Saturday, July 10

Saturday we set out to do the first part of our honeymoon canoe trip in our kayaks!
When we went on our honeymoon, we borrowed my dad's trailer, and came to Algonquin Park for around two weeks. Besides doing all of the ranger programs I've been talking about, we took two two day canoe trips into Algonquin's back Country, or as close as we could for a couple of novices.
I had been canoeing as a Boy, and Explorer Scout. My longest trip had been across the state of Michigan, with a lot of scouts, and adult leaders. Liz had never been canoe camping. On the way up to the park we asked each other what made us think this was a good idea? The only conclusion we came up with was we never thought about anything bad happening. Ahhh the naivete of youth!
Back then we rented our canoe at the Portage store, on Canoe lake at the bottom, where you see Hwy 60 get close. The map is ours from 32 years ago. Click on the picture to make it larger. I had borrowed a pup tent, we purchased sleeping bags, and had some left over gear from my scout days for the balance. We paddled up Canoe lake to the top, Portaged into Joe Lake, and from there we portaged into Little Joe Lake. Here our 32 years is taking it's toll. We think we portaged in to Littledoe lake at the top, but we're not sure. Regardless we have incredible memories of the wildlife we saw on this trip, and the second, a few days later.
Here for the first time we saw Loons really close up, and so much more. It was a great trip, that we still bring up from time to time today.
Nowadays we have found the pleasure of kayaks. A canoe loving ranger up here says kayaks are for people who couldn't get along with their canoe partner! That may be true, but we appreciate their lighter weight, and increased maneuverability. We put in at the same place and did a much abbreviated trip up canoe lake only. It was great fun. The lake has a few new residents, and a summer camp is larger. Little Joe and the lakes further north are considerably more private due to lack of access, and the portages. On our prior trip we simply found a spot on beautiful shore and made camp, we had the entire lake to ourselves.

That evening we went to a wildflower program and were proud to say that we had found many of the specimens Ethan talked about, and Liz had correctly identified most of them.
Another Superb day in one of our favorite parks.