By the time I found my headlamp it was too late; the damage was already done. Luckily he picked a spot close to the side wall of the tent by my feet which was clear of my sleeping bag and any gear. I sure was happy at this point that my tent was setup on a nice flat section of the campsite!

I groggily crawled out of my sleeping bag and opened my tent, at least it wasn’t raining any more! I grabbed an extra roll of toilet paper from my pack and cleaned up the mess in my tent while Zeus ran around the campsite trying to find any patch of grass he could to munch on. After I finished cleaning out the inside of my tent we both crawled back inside to try and get a little bit more rest before the sun comes up…

It’s now close to 5am, I’m just starting to doze off when I hear and feel Zeus stand up again by my feet, then I heard it, he’s going to be sick again! This time instead of finding my headlamp I opened the tent as fast as I could and got him outside so he could do his business out there. No mess this time!

I decided it was now time to start my day, it would be pointless to crawl back into my sleeping bag for an hour. I quietly harvested a bit of firewood so I could ease the chill with a small fire.

Early morning campfire

While I was waiting for Tyler to wake up I decided to do some exploring around the campsite and take some pictures.

Beautiful morning on Opalescent Lake. Tyler is still sleeping away in his tent!

We didn’t get a very early start this morning, we got on the water around 10:30am. We made quick work of the 750m portage separating us from the Barron River. On this portage Tyler noticed very fresh wolf tracks in the snow on a boardwalk, which got Zeus (who is feeling much better now) very excited. It was a bit surprising to see how close they were to our camp the previous night, we heard them for a brief period before bed and wondered how far away they were. When we reached the end of the portage we were surprised to notice a few canoes on the far shore at a campsite. Turns out it was a small group of teens on a short trip as well.

We continued down the river so we could paddle through the impressive Barron Canyon. I have canoed this river a few times now, but it was a first for Tyler, who I think was pretty impressed with the size of the cliffs at the waters edge.

The Barron Canyon

Once we paddled to the far end of the canyon we had to backtrack down the river to reach the car. It was 3 portages totaling just over 800m but it didn’t take us long for since we were single carrying at this point. When reached the parking lot there was no more snow on the road, making the drive out much easier than the drive in. On our way out of the park we hiked the Barron Canyon Trail which takes you to the edge of the highest cliffs.

Taking in the view on the Barron Canyon Hiking Trail

It’s neat to see the river from two completely different vantage points in 1 day, I recommend both paddling and hiking the canyon to anyone in the area!

When we finished our hike we were back on the road and at home in North Bay before supper time.

Thanks for reading!

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We weren’t overly ambitious this trip, we didn’t know what the portages would be like with all of the snow so we didn’t plan to travel more than a few hours per day. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing , after all the whole point is to relax right? Our plan was to head down the Barron River through ‘The Cascades’ and on to High Falls Lake. Our original plan was to paddle to the south end of High Falls lake and try to bushwhack our way to the famous High Falls Rock Slide. We decided last minute to ditch that idea and head straight for Opalescent Lake where we spent the night.

When planning for this trip Tyler told me I was completely in charge of our route. Little did he know; out of all the distance we were covering in 3 days, half of it was portaging and the other half canoeing, although we weren’t covering a substantial distance it’s still not typical for a ‘canoe trip’! Luckily all of the portages were easy to navigate and fairly straight forward. We reached the end of the 640m portage from Ooze lake to Opalescent early in the afternoon.

Because we arrived at our destination a few hours before sun-down we took this opportunity to explore all of the campsites. We did this even though I knew exactly what site I wanted. As a matter of fact, I think anyone who has ever been to this lake knows exactly what site I’m talking about, but we’ll get to that later…

Tyler checking out an impressive site on Opalescent Lake.

After doing some exploring around the lake for probably close to an hour we made our way over to our home for the night, the famous Flintstone’s Site! This site has the most amazing fire pit and seating area I have ever seen at any interior camp site. Ever. The rock couch can potentially sit 12 people comfortably, it was almost a waste with only the two of us occupying it, but I think we were probably the only people canoe tripping in the area anyways.

We spent most of the afternoon collecting a small amount of firewood and relaxing with some sort of warm beverage or soup to try and stay warm. The temperature hovered around 2 degrees Celsius all day. Thankfully there wasn’t much wind at any point on this trip, but the steady drizzle sure made it feel cold! For a short period the drizzle escalated to a light rain, so we took the hint and setup our tents and tarp.  When the rain once again returned to a light drizzle we started a fire so we could get supper going. Tyler had brought along some frozen sausages which had some venison in them that he harvested in the fall hunt of 2015. He offered me one of them which I couldn’t refuse, I then repeatedly told him when he harvests his deer in 2016 I want to buy some sausages from him! They were delicious! (So Tyler, if you’re reading this… haha) For supper I had a Lipton SideKick with some pulled pork that I had leftover from supper 2 nights earlier at home. Although I would have preferred something grilled on the fire it was good nonetheless. My dog Zeus got lucky and had quite the feast of leftovers…

Taken from one of the many awesome campsites on Opalescent Lake.

We retired to our tents fairly early this night, probably around 9:30, which I guess isn’t that early considering it was completely dark before 5:30. The sun setting so early is one of the only downsides of late fall camping in my opinion. A good headlamp or flashlight is definitely a necessity!

Unfortunately to my dismay I awoke suddenly at around 3am to the sound of my dog Zeus vomiting in my tent!  (Good thing we didn’t share tents, eh Tyler?)

<–Part 1 | Part 3–>

On October 28, 2016 a friend of mine named Tyler and I set off on a 3 day (2 night) journey through the East side of Algonquin Provincial Park. The access point we would be launching from was a 3 hour drive from our home town of North Bay. Tyler worked until 3pm on day 1 so we got a late start, arriving at the access after dark, around 7pm. The drive in was a little nerve-racking, as we had received close to 15cm of snow less than 24 hours earlier. I drive a compact car and at points we were pushing snow with the front bumper. It was slow going but we made it! As we unloaded the canoe we discussed the fact that if it were to snow any more while we were on our trip we probably wouldn’t be able to make it back to the main road, but luckily they were predicting above zero temperatures and rain for the next 3 days.

Because we arrived so late we setup our camp at the end of the 275m portage from the access (A38 Brigham Parking Lot) to the Barron River, where we would be starting the real adventure in the morning. Lucky for us the canopy of two large pine trees gave us enough snow-free ground to setup our tents. After our camp was setup we struggled to light a small campfire and shared a few stories as well as a few snacks before bed. The sound of the river flowing right beside my tent lulled me to sleep. The temperature hovered around 2 degrees Celsius overnight making for a comfortable sleep.

When we woke up in the morning there was considerably less snow then when when arrived the night before, mainly because of the steady drizzle overnight. This is what the River looked like from our campsite just before setting off on our journey for the day.

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