250.jpg249.jpgI'm an introverted high school teacher so every year once work is done, I need to get away from it all. This year was 5 days in The Massassauga Provincial Park on the Eastern shore of Georgian Bay (2.5 h North of Toronto). This was actually my first extended solo canoe trip.
First off was picking up my rental canoe. For those who rent, you know there is a huge variety of boats and costs. I ended up renting from Huntsville about an hour out of my way since the only other supplier of good solo boats (Swift Shearwater in this case) was almost double the price but being on vacation I was in no rush. Another plus of the extra drive was the morning thunderstorms were over by the time I started.
The park has 2 access points and I chose to go in through 3 legged lake which is a cottager lake but a 20 minute or so paddle brings you to the portage to the park. On the down side, a popular park with weekenders all using one portage can get a bit crowded but going in on a Tuesday there were only a few other groups to navigate around on the portage. For many the only portage is all they end up doing because the spider lake system is pretty vast so you can get a back country experience with 30 minutes paddling and one portage.
Day 1 was about 12 km total in about 3 hours of refreshing my canoe skills and almost started out wrong. Just as I was about to shove off I looked over at a guy adjusting the seat on his canoe which made a lucky connection in my mind to the removable yoke still sitting in my car. Being the afternoon after a storm and on the east end of a big lake there was some wind to deal with from different directions but a heck of a lot easier than the EGL headwind trip in May. The sites at the park are reserved individually and unless you have seen the site it's hard to tell which sites are good unless you have been there before (the booking site has some pics but often they are like real estate agent pictures which don't give a real impression). I was happy with the first site having wanted something with an western exposure for afternoon sun and prevailing winds to keep the bugs down (who would have thought, early summer and bugs?). One of the best parts was the beautifully placed trees overlooking the Canadian shield rocks fire pit, and the water. Here I experienced gear problem #1. My Sawyer Squeeze was being extremely slow and using the syringe to backwash didn't help. Thankfully my first aid kid always has water tablets in it. Highs for the day were in the high 20's C with mid 30's humidex.
Being the first day and an early start I hid in my hammock during dusk (otherwise known as an early evening nap) before cooking dinner in the dark. Maybe it's just me but mosquitoes aren't as bad in the dark when you can't see them. Also a benefit was the moon was a thin crescent and set early so the stars were nice.
Only other thing of note was with the purpose of my trip to get away from teaching life, it was 'nice'to have a group of 9 teens camped 200 m across the water but they were reasonably well behaved (or I was tired enough to be a heavy sleeper).
Day 2 began around 10:30. One of the nice things about the park is you don't have to vacate sites until 2:00 and not being a morning person it gave me a chance to sleep and be lazy in packing up. I was still all ready to go by noon. The day started with a choice. I could either paddle an extra 2 km then do to short but steepish and consecutive portages or save the extra paddling and do a 645 m flatter one straight from Spider to Clear Lake. Figuring that a little hardship and a less traveled path. The portage was a pretty hike with a transition from deciduous forest to Canadian Shield meadow to coniferous forest. Clear lake was a very pretty lake and seemingly very quiet and made a quick yet easy 45 minutes across to the longest portage on the park of 1200 m. Here I noticed gear problem #2. My sunglasses which were clipped to by PFD before the 1st portage decided not to take the trip with me. I"m not too surprised that they didn't last the trip though. Thankfully they weren't expensive..
Another pretty portage. In the middle there was a nice meadow with raspberry plants about 2/3 of the way through. Being early though, there was no fruit yet and all I got was scratched up legs and mild allergic reactions.
Here I entered the "other" part of the park. The interior of the park is set up for canoeing with no motors allowed on the lakes. The outer part is part of Georgian Bay and set up for boaters with numerous mooring points, overnighting bays and because of a park expansion, numerous private cottages. I heard horror stories about the loud and obnoxious boaters but they were just as respectful as most people with the only noise being fireworks from some Americans celebrating the 4th but even that didn't last past 10:00 PM.
The second site was a lot like the first with a rocky west facing area backed by forest and again some nice trees overlooking the water. The only difference being on bigger water, the wind was much more noticeable. I chose for a view over sheltered, partly for the bugs, but had to spend some time fine tuning the tarp.
Speaking of the tarp, my setup for the trip was my WBBB camo and superfly. Both are heavier than what I often use in the summer but being a canoe trip I figured why not spoil myself. For quilts I was using Te-wa 40 TQ and my brand new breeze UQ. I also brought along my 2Q underquilt protector and with the winds it made a difference, especially since the temperatures were dropping down to 10C.
Thinking about weather, I wanted to check on what I would deal with the next day being on Georgian Bay so pulled out my weather band radio. This was another gear failure but not really the gear. For some reason no band was picking up reports but that wasn't a problem as the park has pretty good cell coverage so my phone did its job.
I ended up eating a cold dinner of the rest of my salami and with clouds moving in had an early night. Damage for day 2 - 3.5 h, 9 km paddling, 1900 m in portages.
Day 3 had another relaxed start but as I was getting ready the weather became less happy. The forecast said 40% chance of rain less than 1 mm. Luckily for me, the rain stayed with me as I traveled. I spent the main part of the day dodging around islands in a misty rain with winds that kept picking up. Actually it was a really nice paddle except the chill with everything seeming so quiet and isolated. Having my compass out had me quickly realize I was going the wrong way but I did have to stop to change into my full rain gear for warmth. The rain was tapering off as I hit the 235 m shortcut portage to where my site was. I briefly considered going the long way and stopping of at frying pan island and Henry's fish restaurant, mooring my canoe beside yachts and flying planes but with the weather, I was ready for a nap.
The portage started with a quite fragrant smelling plant dominating and ended with one of the buggiest portages I've been at. In my mind I dove into the canoe head first with my gear still on my back but I'm sure I was more dignified. Pulling out of the little inlet I saw one of the most beautiful hammock sites I've seen. It was fairly open with a small stand of trees on a 20 ft cliff overlooking the water and the trees looked to be the requisite 4 or 5 m apart. But of course when I got close enough to read the site number I realized it wasn't mine. My site was another 50 m along with the only usable trees set back in the buggy woods. Might have been the better site in a storm but it wasn't storming that night. Even more annoying was I was taking a rest day at this site. At least the good site was slightly around the bend so I didn't have to look at it.
I was quite chilled when I got in so I though on my merino and went to boil some water. This is where the next gear failure happened. For some reason the burner on my jetboil didn't want to accept the fuel canister. Thankfully I also had a new piece of gear - the 180 tack wood stove. They make two sizes and I got the smaller one. There was a nice pile of wood likely left out from the fall which was very dry and I quickly got water boiled and food rehydrated (not jetboil quick but not bad).
Day 3 - 3 h, 11 km.
Day 4 was a rest day and the weather was beautiful. Not too hot but sunny for most of the day (though being on the edge of the bay the occasions clouds or burst of thunder went by. Day 4 was marked by another coming gear failure. I have a great piece of gear, a waterproof duffel from MEC http://www.mec.ca/product/5030-383/m...ly-100-duffle/. I love the size and the ease of packing and accessing gear compared to the top opening packs. The unfortunate thing is it isn't really meant for use as a backpack. They include backpack starps but they are just webbing and the ends aren't well secured to the rest of the pack and there is no attempt a a hip belt. By day 4 one of the straps was tearing from the fabric. Still usable but not a good sign. Now MEC has great guarantees on their material but I cant decide whether to replace it or get a refund. What it does it does really well but for more than short portages it's sub par.
I spent part of the day looking at the next day's weather. My original plan was to head further along Georgian Bay then do a bunch of portages on the way out day 6. Weather report was saying a 30% chance of rain but totals up to 30 mm. That didn't impress me so I decided to do a longer paddle and cut my trip a day short.
Day 6 had some really cooperative winds. For a big chunk the winds played with the trim of my boat so that I didn't have to spend much time j-stroking. Later on I had a nice tail wind that probably doubled my speed. It was also a beautifully clear day to enjoy paddling. By the time I got to the last portage I was greeted by some cottagers drinking beer who didn't even bother offering me one.
Ended up doing 4 hours, 15 km and was pretty gassed by the end. I was also disappointed that I let myself get a bit dehydrated that day. Didn't matter much because by withing half an hour I was getting refills of pop along with my burger and fries.
Finally my last gear failure of the trip - I lost one of the foam blocks holding the canoe on my car and had to stop and rig up a towel to prevent damage. All worked out though.
Trip positives - quiet, scenic, a variety of wildernesses and weather, a chance to decompress.
negatives - repeated gear failures. None disastrous but annoying (and one day shorter than planned).
Sorry for the lack of pics. I kept my phone away most of the time.
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