June 21-24, 2024 – Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario

 


Friday morning, we drove to Algonquin Provincial Park which is about 2 hours north of Fenelon Falls in the Algonquin Highlands.  The scenery along the way was beautiful, it is hillier here with a lot of granite outcroppings and very green from the recent rains.  It was raining when we arrived at our campsite in Canisbay Lake Campground.  Gunter and Susanne are camped in the next site in their Roadtrek van.





    After we got settled in, we kayaked on Canisbay Lake.






It was sprinkling some, but the water was smooth.  Nancy, Susanne and Gunter are out ahead of Rex as he took this picture.








The wind came up when we were on the far side of the lake, so it was a little harder paddling back.  This area is beautiful, and we had a great time on the lake.





The next day it was raining so we went to the Visitors Center and watched a movie about the park.  Algonquin Provincial Park was established in 1893 and was the first provincial park in Canada.






After looking at all the displays and buying a couple of T-shirts, we went on the balcony at the back of the center where the views were outstanding.

A ranger with a spotting scope could see a moose in the far distance – but unfortunately, it was too far away for us to see.  





We next stopped at the Algonquin Logging Museum and walked around the outdoor displays in the rain.  This is called a Camboose Shanty and in the 1800s it would have been the home for 52 White Pine loggers.  There were no windows or place to wash, and the men slept in their clothes at two to a bunk.





Horses pulled logs down the mountain on sleds.  This was very dangerous for both the men and the horses.






The steam-driven alligator was an improvement over horsepower as a way of moving log booms across lakes.






It rained every day we were here except on our last day, so we took advantage of the sunshine and went on a hike.  We hiked the Track and Tower Trail.  The trail winds through stands of hardwoods and along creeks.





We hiked along Cache Lake where there are the remains of two wooden railroad trestles.






The last half of the trail was very muddy after all the rain - the two dogs got dirty.  We hiked about 3.65 miles up and down hills and through lots of mud, so we were all tired at the end.  This was a great way to end our stay at beautiful Algonquin Provincial Park.  We were disappointed that we did not get to see a moose or a black bear but had a great time and enjoyed the park.  Oh – we did buy two new kayaks while we were here.


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