When ticket sales started for the Ontario Backcountry Canoe Symposium in April 2019, it got me thinking back to August when we headed out to Kawartha Highlands for a weekend adventure. The park is located just over an hour drive from us and offers smaller lakes with equally small portages (for the most part), so it makes for an easy last minute weekend getaway.
We generally try not to book sites too far in advance, since you never know what the weather will bring, so we tend to watch for open spots at a variety of parks and take our chances on last minute openings. This was one of those times where luck was on our side and a couple of sites were open for a Friday to Sunday trip with a beautiful forecast. That meant some quick packing and planning for our weekend, but that was no problem since we were familiar with the area, and we’ve gotten pretty good at organizing and packing gear for these trips.
On Friday we arrived to a beautiful day on Wolf Lake and made the short paddle to our first site. Unfortunately, we were greeted by a bit of a mess in the campfire pit. It is sad that prior campers did not take cleaning up after themselves seriously. At least we are prepared to clean up and burn whatever we could in our evening fire.
Something new for us on this trip was our map from Unlostify! These maps are super cool, with a ton of neat features. We especially loved the bright colours and how easy they are to read, even for a 9 year old. I asked Hayden to find where we were on the map, and he did it with ease. Proud Momma moment!
With camp all set up, I headed to the waters edge to try out some fishing. No fish for me this afternoon.
For supper, we were trying out a new menu consisting of fried onions, peppers and mushroom, fried potatoes and hamburgers, all cooked up on our single burner WhipserLite stove. Of course, with a single burner we can only cook one thing at a time, so food has to be kept warm by using small pouches made from tinfoil.
After supper Hayden wanted to go fishing, which meant lots of untangling of fishing line! For some reason, the line on my rod kept getting tangled and causing some major issues, but we persisted even though the fish were not biting. I tried my luck again as the evening grew on and I finally caught a fish! It was the only fish we saw the entire weekend so I’m pretty sure this fish told all his friends to stay clear when I put him back!
The evening was closing in on our first night and we hung out in our hammocks (clearly we need one more so neither of us have to share), watched the moon rise, and enjoyed a lovely campfire. However, our sleep was interrupted that night by some sounds around our site. Dan had gotten up for a “stroll” in the woods and was interrupted by some curious sounds. He proceeded to wake me up and let me know he was going to check things out as he armed himself…. Great… did we have a creature wandering the site?
Dan went to secure the site armed with a headlamp and bear spray, but couldn’t see anything. However we did hear lots of heaving breathing and several big splashes in the water as Dan wandered the site. We can only assume it was an angry beaver or fisher that was startled when Dan got out of the tent. With that settled, we all got back into our sleeping bags (even though the noises continued for a while) and we eventually got back to sleep.
Morning finally came with no other animal encounters and we planned to stay on our site until after lunch, since we knew our next site was booked the night before and may not be vacant until 2. This gave us ample time to cook breakfast, take down camp, and eat lunch.
Around 1 in the afternoon, we headed to our next site. It was getting warm in the afternoon sun and we were looking forward to a swim in the next lake. The portage from Wolf to Crab is a short 140m and we made quick work of it.
When we arrived at the site we were greeted by a huge snapping turtle sunning himself out on the rocky shallows. After taking a minute to check out the turtle, myself and Dan got most of the chores done while Hayden found a place to set up a swing for himself. We had found a piece of rope on a previous trip and decided it was worth taking on future trips to help him pass the time.
We were now ready for a swim! This site has a lovely rock that sits just under the water giving us a great launching point for swimming. The water was just perfect!
It was that time again to start supper, but first I wanted to try out Hayden’s swing. It was actually quite comfy, especially with a 2×4 seat! Supper was our usual pizza followed by a special treat. While picking up some groceries for the trip, Dan had spotted the Jiffy Pop and thought it would be great to cook on the fire. Unfortunately, in the excitement of the moment he misread the instructions about how to prep the container and he removed the wrong part of the packaging! We did our best to fix it, but Hayden was worried that our popcorn wasn’t going to work.
It took a while to get going and we started to think it wasn’t going to pop at all, but finally the kernels started exploding! Things were going well until there was a blowout and popcorn started flying everywhere. We did loose some popcorn into the fire, but the whole event was actually pretty entertaining and we still had enough popcorn to eat.
Since we were able to catch a fish in the evening at the other site, both Hayden and I headed out in the small bay to try again. No luck. That darn fish must have gotten word to this lake as well!
Dan has such a great eye for photography that he was able to capture this lovely picture.
Morning came and we said hello to day 3. The morning passed by quickly and before we knew it we were heading back to our vehicle and saying goodbye to the Kawarthas. We all took advantage of the warm waters and had a quick swim at the take out, clothes and all!
We shall return again to this park next summer, where we will try to find some other lakes to explore. I hope you enjoy reading about out adventures!