Trip Reports

Algonquin Park July 25-30, 2009

July 25 Day 1

I arrive by Greyhound bus at Algonquin North Outfitters 2:30 AM, at the intersection of highway 17 and 630. The outfitters have tents set up, which they told me I was welcome to use until they opened in the morning. In the morning I meet the owners and staff, coffee is offered to me and accepted happily. My shuttle driver arrives a short while later, I rent my paddle, buy my propane for my stove and we are off to Lake Kioshkokwi, which is about a 20-30 minute ride. I couldn't take fuel on my flight obviously, and Air Canada would have charged my an extra $100.00 to take my paddle, so I rented one for $2.00 a day, easy choice.

Arriving at Kioshkokwi, I unload my gear, and head into the park office to meet Carmen (the Park employee who is the main caretaker and supplier of inform ation for this access point), and pick up my camping permit. I put in Kioshkokwi shortly after 10:00 AM. I start to head for Mink Lake, I know I have to go under a railway trestle that is part of a railbed that splits Kioshkokwi, I just don't know exactly where the trestle is located. The adventure begins.


I find the trestle easy enough, after going under it, I head SE towards Little Mink Lake. I am paddling against the wind the whole way, it's not really strong, but enough to make you work harder. I stop on a sand beach along the way to take some pictures. There are moose tracks running along the beach. I eat a granola bar and continue on. It's not too much longer when I see the marker for the portage to Lt. Mink Lake. On the shore here, there is a mess of mussle shells. Some animal was eating well. There were quite a few freshwater mussles in the water I can see without even searching. Too bad, I don't like mussles.

The portage to Lt. Mink is 635m, this is my first time portaging since I was 14 years old, time to see if it sucks as much as I remember. Well I head off and am happily surprised when I reach the other end rather quickly, that wasn't too bad at all. Well except for the mosquitos and flies. They were really incessant on the trail, but I brought Deep Woods Off and it worked really well. I enter Lt. Mink and head to the portage for Mink lake. This portage is only 430m, piece of cake. Once I hit Mink Lake, I notice the clouds are getting darker, it hasn't really been sunny all day. I put in and plan on paddling the length of Mink to the Club Lake portage. Well I'm still paddling against the wind, which is starting to pick up a bit more. This is frustrating considering, the wind usually blows the opposite way down Mink Lake. Well I am tired now, the clouds are continuing to get darker, the wind stronger, so half way down Mink Lake I decide to land at the next campsite I come across. It was the fouth site down after I entered the lake. I hear thunder in the distance. I begin to set up my tent. The thunder is getting louder. Well literally seconds after I had my tent set up and gear put away, there was a flash of lightning overhead, and loud clap of the thunder, it started to pour. It seemed getting off the lake was a good idea. I dive into my tent to wait out the storm. It only lasted a half hour or so. After the storm, I go about gathering wood for the fire, which I have to split now because everything is wet. While preparing my evening fire, I hear a noise behind me, a loud crack, I quickly turn around to witness a birch tree tumble to the ground. Well the tree's diameter was about the size of a grapefruit, not that big, great another thing to worry about. Falling trees. Getting the fire going wasn't a problem. After I eat I explore the area a bit, not much to see, I didn't like this campsite too much, not very cozy. But, I was only here for the one night. I sit around the fire as it is getting dark drinking a coffee. Not too long after, I go to bed. It rained off and on. I slept peacefully.



Day 2

In the morning I quickly make some coffee and oatmeal. Once finished eating, I start to pack my gear and load up the kayak to head out again. It's a nice morning so far. I paddle the rest of the length of Mink Lake and head for the portage to Club lake, which was my destination yesterday. It took me a little bit of time to find this portage. I am really enjoying myself so far on this trip. I head out on the 985m portage. I take the kayak first, half way through the portage, the mosquitoes and flies are really getting to me, and the bug repellant is with my backpack. Well, no turning back, I will tough it out for now. Once I get to the end, I put the kayak down and am hurry to return down the trail to my backpack and bug spray. The spray provides instant relief again. On the way back, it starts to rain fairly heavily, I duck in under some tree boughs and dig out my poncho. I wait out the rain, which lasts about 10-15 minutes.

I return to my kayak, load up and set off, without checking my map. Club Lake starts off beautiful, it is in two sections, with a channel separting the two areas. I find myself following the current, just a nice lazy paddle. After awhile, the current starts to pick up and I hear moving water up ahead. Well, I'm not expecting this, but as I get nearer, I see it isn't that bad, and myself and the kayak glide over the water with ease. The current, starts to get faster, I come around another corner and right in front of me there is a fallen tree blocking the whole river! The current pulls me into the tree, my kayak is getting pulled under, but I'm not, so I am pushed out of the kayak. I find out later that these are called strainers. This was my first experience with one. The kayak has capsized, I desparately grab for it and am successful. I pull the yak closer to me so I can get a better grip, my gear was fastened on securely, so I wasn't worried about losing any of that. The water is almost chest high, I attempt to turn the kayak, first try doesn't work, I try again, on the second attempt I am rewarded. I wade to shore pulling my kayak, and completely drenched gear. I take a second to soak up what happened. (no pun intended) Well, no time to sit around, trees fall all the time on portages, I think, it's just bad luck, it can happen on a creek or river also, so I pull my yak and gear around the tree on shore and put in the river again. Now keep in mind, there isn't really a shore, it's river than its trees. It's not that easy pulling your gear through this. Back in the river I head off again, the current is starting to get even more fast now! What am I doing! Before I know it the river in front of me is full of boulders, now I have to dodge these rocks in a fast moving river. Did I mention that I am not wearing a helmet and have no whitewater experience at all. Time for a crash course. I actually did pretty good avoiding the boulders, I was impressed, but before I could congratulate myself, I am upon more rapids. These were nasty. I went through two huge dips and was completely soaked twice more. Thats it! I paddled to the 'shore' again, found a good enough spot with enough room to pull my yak off the water. I pulled out my map to see where the hell I went wrong. I knew before I looked that I must be heading back to Mink lake. Yup, the map confirmed my thoughts. Damn! So, it's decision time, I decide I need to get camp set up and see how much of my things are wet and begin the drying out process. I have been on this river for awhile now, so I must be near the end. I head off through the woods along the river to see where these rapids end. I decide I will return to Mink and head to the first camp site on the lake. The rapids continue on for a bit longer, but I am lucky I pulled off when I did, they beacame a lot worse, at one point there was a verticle five foot drop, glad I missed that. Walking through the woods along the river I eventually come to what seems to be the end of the rushing water. I find a place I can wade into the river to have a look down stream. If I put in here, I notice I will have to get past another fallen tree in the river. The woods have become thicker here, and I don't think I could move my gear past this point. I decide this will be my entry point to the river. The fallen tree, is 3/4 of the way submerged, so I should be able to get the kayak over without too much difficulty. I begin the process of packing my gear along the river. It takes me three trips to do this. Well once back in the river, I come to the fallen tree, and manage to get over alright, shortly after I see the Club Lake portage marker. I am back at Mink Lake. I paddle for the camp site next to the Lake Couchon portage and begin the process of drying out my gear. It starts to rain as I do this of course. I hurry and get my tarp set up and throw my gear under it.

Now a I think a trip like this isn't complete without facing a little adversity, but today was a bit too much for my liking. Most of my gear is fine. My clothes were wrapped in plastic, same with my food. I had a sweater strapped to my backpack, so that was drenched, tent and sleeping bag were a little wet, but nothing too serious. The clothes I was wearing were obviously in need of drying also.

The rain doesn't last long and I set up the tent to air out and I rig up a clothes line to dry out the sleeping bag and clothes. Well, I figure I will be here tonight and most likely spend tomorrow night here also. Oh well, thats how it goes sometime. I have to get a fire going, my lighter is wet, luckily I wrapped up some 'strike anywhere' matches in plastic and put them in my first aid kit. The previous people at this site had a generous supply of birch bark left so getting a fire going wasn't a problem, I was thankful for this.



Day 3

Today is a day spent drying out clothes and shoes. It is mostly cloudly all day, and the trees will only allow me direct sunlight for a couple hours, so yeah, I know I will be for another night.

Needless to say this wasn't nearly as eventful as yesterday. I hiked the portage to Cauchon twice, once just for something to do, and another collecting wood. I also hiked the rail bed for a bit, other than that there was not much else happening today.

The evening brought a couple treats to make it being stuck back on Mink worth while. A beaver started swimming around in front of my campsite, just doing laps, it was amusing, I have no idea what it was doing. I guess it eventually became bored and left. Then, just as the sun had gone down, I heard a noise in the water, I thought it was the beaver again, then I heard a loud huffing sound. I turn around, in the waning daylight I see a bull moose swimming across the lake in front of me. It was cool. I figured it must heading for this point of land near my campsite, if it wasn't it would be heading on up the lake. I was correct, it came to this point and started to feed. I am pretty sure it had no idea I was even there. As I am trying to get a better look, I look down and notice I am close to falling in the lake and blurt out "Oh damn!" The moose turns quickly and stands there staring at me for a good 10-15 minutes. After the stare down, it slowly walked away, with the sound of cracking and snapping trees.

Day 4

This morning I wake up and start packing up. No coffee and I eat granola bars for breakfast. I decide I will spend the last two nights on Kioshkokwi. The outfitter is supposed to be picking me up between 9-noon on my last day, so being close to the main campground sounds like a good plan.

Today I saw two snapping turtles, one the size of a toonie, and one the size of a baseball. The smaller one was in Lt. Mink, the larger was in Kioshkokwi.

I plan heading for the first campsite east of the Kiosk put in. I notice on my way there that the second one east looks pretty good, I keep this in mind. I arrive at the campsite I was planning on staying at. It was horrible. It is completely overgrown. Even the fire pit had plants growing out of it. This site should be marked as low maintenance. I head back to the other site, second to the east from Kiosk. This site is great. I really like it. It is nice and grassy and you can walk barefoot without worry. The campsite is surrounded by blueberry bushes. It is also ringed with a beautiful example of Algonquins trees, red pine, white birch, different maples, beech, oak, and many other species. Just inside the forest, which was nice and wide open, I found a few species of frogs hopping around. This campsite also had a great view of the lake. Its only downfall was the wind. You got the wind directly off the lake. This didn't bother me however.

Day 5

Today was a beautiful day. It was warm and sunny. I was sunburned today. In the morning I collected fire wood. I spent quite a few hours doing this, I had a folding saw which worked better than I could hope. After collecting wood for my evening fire, I decided to paddle around the lake for awhile. There wasn't much more to do. Next time I will be bringing my fishing rod for sure. I regret not bringing one this time. After my paddle, I bathed in the lake, then just lazed around camp all day, which is how I got my sunburn. Oh, well it was worth it. Today would be my last night. Even with the troubles I had, it was a great trip. I plan on returning next year, hopefully to finish the loop I had planned.

The next morning I relate my tale from Day 2 to Carmen. She tells me that river isn't usually that bad, it's just because of all the rain this year. Well I believe her, there sure was alot of rain on this trip, but not enough to keep from returning. Until next time...