Algonquin Park Spring 2009 Day 3

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

Day 3


Awoke early again around 8am, just something about early mornings in the wild makes the scenery so great that I can’t seem to keep sleeping when such beauty is happening around us. The morning was nice and cool with partially cloudy skies, in fact this was the first time I saw blue skies the whole trip. After taking some pictures of the horizon and the lake, I suddenly heard this one thundering sound which I initially thought was a helicopter, however upon looking at the sky I realized it was a loon taking off and hitting its wings on the water that was making this loud sound, I managed to catch a few pictures of it flying away.

After this I had awoken one of my friends for an early morning canoe ride and exploring trip. As we got into the canoe the sun was in full swing and we were both pretty anxious at some good weather at least some sun that we can soak in. We decided to paddle to the western end of the lake as we saw some marshes there; we figured it would be good for some fishing and some picture taking. As we reached the marsh we found it there was a small river feeding the lake and there was a huge downed tree there which would be perfect to photograph.





Downed tree with its roots exposed





Marshy Area



I had climbed out from the canoe unto this one patch of land that kind of looked like a small island in the marsh and proceeded to take a few shots of the downed tree. After this we headed back to the campsite for the much needed breakfast. On the menu was some pancakes and syrup; we had a hell of a time trying to get the mixture of the batter properly mixed ended up using the pancakes mix all at once, but we finally got the proper consistency. After a few pancakes that didn’t turn out we finally got them to stick together after adding some butter to the pan, which as we found out helped them stick together nicely. This was also around the time that we saw our first and only other people during our whole trip; it was two men coming down from Juan Lake and paddling towards the exit at Rain Lake no doubt; we had all waived to them as they went by, and that was the last people we’d see until we came back to the Rain Lake drop-off point two days after.

After filling up on pancakes and syrup we decided to do a day trip to Sawyer Lake, as we had heard that it has a good amount of small mouth bass, brook and lake trout. We had packed minimally only our tackle, camera and some snacks and setoff across the portage to Sawyer Lake. The portage took only 15 min as we only had to make 1 trip this time; boy was it easier without all our heavy gear. When we got over to the lake we started paddling, I had thrown in my crank bait and started reeling it in, as I was close to the boat it took a swipe at it by at the last second changed its mind and took off; I had later realized that this was probably due to the bright orange hunting vest that my buddy was wearing which most likely spooked the fish. Oddly enough after that one bite we did not get a single hit on our lines. We had spent a good amount of time paddling up and down the lake, letting the wind take us to the other side so we could fish, but once again no luck. We stopped at this one campsite that was at the northern side of the lake, and decided to spend some time basking in the suns warm rays on rocks.






The guys after our portage to Sawyer Lake





Myself in the backdrop of Sawyer Lake




Some late evening rain


After doing the Sawyer Lake to Jubilee Lake again we had decided to raid the campsite right across of us for firewood. We had been lucky that it looked like it was tended by a forest ranger as someone had used a chainsaw and cut a whole whack of wood for us to use. We had gathered it all and paddled across the lake to our campsite, happy to have found such a big load with little work, it had saved us the much needed energy.

The night was spent over the fire having a few drinks, and making a vegetable soup. The soup turned out great; it had rice, barley, carrots, potatoes, bouillon cubes and beans in it. All in all it turned out to be a great hearty soup which helped us warm up and regain some energy which we had lost during the day trip to Sawyer Lake.





Hearty vegetable soup





My friend also made some bannock from the recipe we learned from Ray Mears. Here it is cooking slowly on the flame.


Bed time was early again and this time around it got pretty damn cold overnight.


Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4