on Empty! Meanwhile, Tori. Was. Asleep! Snoring! Perhaps she was in shock. But I know her mellow nature saved her life! An anxious dog, like Emma, would have been flipping out and probably would not have made it. We finally got a good enough connection to the vet so we could get directions. Of course, his street was completely under construction. So we had to go a round-a-bout way. Gas light went on just before we got there. Lorrie ran in with Tori and then came back out to the waiting area. Her front was completely covered in blood so she got out of those clothes immediately and we left them there for the vet to discard. Tori weighs in at about 25 lbs. She had to have lost half her blood. We waited awhile, filled out the paperwork, and waited some more. They cleaned her up some but needed to do surgery to see the state of her eye… and likely to remove what was left. Lorrie asked me to leave so she could talk with the vet about something she had seen and didn’t want me to hear about it.

We went in to say goodbye to Tori and she was all wrapped up and on an IV. But she recognized our smells and gave us licks goodbye. The vet called us around 11pm, after surgery, and said she is doing well and the surgery went well. He said they did have to remove her eye as it was too damaged to save. We are to call after 10am tomorrow to see what the plan is at that time.

Emma Blue kept a pretty quiet and low profile the entire time.

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