Triplogs / Triplog#2
Canoe Lake (IN) - Tom Thomson L - Little Doe L - Burnt Island L - Joe L - Canoe Lake(OUT)
Day 5 - Burnt Island L to Joe Lake
We got up early, and left, as I wanted to cross Burnt Island Lake, before the wind woke up. We were lucky that day, and it wasn't till we hit the narrows, between the last island guarding the bay to the portage to Baby Joe Lake, that the wind woke up. Here, the water swirled around and around, and for a few seconds we were caught in an almost whirlpool like effect. We made past this and on to the 200m portage. Another easy one, with no traffic at all. There were signs of recent rain, from the storm I witnessed fro 2 nites earlier. We continued on paddling and carrying over the 435m portage. There is an outhouse along this trail too.
Finally we came upon the 165m portage and then were on Joe Lake. The east end of the lake is shallow and weedy for quite a distance. We paddled till we reached the 3rd site in on the south shore. Jp had been feeling ill the past few days, and this day I caught whatever it was she had, I ended up with the most horrible pressure in my head and became short tempered and cranky. So much so, that when we landed and began to set up our tent. I stopped and stalked off into the woods. The pain just wouldn't go away. Finally I came back and after a 2 hour nap, the pain had subsided. The site was very nice, with lots of grass and a nice flat rock face that was level with the water. The water here was very clear and very swimable Many canoes passed us by, with the occasional motorboat. The same motorboat passed us by many times back and forth from the Arowhon Pines Lodge to Camp Arowhon.
At dusk a beaver swam by, and that was about all the animal wildlife we saw.
Again there was no breeze, it was another hot sunny day, and the skeeters came out again, with a vengeance.
Day 6
I awoke at just after 3am to Thunder.
I stepped outside, and saw by the lightning, a storm approaching from the northwest. I was very humid out. I fired up the stove, and made coffee and fired up some smokes, to keep the skeeters away, and sat back and watched the storm approach. There's nothing like being able to sit back and watch a thunderstorm approach in the middle of the night. It was one of those storms that caused the sky to glow orange, with highlighted gray clouds. It was around 4am, when the storm hit.
I ran to the tent, and it just poured buckets for about 90 minutes. The tent we had was an old one, and it leaked in thru the corners, but otherwise, we were all dry.We got up to another sunny hot day, a little less humid it was now.We paddled down to the portage back to Canoe Lake, and fought a light wind all the way back to the docks at the portage store, where we returned our rented canoe. We drove to Huntsville, grabbed steaks, beer, and ice, and drove back to The Park, and into Canisbay Campground. We set up our tent, and headed down to the beach. The beach was quite nice. The water warm, and many people were there from many different countries; German, Japanese, & French were the most noticeable. We had steak and beer that night, with a campfire! Although there was a fireban in place, I noticed several campfires going. what was going on?
Earlier in the afternoon, A conservation officer came by our site and was checking our permit. I had asked him, if we could have a campfire, He said No, not unless we had 3 days of solid rain. So I was a little mystified when I saw many sites around us having fires. I drove up to the office, and to my astonishment, they were selling firewood, and I asked if we could have a fire, and was told yes, by the staff there, but that the fire had to be out by 11pm.Odd..I guess there are different rules governing campgrounds as opposed to the interior, yet the officer had said no fires.Our fire wasn't good anyways, as the wood that was sold to us was wet. It had probably been cut that year.
The beach at Canisbay campground
Days 7&8
On this day, we headed over to 'Lookout Trail'. This was my first time here, and was surprised at the amount of people on the trail. I suppose it is mainly because of the it's short length, coupled with it high lookout point. Another main feature of the trail is the 'erratics', large boulders not indigenous to the area but carried hundreds if not thousands of kilometers by glaciers from the last iceage. The view from the lookout is vast...it has a wide un-obstructed view of the Algonquin forest. After the trail was done, we drove back to the campground, noticing as we did so, that the campground office had a 'Hailstorm' warning up. Not a thunderstorm warning, but a hailstorm warning. We headed to the beach, as it was another hot and humid day. The beach was packed. We stayed for about 2 hours then headed back to make dinner. More steaks. About halfway thru dinner, it was around 5pm, The sky above us turned black..out of nowhere, then suddenly it turned green. This was new, but it scared the crap out of me as I knew what this green sky portended. I served everyone their half cooked steaks, and we cowered into the car, sitting there eating our food, while staring up at the sky. As quickly as the green sky came, it dumped 30 seconds of raindrops on us, and then it was gone. Whew! Got off lucky that time. That night as before last, we had another fire, but it was a crummy one as we were sold wet wood yet again. seems funny how, you can't have a fire, but then you can, only now it won't burn, ha ha ha, the joke was on us.
One of the erratics on Lookout Trail
The biggest erratic on the trail: Big as a house!
Lookout Trail: Sunburnt women under a shady forest
On Day 8 we got up early and drove back to Toronto, under another hot and humid august day. Another successful trip completed. We survived the bugs and lack of campfires in the interior. It wasn't that bad, but I'm glad I did bring extra books to read, as it helped when we were forced into our tents early on some nights.
The view from The point on Lookout Trail: Little Rock Lake in the distance