Part 2: The rest
2. George Lake, Killarny Provincial Park
I booked Killarny on a whim. I didn’t know much about the area, I just had some vague memory that someone had told me it is beautiful. Thinking that Killarny would just be a nice little stop over before we reached Algonquin park – which we were most excited for – I only booked us for 2 nights, giving us only one full day. This turned out to be a big mistake!
We pulled up to our campsite, number 42 (AKA the meaning of life and everything for any Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans), in the evening. We had a lot of privacy and space for ourselves at our site, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Campsite 42 is on top of a hill and you can see the waters of George Lake sparkling through the trunks of skinny pines. What really made our spot so special, though, is our very own rock.
Okay you might be wondering why we would get excited about a rock, but this is no ordinary boulder. At the back of our campsite there was a small, five step walk out to a great chunk of the Canadian shield that looked out over the lake. Because of the hard stone, there were no trees to impede our West facing view of the of the sunset. It was so beautiful and we had it all to ourselves. After whipping together dinner we took our plates out to the rock and watched the sun set over the lake.
The next day we hiked the Granite Ridge trail. The trail head is just across the highway from the campsite and it is an easy 2km loop. Compared to Pukaskwa, the hike wasn’t particularly breathtaking, but it was still a lovely walk through tall pines and up rocky ridges. At the peak there is a view across a great green valley up to another granite cliff face. As the trail looped us around to the other side of the ridge, Georgian Bay came into view. We stopped to have a snack and look out over the water. In the distance we could see a large boat moving very slowly and motor boats zipping around closer to the beach. It was a hot, sunny day and staring at the beach and clear blue water made us want to be there, so we began our trek back down.
We arrived at the small beach on George Lake in the late afternoon. The beach was crowded with families with small children splashing in the shallow waters. The beach curved around and was broken by a small stream with a little wooden bridge traversing it’s breadth. There were signs announcing the beginning of the La Cloche Silhouette trail. The trail jumped up into the forest and big rocks of the Canadian shield immediately, but along the lake’s shore there was a tiny cow path that wound around towards a big rock just off the shore. This rock stuck out of the water and was big enough to host ten or fifteen people sunbathing. It was obvious that this was the place to be, so we set out with our packs and towels to join the other folks who had claimed space on the sun-warmed surface of the rock. Everyone was friendly and understanding about sharing the space, comfortable being almost shoulder to shoulder with strangers.
One end of the rock reached back to the shore and was rocky and shallow. The other side of the rock, however, faced a drop off where the water was deep. This made for the perfect jumping off point. Even though the air was cool and it was late in the day, I couldn’t resist the chance to cannon ball off the rock. After seeing how much fun I was having, Alan jumped in too. The water was so warm and perfect for swimming. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading and drying off on the rock, wishing it was earlier in the day. We stayed until nearly everyone else had left, the sun dipping low on the horizon. Finally we decided to head back to our own rock to eat dinner and watch the sunset.
Packing up the next day was even more difficult than usual and we both moved slowly, not wanting our time in Killarney to be over. Our perfect campsite, the warm lake with its jumping rock and the unexplored hiking trails all called to us, but we were on a schedule and our next stop was Algonquin. We said goodbye, but promised to come back to site number 42.
3. Marie Louise Lake, Sleeping Giant PP (Thunder Bay)
Sleeping Giant Provincial Park was our first stop. We arrived after a long 8 hour drive day from my cottage. We arrived near dinner time (as usual) and set up camp. The campsite was large, but not very private, still we had plenty of room to set up our awning and were happy with the spot. The campground itself is huge, with 200 campsites. We happened to be there on the weekend celebrating their 75th anniversary. To celebrate, the campground was putting on several events throughout the weekend. We agreed that it would be fun to attend the archeology talk at the amphitheatre on the beach. In the morning we took a walk down to the beach on Marie Louise Lake. The lake is medium sized and a beautiful shade of royal blue. The shore line is completely undeveloped and green forest lines the shore all along the circumference until the campground. The beach here was quite big in comparison to the rest of the spots we camped at, and had a little playground at one end. The sand was also very fine and soft.
We explored the two level visitor centre which had displays on the local flora and fauna of the area, history of the site and maps of nearby hikes. The visitor centre also offers rentals for canoes, kayaks and stand up paddle boards. When it came time for the archeology talk we accidentally went to the wrong amphitheatre. Turns out they have two! The one we mistakenly went to is tucked away, off the main road surrounded by trees. It is a huge space with a stage and seats lining the hillside to the top. After realizing our mistake, we went over to the beach amphitheatre which is much smaller, consisting of ten bench seats around a fire pit.
The archeology talk was fun, the leader had come from Lakehead University and had brought a large display of arrow heads, clay pots and spears. He talked to us about the history and timeline of the area. The native people of Georgian Bay arrived about 10,000 years ago and changed very little in their ways until the last 200-300 years. After discussing various methods used to hunt and make weapons and tools, there were a few activities that the crowd was invited to take part in. One was making small clay pots from clay sourced from the lakes in the area, to be kilned in the fire pit. Another was to use archeology tools to uncover arrow heads in sand boxes. Lastly people were invited to throw a special kind of spear used for hunting. Alan was first in line to throw the spear.
After the archeology talk, we thought to get in the lake for a swim, but the water was cold and the warmth of the day had passed, turning to a cloudy evening. Alan decided to go to the visitors centre where they were showing a few short movies on the history of the area. I stayed behind in the van to catch up on my writing. He found the most interesting of the films to be about a logger who had worked in the area. The logger told of how dangerous the job was and how many of his peers had died. The winters were unbelievably harsh, and the job was gruelling and physical. The men used the lakes and rivers to transport the felled trees, damming them up to later release them with the flood of melted snow to hurry them downstream.
The next day we went on a short nature walk in the campground. At the trail head there were little pamphlets and along the trail there were numbers that corresponded to some tidbit of information in the book. We enjoyed learning about the plant life of the area and how it was commonly used by the indigenous people who lived there. We kept an eye out for foxes and beavers that were rumoured to live there, but ended up being alone with the wind and the trees.
Sleeping Giant PP has many trails varying in distance and difficulty, but they are all a drive to the trial head. We weren’t too keen on breaking camp to get to one of these trailheads — the downside of having your vehicle be your living space — so sadly we missed out. With the bluffs being some of the highest points in Ontario, overlooking Lake Superior and Thunder Bay, I definitely think it would be something worth coming back for.
4. Pancake Bay
My mom and her family used to stop through Pancake Bay to camp, so she recommended we stop for a visit to the Bay on the Eastern shore of Lake Superior. The campsite is long and stretches along the bay up a hill into an area with tall skinny birch trees. We stayed on top of the hill in the ‘radio free zone’. It was quiet and all the surrounding campsites were empty. The campsites on top of the hill were much more spacious than the ones below and we had tons of space to set up our awning and get settled.
Pancake Bay was the most laid back stop on our journey. We spent our days sitting on the beach writing and reading and our evenings making nice dinners and doing crosswords. There was a short nature walk that looped through the beach, shrubby early stage forest into older forest and through a fen. Along the way there were signs that explained how forests take over beaches in stages and how to tell what stage a forest is in based on the plant life. We saw a huge composite boulder formed during the last ice age by glaciers pushing rocks and forcing them into one another until they become moulded together like a snowball. It is interesting to be able to touch something that has been around for millions of years, like reaching into the past.
Though Pancake Bay is a beautiful beach, it doesn’t have much more to offer. It is a relaxing place to stop for a rest, but I think we would spend more time in other spots if we were to do the trip again.
5. Mew Lake, Algonquin Park
Our final and most anticipated stop was Algonquin Park. Having visited with my highschool’s Outward Bound program, I had told Alan about how beautiful it is with lake after lake connecting the whole area. In highschool, we had spent a week portaging through the park, backcountry camping. I knew that going to a campground would not be the same experience, but I didn’t realize just how different it would be.
We arrived at our campsite in a spot at one of the far ends of the lake. There was absolutely no privacy between sites. Nothing at all between our campsite and the two bordering us, and nothing across the way. We were downwind from the pit toilets which ended up being more than we could bare. Waking up to the smell of sewage our first morning of four, we decided we had to move. We packed up camp and drove over to the front gate and spoke with a park attendant there. He was very friendly and had no problem relocating us to another site. There were only two available and there was a couple next to us doing the same thing. He gave us the better of the two before the other couple could snatch it up and we made our way over to our new home.
The second site was much better. There were trees all around giving us lots of space for our site, and the pit toilets were thankfully, further away. We had thought to do some hiking, but decided we would rather spend our last days before Toronto on a beach. Our small lake was fairly shallow and had many reeds and lilies, not exactly ideal for swimming. The beach was more dirt than sand and small. We decided to go over to the Lake of Two Rivers campground nearby to check out their beach. On our way we stopped at the general store at the campground to get some ice cream, which was a nice perk of this campsite.
The beach at Lake of Two Rivers was bigger and sandier and the lake was much bigger, boasting a lovely tree filled island in the middle. Many people rented canoes and paddled around the lake and out to the island. We ended up spending two of our days at the beach and on the second I was even brave enough to go swimming. It ended up being a highlight of our stay in Algonquin, being able to swim out into the lake and come back and dry off.
Our final full day it rained. Luckily it was not a hard rain and there was no wind, so we got to sit out under our awning and work on our reading and writing. It was very peaceful to watch the rainfall around us and hear the light pattering on the top of the awning. After so many sunny days by the beach, it was nice to cozy up with a mug of tea in the grey light of the rain clouds. It was a nice way to end our two week tour of Ontario before we moved on to our action packed time in Toronto.
Savage Van Ride 