Iain Leitch Photography

 Mid-week in April, my wife and I took a trip down to Montreal from Ottawa to go see Lewis Capaldi in concert. We decided to make a little vacation out of it, as it's not often that we get the chance to head down to Montreal.  We took the train from Ottawa to Montreal the morning of the concert and arrived in town just after 12:30. It was too early to check into our hotel, so we went out for lunch at an Irish pub, that was just a few streets over from our hotel. The lunch portions were huge and very fairly priced.  After lunch we were able to check into our hotel early, which was convenient. We dropped our bags and then walked down to the Old Port, just to wander. We ended up at the waterfront, which was pretty, and then took the subway back to our hotel to relax a bit before dinner.  We went out for a sit down pizza dinner with a friend who lives in town, so it was nice to catch up with them. After dinner we headed down to the Bell Centre for the concert. We were se...

 My last backcountry canoe trip of the year was to Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park. This was my first time in the park. I started the trip on October 4–7. The trip comprised 43.51 km total, of which 13.6 km was portaging. I double-carried each portage, which meant I ended up walking each one three times. Day 1. I left Ottawa around 7 a.m. and drove to Madoc, where I charged my car for about 20 minutes. I got to the access point around 10:45 a.m. After unpacking the car and parking, I got on the water around 11 a.m. Long Lake is a very pretty lake and sure lives up to its name. You essentially go straight for a long time until you hit Loucks Lake. It would be impossible for anyone to get lost on Long Lake as it’s super narrow. Loucks Lake has a bunch more cottages than Long Lake did, which made finding the first portage a bit of a challenge. It ended up being right beside someone’s cottage which, as someone used to Algonquin, I found a bit odd. However, before I got to my first ...