July 2025

Dan grew up in Canada and spent many childhood days “in the north”, hiking and canoeing. He reminisced often about how great it was in Cottage Country and the backcountry wilderness. It was only a matter of time that he went back – and he took me with him!

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Monday

We started our adventure at Canoe Lake, a three hour drive north of Toronto. The plan was to spend five days (four nights) canoeing and camping in Algonquin Provincial Park. There would be ZERO internet or cell connection – 100% disconnected from the world. We had all of our own gear with us: tent, sleeping bags and pads, stove, food, and bug spray. Lots of bug spray. Honestly, the bugs were my only concern about this trip. Camping? Sure, no problem. Canoeing? Yeah, I’ve done that before (although not to this extent). Backcountry? Yes! Bring it on! Mosquitos and black flies? Um – no. But we had checked with reports from the area and the Season of Aerial Madness was lessening, so it should be ok.

At the south end of Canoe Lake we parked the car and picked up our rental canoe from the Canoe Lake Portage Store. This was an easy process, mostly because Dan did all of the work ahead of time. He had booked our canoe rental, and the backcountry permits, months ago. All we had to do was supply the paddle-power!

Oh yeah – that’s a good sign!

Our canoe and all of our gear

Racks and racks of canoes available at the Portage Store

Our gear stowed easily into the canoe and I took up the bow position. Canoe Lake is fairly long – we’d cover more than four kilometers before we eventually reached the far end. It was a grey morning when we set off, paddling into a headwind, but full of smiles.

I’ll take clouds over harsh sun any day!

Mid-way up the lake I spotted what looked to be a totem pole – but what would a West Coast native symbol be doing here? Dan informed me that it was the mark of the Tom Thompson cairn. We landed our canoe at the public dock provided and made our way up a steep and not-well established path to see what it was all about.

There wasn’t much to see at the cairn, but it did lead to a nice conversation later as Dan gave me the history of Thompson and the Group of Seven.

A rare directional sign posted in the lake

There were quite a few other canoes on the lake today

Approaching the portage!

Portages can be any length, and this one wasn’t very long at all (about 50 meters). We beached the canoe and carried our gear to the other end of the trail. Then we walked back to get the last of the gear and the canoe. I let Dan carry it, since he was my expert.

On the other end of the portage we re-packed our gear and paddled our way into Joe Lake, crossing it and then onto Teepee Lake. Because of the way the backcountry permit process works, we had to pre-determine on which lake we would stay at each night. The permitting process is pretty good though. Say there are 10 campsites on a lake: ten permits will be allocated, but not for specific campsites. So you are guaranteed a campsite, but not a particular one. Before we even left home, Dan had read reviews of the campsites available on the lakes that we would camp at. He noted the best reviewed ones, and those are the ones that we aimed for.

A cottage on the Western Gap on Joe Lake

A good campsite on Teepee Lake

All set up and ready for lunch – or was it dinner?

The sites in the park all offered the same thing: a number of flat tent spots, a fire pit, benches of some sort, and often a metal grill for over the fire. As it was still early in the season, we got to see some of the park personnel in action, cleaning up the sites and making sure that everything was ready for future campers.

The evening was quiet and we enjoyed the silence as we read our books and walked around in the forests behind the campsite. There were no black flies, but there were a few mosquitos, more so in the boggy trees behind the camp. Once we were in the tent, I enjoyed watching a couple of daddy longlegs spiders devour the meal of “squished mosquito” I left for them. Nom nom nom!

Tuesday