Mazinaw Rock Paddle

The best thing about having our own canoe is that I can wake up in the morning, look at the weather, and decide it’s time for a paddle adventure.  Prior to this we would have to beg, borrow or rent a canoe. Times have changed and I am happy for this.  So, on the long weekend when the weather finally produced some sun, off we went for our next paddle adventure.  This time we headed to Bon Echo Provincial Park.  We would paddle out to the Mazinaw Rcok Pictographs.  

My son has never paddle near the pictographs, so this was a great day to introduce him to this little piece of history where there are about 260 pictographs to be seen on this rock.  There was no way we would see all 260, but even to just catch a few is such an amazing thing.

To start this journey, we park along the creek that follows the day use road (which heads to the day use beach area).  We quickly unpack and load the canoe and head down the creek to the open water of Mazinaw. On the drive we had passed many lakes and the waves were not favorable.  However, the water on the Mazinaw was just perfect.  There were very little waves and the wind would be at our backs on the way home. 

As we head towards the rock face and through the narrows, we pass many campers out on the point.  They are checking out the views of the rock face, as well as the rock climbers that seemed to scatter these cliffs today.  Hayden was intrigued by this and kept saying “That doesn’t look hard”. I would challenge him to try to climb these rocks without any practice.  He wouldn’t be thinking it was easy then. 

While watching the climbers, even I was finding myself thinking I’d like to try this one day.  Maybe some of these outdoor people I know will take me on one of their adventures 🙂

Within a short paddle we are presented with the wonderful views of the pictographs.  I’m not up on my pictograph readings, so I would not really be able to say what most of these drawings are about, but I do know you can look up this information online.

 A little further down the rocks, there is a memorial carved into the rock face for Walt Whitman, a famous poet.  The rock is showing major signs of weathering, and it is difficult to read a lot of the information, but the quote is as follows:

“MY FOOTHOLD IS TENON’D AND MORTISED IN GRANITE

I LAUGH AT WHAT YOU CALL DISSOLUTION

AND I KNOW THE AMPLITUDE OF TIME.”

We keep our eyes open for more pictographs, and I’m guessing this one is a bunch of trees.  Even Hayden was having fun trying to guess what the drawings were about. Some of his suggestions were a bit silly, but that’s all part of his fun kid imagination.

As we continue along the rock, we eventually turn back and paddle through the narrows and back to the creek.

I wanted to go up the creek as far as we could, knowing there would be a spot where we wouldn’t be able to go much further.  We weaved in and around downed trees and eventually could go no further.  With that we turned around and headed back to our vehicle.

There were many people at this point parked in this boat launch area getting their kayaks and canoes on the water.  With our paddle completed, we headed home. I know we will be back here again very soon as the park is actually not too far away from home.

I would highly recommend getting a canoe or kayak and paddle along Mazinaw Rock and checking out these pictographs.