For those of you who have honed your canoeing skills at Gallup Park or you’ve begun to wish the Huron River went on forever it may be time to plan a trip.
Backcountry canoeing is similar to staying in a hotel except that you take a canoe everywhere instead of a taxi. That’s what I tell myself anyway. I’m not sure what inspires me each time this type of trip begins to gain legs, but I jump right in. This expedition started with a few siblings discussing our last trip to Boundary Waters and how much fun it was. That trip was two years ago, about the same amount of time it takes to forget the pain of childbirth …or so I’m told.
I suggested The Lost City in Peru. We agreed on Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario.
The Killarney trip would consist of two siblings and my personal chef. My personal chef who had never been camping without a car and had never cooked without a 6 burner range. However, he was game and the Fed Ex guy began to make daily drops of gadgets and gizmos that did this backcountry gourmet proud. We decided to do the 10hr drive and talked my mom into lending her wagon to her 3 children so we could drive as one. Customs was never so easy thanks to the simple question my almost 50 year old brother had to field “Who’s car are you driving today?”. My brother hesitated and then mumbled, “My mother’s”. Our friendly officer smirked and waved us on.
The drive out was easy enough and we crashed lakeside that night after a quick dinner at the Killarney Bay Inn (town population 250!). The Inn is newly renovated and would be perfect for those who have a greater affection for sleeping in a bed versus on the ground. The next morning we set-off in our two canoes with loaded backpacks and a small chuckwagon strapped to the chef’s back. The weather was stunning and the scenery even more so. Killarney Provincial Park consists of countless crystal blue lakes surrounded by white quartzite cliffs which are covered in clinging pine forests. The La Cloche mountain range was once higher than the Rocky Mountains, but time and erosion has brought them to their current craggy hills status. My hiking legs were grateful for their new size. The park is open year round and offers something for day-trippers, as well as, long-term canoeing, hiking and snow adventures.
We canoed and portaged (pronounced port’ahhh-ged. Yes, it does sound poser’ish) through several lakes before stopping for the first of many great meals on the trail. That chuckwagon was going to pay-off. Eventually we found our way to our campsite on Muriel Lake, a beautiful little spot that was blissfully still when we paddled in. We crossed canoes with a fair amount of people on our way in, not Gallup Park amounts of people, but in the middle of nowhere a few dozen was surprising. However, the next few days were spent in relative isolation seeing only a few people a day. A misty lake greeted us in the morning and our surroundings called. On one excursion we passed through Artist Lake, one of the many lakes in the area made famous by the Group of Seven artists who were largely responsible for the preservation of the area back in the 1920′s. We then proceeded to hike our way up and down endless miles of trail. Our guessing game of the trail length seemed directly related to the physical condition of the person. I was certain that trail was a good 8 miles plus.
On the 3rd day we moved our camp closer to home. We retraced our water route to Killarney Lake passing through O.S.A. Lake. O.S.A. is a unique product of natural beauty and acid rain. Yup, nothing like a few decades of metal smelting back in the 50′s and 60′s to make a place eerily beautiful. O.S.A. feels like you are skimming across the largest pool in the world. The water is so bright blue that someone compared it to Hawaiian Punch blue. It’s true, there is no vegetation in the lake because of the acidity levels and the bottom is composed of white quartz so the visibility is amazing . We stopped at one of the small rock islands and took our last swim of the summer and then did our best turtle imitations in the sun. There was not a single cell phone ringing for miles. Ahhhh.
To close out our last full day we did a forced march up to an area affectionately referred to as “The Crack”. We were trying to beat sunset and the mountain was against us. As delirium set-in, the jokes got worse and the climb became steeper, but d*mn was it a view when we arrived! My brother exclaimed “There’s the Ren Cen!”. We had a 360 view that included Georgian Bay, endless forest and a handful of lakes.
We finished the last of the wine that night and competed to spot the most shooting stars. Early the next morning we hauled our taxi into the water and paddled out under a light mist. A blue heron guided our way until the very last portage before turning a large arch back into the interior. We were being left to cross the last lake and transition back to the real world alone. Either that or that Heron had a deal with a bear and we were about to be breakfast.
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