With Canada Day falling on a Tuesday this year, I figured I would make the most of it and take the Monday and Wednesday off to make myself a nice long weekend to go paddling in Algonquin Park. To me, there would be no better way to celebrate being Canadian than being eaten alive by bugs and getting sun burnt deep in the back woods. I had planned a five day trip for this long weekend staying one night on Pen Lake, two on Madawaska Lake, and then the final on Cyldegale Lake before heading back on Wednesday.
Before I left, this seemed like a great plan but it was just not meant to be.
Day 1
My first day of my trip started out great. I was on the water by 11am and only had a short 380 meter portage until I was on the lake I had booked for the night. I started off at the Rock Lake access point and had a nice paddle down the lake until I needed to turn West and was hit by a wall of wind and 2 foot high waves. I tried to battle through this, as all I needed to do was get around a point and I would be in the clear, as the little bay leading down to the portage was protected from the wind. This did not work out.
I ended up doing a loop around Jean Island and wound up in a sheltered bay on Rose Island. I decided I would wait out the wind a bit in this bay and have lunch. I tried twice more to get to where I needed to go to but just could not make it. The wind, the waves, and the fact I was solo did not help. I ended up in front of someone's campsite on Jean Island that happened to have a motor boat. Adam, who was one of the campers at this site, was nice enough to tow my boat to the portage landing after I asked. He didn't accept any money that I offered him and just did it out of the kindness of his heart. Him towing me and my boat really saved my day, as I was not sure how I was going to get across this open water stretch and to the portage.
Once on the 380 meter portage, I single carried my gear, which I had been able to fit in one bag compared to my previous trip where I needed two bags. I decided I didn't like single carries as it puts too much weight on my back. As mundane as a double carry is, I think it's the way to go especially on a shorter portage like this.
Once I was on Pen Lake, it was smooth sailing. There was still a wind but I stuck close to shore and made some good time. Before I had left, I had checked how many sites were booked on Pen Lake that night and it was supposed to be full, but as I paddled down the lake to the site I wanted, it seemed almost every site but 3 were free for the taking. I assumed that due to the wind and the rain the previous night people had just decided to abandon their plans.
I got to my site around 3pm and was set up in no time. The site I was on was the second closest site to the portage into Clydegale Lake. It was situated on a point in the lake and had a nice view of an island. The wind was still blowing off and on at this point, which made hanging around camp fairly chilly. I brought a little thermometer and it was saying it was down to 14 degrees at some points with the wind. I ended my day rather early and was in the tent by 7:30pm to read my book and was asleep by 8:30pm. I had tried to have a fire but there was a lack of dry wood and the wind kept putting out the flame.
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| Booth Rock from Rock Lake |
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| View on Rock Lake |
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| Northern Flag Iris |
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| Landing at my site on Pen Lake |
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| View from my site on Pen Lake |
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| Camp setup on Pen Lake |
Day 2
Day two of what was suppose to be a five day trip started out great. I awoke to sun streaming in through the tent and it was already pleasantly warm when I got up. I had breakfast, packed up camp, and was on the water by 7:45am. I had a short paddle over to the 270 meter portage into Clydegale Lake. Once on Clydegale, I was a little surprised that there were lily pads growing in the middle of the lake, where I expected it to be deep. I paddled down the lake and was able to easily find the mouth of the South Madawaska River. This river had a bit of flow to it but nothing too extreme.
As I was paddling up the river, I came across around 8 beaver dams, all of which had been broken up. This meant that there was always a path through them that did not involve getting out of the canoe to do a lift over. It only took me an hour to paddle up the river until the first portage. This portage was 1360 meters long. I opted to skip the first section of the portage and was able to walk and paddle my canoe up until I came to a second portage sign. I wasn't expecting to find a second portage sign here but it was stuck to the tree. This second one didn't have any writing on it though, unlike how they normally do in Algonquin. I just assumed that this was the high water portage landing compared to the first one, which seemed to be a low water landing.
I decided to take out at the second portage sign because I was already finding walking up the river tiring and rather slippery. I loaded my bag on my back and went off down the portage. Right away I could tell that this was a very low maintenance portage with all the undergrowth and the lack of apparent trail at times. I immediately saw some of the small diamond portage signs stuck to some trees and followed them. This led to a bit of undergrowth that was almost impassible. It was all chest high, and made up of raspberry bushes, ferns, tall grass, and who known what else. I managed to get through the under growth and was rewarded with a very nice trail through the forest, but it did not last. After about five minutes down the portage, it just ended. The trail completely disappeared under a mixture of rather old blow downs, undergrowth, and swamp. I tried to get through this but it came to a point where it just wasn't worth it to try to make it through. I was finding it nearly impossible to get through with just my dry bag on, I couldn't imagine it with a canoe on my head. It was pretty obvious that it had been a rather long time since an Ontario Parks crew came through to do maintenance on this portage.
At this point, I made my way back to the portage landing and decided to try to line the canoe up the river. This worked out for a bit of time until the river turned into less of a river and more of a rock garden, which made moving the canoe up impossible. I took stock of this situation while sitting on a rock in the middle of the river with my canoe beached up on its own rock. It was a beautiful location and I wanted nothing more than to get down to Madawaska Lake, as it had been a goal of mine for a while. I could find almost no information about this lake online and thus wanted to contribute something by going to the lake, but it just wasn't meant to be at this point in time.
I decided that instead of staying three nights on Clydegale Lake, I would just head home instead. The weather was predicting a bad thunderstorm Monday afternoon/evening and I didn't want to get caught in that on some remote lake no one ever goes to.
I un-beached my canoe, walked it down the river I had just walked up, and once it was deep enough, hopped in and paddled down river towards Clydegale Lake. Once on the lake, I stopped for lunch at a campsite. I checked out the campsite, seeing if it was good enough that I could stay for a night, but it had garbage all over it and not much water access. This cemented my plans to just head home instead of staying three nights on this lake.
After lunch, I paddled back to the 270 meter portage heading back into Pen. Once over the portage, I paddled the entire length of Pen Lake. Pen is a long narrow lake. It feels as if it goes on forever as your paddling up it. At the end of Pen, I did the 380 meter portage into Rock Lake. This portage was busy with people hanging out at both ends of it. Once on Rock Lake, I paddled back up the access point. Paddling on Rock Lake was easy this time around with little to no wind. The little wind I did get on the lake was a brief tail wind which was nice.
I ended up back at the access point around 4:20pm, which capped off a very long day of paddling. Normally I track my paddles on Strava but I forgot to bring my phone charger so my phone was almost dead, which meant no record of my distance. But by looking at the map, I estimate that I paddled about 26km, including double carrying the portages.
I am happy with the decision I made, because even though I am disappointed in the result of the trip being cut short, I think it was for the best. Either Mother Nature, the Camping Gods, or the Wendigos didn't want me in the park this long weekend and this was their way of letting me know.
This was my third trip into the back country of Algonquin, and while I am disappointed I wasn't able to do the trip, I am quite proud of myself for knowing when to call it quits and to see when something just isn't meant to work out. I am also proud of myself for asking for help the first day on Rock Lake rather than potentially putting myself in a dangerous situation with the wind and the waves.
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| View from my site on Pen Lake in the morning |
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| My empty site on Pen Lake |
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| South Madawaska River |
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| South Madawaska River |
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| As far as I could get on the river |
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| One of many busted beaver dams |
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