It's been a great summer this year. But there were two things missing: a trip with Rebecca, and canoeing. So what if there was only one weekend in the entire summer that we were both without plans, and so what if we've never paddled a canoe together - there was a weekend when we were both free! and we were going canoeing!
It took me about five minutes to pick a route by the usual Johanna method (what part of this map haven't I been to yet? I'd never been in by the North Tea Lake access point in Algonquin, so that's what I booked) and another five to arrange a boat rental (a Swift Kipawa, because there are so many firsts I can handle at once, and I love this boat. Someday I will own one).
As luck would have it, we got away a lot earlier than we expected to on Friday, so got to the access point in time to see a *lot* of people with an even bigger lot of gear getting ready to paddle out. But it was also early enough to change plans, and I managed to switch our site from North Tea to Manitou Lake - an extra portage is always a good thing...
The North Tea Lake access requires a stretch of paddling (and two tiny portages) down the Amable du Fond River. This is actually a good thing, since the narrow, meandering channel is a sure way for two paddlers to figure out how compatible they are at steering the boat. After happily careening into the banks twice, we spent a couple of minutes going over strokes, and from then on the Kipawa moved like it should and we made North Tea in great time.
The woman who changed our reservation at the access point told us it would take us six hours to Manitou, and we set out at 1 p.m. We took it easy down the Amable du Fond, and we didn't kill ourselves on North Tea either (and we're no expert paddlers) and the wind was in our faces, but nevertheless we settled on a site on Manitou by 6 p.m.
Manitou Lake - and much of this section of the park - is not what I usually think of when I think of Algonquin. I picture sites which have rocky points that you can jump off to swim. We saw a good number of sandy beaches but, though there were sites which matched my mental picture on North Tea, there was little exposed rock on Manitou. Things were busy in the park, and we were hungry, so we took the second open site.
The site was on the first island you come to if you take the northerly (410m) portage from North Tea Lake. It didn't look particularly promising from the water - a narrow landing spot and a trail - but opened up into a big grassy area just above. There was a great flat rock on a stump for cooking and, best of all, a big raspberry patch with ripe berries! Furthermore, the grassy surface meant no sand would find its way into my sleeping bag (and did I mention we were tired?).
Our original plan (ok, mine, but I figured I'd convince Rebecca that it was a good idea) had been to stay on the west side of North Tea Lake for two nights and do a 40 km loop on our layover day. I thought that was doable, given that we wouldn't be lugging much gear and would come back to a campsite that was already set up. Switching our site to Manitou meant that we could do the same route but it would only come out to 35 km. And Rebecca needed no convincing. After our oatmeal (another great thing about Rebecca, she likes oatmeal as much as I do!) we set out.
The route would take us through Manitou to a 2800 m portage to Three Mile Lake. From there, we would do four portages in a row (there were three tiny lakes) to Biggar Lake, and - after three more portages through two further tiny lakes - back to North Tea and then Manitou. We were on the water by 8:00, and finished the 2800 m portage by 9:45.
Rebecca had never portaged a canoe before this trip (in the past she's always been stuck with the food barrel), but that didn't stop her from doing two thirds of the longest portage of the day (and half of our day's 5.6km total portaging distance). She'd also never paddled stern before, so she practiced the J-stroke the entire length of Three Mile Lake. She practiced it very enthusiastically.
We had wonderful weather - the morning gave us mostly glassy water, since there was no wind. This was a bonus for the bugs on the portages, but we have nothing to complain about since the temperatures were very pleasant in the low 20s. The morning had been very chilly, and when I got up there was mist rising off the lake. It felt a bit like fall already.
Neither Three Mile Lake nor Biggar Lake had the rocky, exposed sorts of sites that I'm partial to - this entire section of the park seems to be dominated by black spruce and birch, and I felt like I was much further north. Three Mile Lake has nice clear water, but Biggar Lake is full of tannin. All of the lakes around here are infested with loons - very bold loons. At one point, three of them plopped out of the air not 10 m from our boat!
We didn't just see lots of loons - on the way back into North Tea, very shortly after Rebecca's confession that she's never seen a moose, we saw two of the critters. They weren't shy either - we paddled very close to the cow and calf with no noticeable alarm on the cow's part. Shortly after that, two very cute otters tried to figure out if the Kipawa was a potential playmate. Once we got back to North Tea, we had the wind in our faces and just put our heads down and paddled to finish the loop.
The portage from North Tea to Manitou is easy if you go west to east, but 90% uphill if you go the other way, as we found out shortly after we left our site at 9:00 a.m. on our last morning. A strong tailwind on North Tea made up for it, though. For a while, we had some very ominous weather, but it blew over into another stunning day - sunny, a breeze, not too hot.
We were making good time, but so were dozens of other boats - and we all seemed to be heading towards the first portage on the Amable du Fond on our way out. At 11:00, Rebecca and I decided to take a break on an island which was maybe a half hour's paddle from this portage. We lazed around and ate until almost noon, at which point there seemed to be a break in the steady stream of paddlers.

Our timing worked - we made short work of the portages, but there were at least eight boats right behind us. Our superb teamwork on the Amable du Fond's winding channel, however, meant that we put a lot of distance between us and them (except for the couple with the perfect technique in the beautiful cedar strip who paddled right behind us - but they were friendly and knew what they were doing).
All in all, a good quickie weekend trip. Go on a trip with Rebecca - check. Canoe this summer - yup. Rebecca paddles stern - yes. Rebecca portages - sure (though the Tom Sawyer approach didn't work, she didn't love it that much). See moose - uh huh. Have a great time - definitely. Thanks Becks!

Back to Johanna's incredibly self-centered web page