Algonquin Park 2003
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Algonquin park has become a favorite place to canoe. Not too far from home, private campsites, and absolutely beautiful
scenery make it a convenient and pleasant place to relax and enjoy nature. As the end of the season neared, a bunch of
friends and I decided to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend doing a 3 day tour over a small loop in the southern
end of the park.
Our loop was as follows.
- Rock Lake to Lake Louisa
- Lake Louisa to Welcome Lake
- Welcome Lake to Rock Lake
Here is a brief journal of the trip. Click on the hyperlinked text for photos.
Woke up at 05:00 and packed up the van. Drove over to Emily's and woke her up as she was not awake yet. Drove over
to Rob's, picked him up and then hit the highway. It was very foggy. At many points driving at 40 km/h was dangerous.
Part of the highway was closed with police directing traffic. I presume there must have been a crash.
Most people were driving safely as we slowly pushed through the mist, but occasionally some moron would pull out and
pass a string of barely moving cars with absolutely
no vision of the road ahead. If someone had been coming the opposite
direction, it would have been the end. Finally the fog broke about 50 km from the park, allowing us to see and drive
at a reasonable speed. Despite the slow driving, we arrived at the main gate of the park only about 20 minutes late
from when we were supposed to meet Ben and Michelle.
They were waiting for us. We tried to buy the permits here, but
they said we had to get them at Rock Lake. We continued down the highway to Rock Lake and bought our permits, dropped
off the canoe, and then Rob and I drove to the outfitters on Opeongo Lake to rent Rob a
solo canoe. At the outfitters,
we ran into Jason and Karina,
the remaining members of our party. We got the canoes and then convoyed back to Rock
Lake. After lunch, we finally hit the water. There was a slight wind which inhibitted our progress. Rob was
especially affected in the solo canoe. Rob stopped at a dock to redistribute some weight with Ben and Michelle, at
which point Ben took the solo canoe out and flipped it, ending up soaking wet. After Ben finished changing into dry
clothes, we got on our way again. After a battle with the wind for a while, we got to the portage. There were about
seven or eight canoes marked "Cadets" parked here. We did the portage in about 2 hours, passing about 20 army cadets
along the trail as they went back for their canoes. Emily and I finished the portage and had a snack of hummous and
pita bread while we waited for the others. They showed up, and we all had a break for a while and then head on our
way. We only went about 800m onto Lake Louisa before finding a nice campsite
which was big enough for all of us. The
sun was beginning to set at this point, so we quickly set up camp and got some supper going. After dinner the army
cadets finally paddled by as the sun was setting. They were trying to get to the other side of the Lake, which I assume
they made it, because I can hear them singing as I write this. After
sitting around the fire for a while, we saw the
moon rise. This was really neat as I had never seen a moonrise before. Within minutes, the moon went from a slight
arc over the horizon to a full circle. Ben, Emily, and I paddled out onto the calm evening water to look at the stars.
The almost full moon was unfortunately too bright to allow us to see much though. After heading back to shore we were
very tired so we hit the sack. Those cadets, although 4 km away are very noisy. I think I will have no problem falling
asleep though, because I am very tired. We also saw two moose today; one while driving down the road to Rock Lake, and
one feeding in the water near our campsite.
I awoke to a brilliant sunrise of blood red colour and a fairly clear sky, but I figured the sky would not remain clear
because of the old saying, "Red sky at night, Sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, Sailor's warning.". True
enough, it clouded over and started raining just as we were leaving. After a hearty breakfast of eggs and sausage we
packed up and hit the water into a fairly brisk wind. As we progressed slowly up the lake, it started absolutely
pouring. We took a break for a while under an overhanging tree, and waterproofed the packs a little better. After
another hour or so of paddling into the wind, we reached the first portage. The start was very steep, but the trail
got easier as we went. After two efforts, we got over to the other side of the portage where there were about 10 packs
sitting on the ground and an ammo box full of meat. (Yes, someone had to open it and look what was inside, as it was
sitting in the middle of the trail in the way.) After eating a quick lunch, three guys came over the hill with a canoe,
filled it to the brim with 5 of the packs, climbed in (all three of them) and paddled out onto the lake with about 5cm
of clearance between the water and the gunnel. We followed shortly after under a
clearing sky with warm sunshine
peeking out from behind the clouds occasionally. After about another 1km paddle, we came to the second portage which
was a short 300m. I figured it would be a one shot deal, but there was a tree down across the trail at the halfway
point. I first tried to step over it, but figured I would lose my manhood if I continued so had to unload.
Rob, at 6'6"
had no trouble getting over with his canoe. The next part was a windy river which took us to a beaver dam to be
hauled across. A little while later we came across a second beaver dam, but this one just required a bit of speed to
get over without getting out of the boat. Further down the river there was a third dam, which again was easily
run by paddling quickly. As we crossed Harry Lake, we were running with the wind. Emily and I saw some flotsam in
the water so we paddled over to it and discovered it was Rob's map bag, so we rescued it for him. Another river,
and we were at Welcome Lake where we paddled to a long Peninsula where we
camped for the night. We celebrated
Emily's birthday
with some cake that her mom had packed for us. We drank the remaining wine and rum. Rob got a little ill
after drinking a wee bit too much.
Awoke to a calm, sunny, and beautiful day.
I got up before sunrise and began preparing some coffee before waking some
of the others up. It was Emily's 30th birthday today
so she and Karina did a noisy jumping-dancing celebration which
managed to wake everyone else up. After a pancake breakfast and a bit of relaxing time to myself as others packed up,
we hit the lake and paddled down to the end of the Peninsula. I took a compass bearing to guide us across to the
portage. Not quite sure what I did wrong, but we managed to miss the portage by about 500m on the opposite shore. I
imagine I invered the declination, because it looks like we missed by about 30 degrees (magnetic declination to the
map is 14 degrees). Anyway, once we were on the opposite shore we could use landmarks to locate the portage and did.
There were plenty of colourful autumn leaves
on this carry. This 2.1km was done in 3 separate efforts. The terrain
in many places was rough, including a beaver dam crossing and some portions of the trail which were very narrow. At the
end we had a snack and watched the 3 guys with the overloaded boat that we saw yesterday, attempt with much difficulty
to launch into the shallow swamp. Finally they got going and we watched as they meandered through the winding
channels. There was a strong current which sucked us along, so all we had to do at this part was steer among the twists
and bends. Finally after riding this for about a half km, to get to a point 200m from our starting point, we reached
the second carry. This was short, but steep downwards as there was some waterfalls that were being avoided. The put-in
was very complicated as there were lots of shallow rocks and a fairly strong current. Finally everyone got in and we
briefly paddled through a bit more swamp before arriving at Pen Lake. The paddle north on Pen was fairly long. The
wind would not decide whether it was going to help or hinder. It seemed to change direction quite frequently. After
about 5km of this we arrived at the
final portage. This was another short one which Emily took the canoe over in one
shot. We had lunch on the opposite side consisting of cheese, pita, hummous, carrots, and a large pot of KD which we
all shared. Rock lake was very much like Pen lake. A long paddle in shifting winds. There were lots of other canoes
and a few motor boats as some people have cottages along the shores. We saw an eagle flying in the air above our heads
at one point. Maybe it thought we were prey! At long last we arrived back at the van where we had someone take our
photographs as a group. A whole load of logistics got the rental canoes back to the outfitters, and my canoe loaded,
allowing us to finally leave the park at about 17:00. The far too long a drive home has made me fed up with motor
transportation. I'll take a canoe and a backpack over that any day!
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