A Short Trip to Murphys Point

This past week, my friends are I were planning on spending three nights in Murphys Point Provincial Park. Unfortunately, we only managed to stay a night and a half before waking up to the tent raining on us! Still, we had a lovely Thursday of canoeing and an easy hike.

Our first activity was our canoe trip. We had heard that Murphys Point had a nice, simply loop to canoe, so on Thursday morning we packed a picnic lunch and went to rent canoes. After a short portage to Loon Lake, and then another short portage to Big Rideau Lake. It took us a few hours to circle the park (far less time than we were told to expect!), before returning to canoes to the camp store.

We had booked a tour of the Silver Queen Mine for Friday, but since we knew it was going to rain, Jenn and I decided to go walk the trail, so at the very least we would be able to see that much if the tour into the mine was cancelled. The trail was a nice short walk with a few stops to learn about the mine. On the walk back, we took Beaver Pond Trail, a little offshoot, for a change of scenery. All the rain lately has made the pond eat up the trail in a few places, but that just made the walk a bit more adventurous! I'm glad we went that afternoon, because even though we suspected the tour might be cancelled because of the rain, we never expected that we would end up leaving the park that night!

It was about 2:30 in the morning when we realized that tent was leaking on us. With a whole night and day of rain ahead, we decided the best choice was to wait for a break in the clouds, pack up as quickly as possible, and head home (luckily the park wasn't too far from home!).

So it was a surprisingly short trip, but the one day we had was very nice! I got to collect the badge for Murphys Point, and also decided to buy the Passport to Ontario Parks, so I can keep track of which parks I visit in the future. I really doubt I'll be able to visit them all, but who knows! Maybe this'll become a fun summer challenge. So far, I have Algonquin, Charleston Lake, Ferris, Fitzroy, Rideau River, and now Murphys Point! So I have a lot to go. Too bad I can't count every trip to Algonquin as a separate park! I wonder where we'll go next year!

Back to Canoeing

This past week I went on my twelfth Algonquin canoe trip! But even though it was my twelfth, it was the first in a few different ways — first without campers, first since COVID, muddiest portages. Not to mention that for one of our group of five, it was her first canoe trip ever!

We ended up pushing through what should have been our second last day to avoid bad weather.

To back up a little bit, in May a friend (Claire) reached out and asked if I would like to join her (and two of her friends) on a 6-day canoe trip this summer. I agreed, excited by an opportunity to go on another longer canoe trip after so long, and one without campers! Although this was trip twelve, my last week-long trip was in 2016. After a bit of talking back and forth, our other friend Jenn said she would love to experience a trip, and so she was invited along. I assured her multiple times that I had taken 12 year old kids on similar trips, so even with no experience, she was fully capable of joining us!

I did a bit of extra shopping this time around, as I was so used to simply using equipment from our old Girl Guide camp. Last week we packed everything up and drove out to join Claire, Anik and Tom at Canoe Lake.

What followed was a delightful trip! We often joked about the 'typical canoe trip experience' that Jenn was having, and mentioned whenever something could be ticked off the list. Some highlights that anybody who's been on trips will recognize included crossing beaver dams, canoeing in the rain, rocky portages, listening to loons, and pretty sunsets over lakes.

We had some wonderful moments, like seeing a moose on our very first day! We had great luck with the weather (aside for deciding to push through our fifth day and end early in order to avoid rolling thunderstorms), and our journeys across the big lakes weren't too windy. We found beautiful sites (with some very new thunderboxes!). And of course some struggles, like knee deep mud at a beaver dam that almost ate my croc and a grassy bay that seemed to go on forever. I slipped in mud on a portage and the canoe fell on my forearm. The 2390m portage was a challenge! But honestly, canoe trip struggles turn into some of the best stories, and they really add to the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the trip!

Going on this canoe trip reminded me of how much I enjoy them, and why. It was such a different experience going with friends instead of campers. My last trip was in 2019, and I hope I don't have to wait so long to go on another one!

A Few Days in Algonquin Park

A few weeks ago, for the first time ever, I went camping with just some friends! I have been camping with all of these people before, of course, but always with Girl Guides. This was my first time going camping without campers to look out for.

The trip was four days, but only two of those days were entirely in Algonquin Park. They can be easily labelled—the hiking day, and the canoeing day! There isn't too much to tell, so this post will mostly be a collection of photos.

The Hiking Day (Aug 10)

The first morning, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast. My favourite part was using the Kelly Kettle to boil water for tea. I love these! You build a fire in the bottom, fill the kettle, and carefully place it on top of the fire. The 'chimney' is wide enough to continue dropping sticks into. Pretty quickly the water boils! The only downside is it's size. While that didn't matter much on this trip, I've taken them on canoe trips before and they can be a bit cumbersome!

After a quick stop at the Portage Store to ask about renting canoes, we set off for a day of nice little hikes. We started with the Algonquin Logging Museum. This trail starts off in the bookstore, with little dioramas to look at and a video (which wasn't playing at the time). The rest of the trail is made up of chronological outdoor exhibits of different buildings and equipment used for logging.

I think this trail would be interesting for anyone who likes history, but I had a special link to what we learned about—my paternal grandfather was a logger who died in a related accident when my dad was a teenager. While this museum specifically talked about logging in Algonquin Park, the techniques would have been similar across Ontario. As I read the displays, I wondered if my grandfather had lived in these kinds of buildings, or used these kinds of tools as he worked in the 50s and 60s. My dad remembers some things my grandfather told him about, such as having a horse he often worked with.

I would definitely recommend checking this trail/museum out.

Station One - The Camboose Camp from the 1800s

Station Four - The 'Jammer' Crane

Station Nine - The Alligator Boat

Station Fifteen - Sawlog Camp (1940s)

After the Logging Museum, we went to walk the Spruce Bog Boardwalk. This was a short hike with some very unique scenery. Heather did a spectacular job acting as a tour guide for us by translating the French guidebook (as there were no English ones for us to use!).

We stopped off at our campsite for a late lunch, and went to do our last hike, Two Rivers Lookout. This was a short walk, but the climb was quite steep in places! Still, the view from the top was work the trek. We took lots of great pictures.

(Yeah, I look like a Girl Guide Advertisement—That's what happens when 95% of your camping clothing is related to GGC or Camp Woolsey!)

After our hikes, we went back to our our site for a quiet, relaxing evening around the fire!

The Canoeing Day (Aug 11)

Heather and I have gone on plenty of canoe trips in Algonquin Park, so we knew of a nice little day trip we could do on Canoe Lake—visiting Tom Thomson's Cairn for a picnic lunch.

Tom Thomson's story at Canoe Lake is very interesting, and I highly recommend reading more about it. The short version is that he was found drowned in Canoe Lake, but details around what happened to him, and then what happened to his body, are confusing and suspicious. He was a famous painter and said to be a very good canoer, making some people doubt his death was an accident. Whatever the truth is, the story is fascinating.

The weather was perfect for our little trip. We packed a lunch, rented two canoes, and headed out. I'll admit, my canoeing skills are a little rusty after two years away from camping. But we made good time and arrived at Tom Tomson's Cairn with no problems. It was a pretty popular spot! We had a nice picnic, then made the trip back to the Portage Store to return the boats.

(Funny aside, once as a kid my family was camping in Alqonguin and my dad and I wanted to canoe out to the cairn. I remember it being a pretty windy day. We made it to the right point, but thought we were lost and went back before going around the corner to see the nicely labelled dock!)

We had some well deserved ice cream, and went back to our campsite for another relaxing evening reading more about Tom Thomson, relaxing around the fire, and reminiscing about our old camping adventures at Woolsey (which is a very common topic for us!)

The next morning, we got up, slowly packed, and went home. Overall, a very nice couple of days with some good friends!