Iain Leitch Photography

 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 p...

Six Days Alone in Algonquin: Canoe Lake to White Trout and Back My first back country canoe trip of 2025 was to what is normally the busiest part of Algonquin. I left on May 4th from Canoe Lake and returned on May 9th to Canoe Lake. In between, I stayed on Rainbow, McIntosh, Misty, White Trout, and Sunbeam Lakes, each for one night.  The total distance for the trip was 99.07 km, as recorded on Strava. The way I recorded my days on Strava didn’t differentiate between paddling and portaging, but I did roughly 36.03 km of portaging. I double-carried each portage, so I did each portage length three times.   Waterfall between Timberwolf and Misty Lake   Day One – Canoe Lake to Rainbow Lake: 12.18 km, 4 hours 17 minutes I recently got a new car this winter -a Chevy Equinox EV. Since this was my first time traveling with a canoe on the EV, I was interested to see how much it would affect my range. I left Ottawa at 98% and got to Bancroft with around 30%. From there, I charged ...