Algonquin Canoe Trip 2017

I spent Saturday to Tuesday up in Algonquin Park on a canoe trip with my family, including Caitlyn, Paul, Dad and my niece Emma who was experiencing her first backcountry canoe trip. We had been looking forward to this trip for a long time and were elated that the weather cooperated with full sun all 4 days! We spent our first night on Little Doe and the next two on Tom Thomson.

We had a great time of swimming, hacky sack, Diny rock (fun game I co-invented), and just relaxing.

The most exciting moment came on our last night just after we had hung our food at around 11pm. We all heard an odd sound coming from up the hill and realized it was the rope we had hung the food packs from, straining from something heavy pulling on it.  We put two and two together and tore up the hill.  When I got there I saw a Black Bear running away from the packs further up the hill.  I chased it away while making as much noise as possible to scare it off.  Fortunately, it had not gotten any of our food which would further habituate it to people.  Paul's pack had several teeth marks and lots of slobber all over it but was otherwise fine. The bear was quite bold and returned and watched as we untied the packs to look for a more safe spot to hang the food. In the dark, all we could see were its eyes glowing back at us from the flashlights and the occasional sound of it huffing. Unfortunately, there weren't any better trees with high branches to hang from and so we brought the packs to the fire pit and stood guard for several hours until we were sure it wasn't coming back. Quite the experience, especially for my niece's first trip!

Below are a few of my favourite scenic shots from the trip.