Algonquin Park Spring 2009 Day 1

Location: Jubilee Lake, Algonquin Park Trip Report

Date: May 28^th-June 1^st, 2009

Number of People: 3
Access Point: 4

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

Prelude

We started planning this trip months before, as we were quite excited to get out there, it has been over 2 years since our last trip to Algonquin Park so we wanted to make sure everything was well prepared for this trip. It took me over 3 months to properly prepare, getting all the little things and big things to make this trip possible. We also wanted to pick a good spot that was pretty secluded and in a park area that we’ve never been before. We have previously gone to Opeongo Lake and Wenda Lake, both in center and east sides of the park respectively. We decided this time around to try out the south-western area of the park and figured Rain Lake with its access point 4 would be a good starting point. After much deliberation we had finally decided to go from Rain Lake and portage to Sawyer Lake and after that our last portage to Jubilee Lake. As the days counted down to the trip the weather forecast was not looking agreeable on the first day up there, they were calling for rain all day and at times thundershowers; but this was the point of no return so we had no choice but to brave it out.

Day 1

Canoeing through Rain Lake

As we were driving through the park to get to the canoe drop off point it was raining on and off so we were hopeful that it would give us some time to get there but no such luck; as we were ready to drop off the canoe in the lake it started pouring pretty hard; we got on our rain gear and were ready to setoff. Looking back now I am pretty glad I brought both pants and a rain gear jacket, as the rest of the guys only had their jackets, and my friend had only a poncho meaning the water just got into the shoes, pants and through to the arms; goes without saying that my friend was freezing his ass off during the canoe ride. As we were paddling through the lake it was raining the whole time at various strengths, at times it would be complete whiteout with the rain coming down pretty hard making navigation hard; because of this we decided to stop at one of the campsites on Rain Lake so I could get out the map and check our direction. After a long arduous paddle through Rain Lake (which took us about 2 hours to complete) paddling against rain and hard winds; we finally got to the end of Rain Lake and to the portage over to Sawyer Lake.

Portage to Sawyer Lake

We got off the canoe and unloaded all our stuff, we had to make a couple of trips first bringing our gear, packs, food, chairs, and tents; only to come back to get the canoe. We have done a 3.6km portage from Grand Lake to Wenda Lake, and compared to that one this 360m portage to Sawyer Lake was a joke.

Canoeing through Sawyer Lake

After completing the portage to Sawyer Lake, which only took us twenty minutes or so we were ready to paddle through Sawyer Lake. The lake itself is pretty small only over a kilometer across, and by this time the rain gave us a bit of a reprieve from the downpours; we reached the portage over to Jubilee Lake in about 30 minutes of paddling. Now I’ve read some things about this portage that it can get quite muddy and treacherous at times, and boy were they right. The mud was so thick at times that we had to cut through the bush carrying both our things the first time and then the canoe. At this point we were all getting pretty tired from a long drive and lack of sleep, so this portage took quite a while the first time around. Having reached the end we put our things in the boat one final time and set off across Jubilee Lake.

Canoeing through Jubilee Lake

The start of Jubilee Lake paddle was pretty rough as we were going through this one narrow passage not realizing that there was two huge rocks right below the water and we were heading straight toward them. After the huge initial bang, we got around these boulders only to notice that there was a bunch of paint on these rocks and not only our canoes; I could tell that this is an area where many people have crashed into. Luckily the canoe was fine with only a superficial scratch on it. After about 30 minutes of paddling through the lake we have finally reached our campsite on the northern shore and began to unpack.

Setting up the camp

Our site on first arrival

Naturally after raining the whole night and day everything was soaking wet. We proceeded to setup the tents first making sure we put a tarp under them so we can keep dry. We also put two tarps over them to deflect any water coming down. What we noticed right away as we were setting up the tents is the amount of moose droppings around the site, this is probably a favorite moose location as it is cleared out and with a nice access to the water should the moose decide to swim across. Now the first challenge came, how do get a fire going with everything being soaked for the last 10 hours. So we decided to use the method I learned from watching all those Ray Mears shows, splitting into logs and from then on creating thin strands of wood called a feather sticks. Luckily there was some left over wood for us to use, so we spent the next 30 minutes of so creating a giant pile of these feather sticks and building a square frame fire around them. Our first try at doing this did not succeed as we later learned to start a fire it is much better to use a tee pee shape. The first trial ended in disaster as it had burned all our feather sticks and left us without tinder. We decided that the second time around we should go look for some birch bark first and then use that with unison with the feather sticks and a tee pee shaped fire.

After trekking around the forest near our site we came to an old birch which had a lot of bark already coming off it, we stripped this dead bark and brought it back to the campsite. Now this bark was still completely soaked but the great thing about birch bark is if you break up the pieces thin enough they will burn even when wet. So second time around we used birch bark and feather sticks with a tee pee design which got the fire started like a charm. We were able to get it going pretty strong, feeding it with cedar and spruce bowls which light up pretty strong and create a lot of heat so we could dry out some wood with them, not to mention there was a good amount of them around us as the forest mostly consisted of conifers. After going non stop since 8am, it was already 1pm and we still have not had anything solid to eat besides some trailmix and energy bars; we decided to do up some pork kebabs over the fire. I had brought over 3 pounds of meat for these kabobs and marinated them in vinegar and various spices such as cumin, black pepper and threw in some fresh rosemary for taste. Having carved out 4 long skewers from branches I stuck on the pork meat and cooked us up a nice lunch. The kabobs didn’t take long at all to cook; as we were starving at this point the kebabs definitely hit the spot.

After eating we spent a couple of hours gathering any dry wood we could get our hands on and then proceeded to dry out our clothes and shoes, as by this point we were all soaked thoroughly. The rest of the day was spent again gathering wood for the fire and feeding it. By early evening we were all pretty beat from a long day of travel. I climbed into the canoe with my buddy for one last paddle around the lake at dusk, after this we all hit the sack.

Dusk canoe trip

The night was cool but my sleeping bag kept me nice and warm and the tarps over the tent kept us well dry, I heard from my friends that it was pouring overnight but I didn’t hear anything I was out like a light switch; I also had brought some ear plugs on account that my friend snores like an old steam engine, and I’m glad I did, as you could hear him outside well away from the tent.

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4