Crown Land Camping In Northern Ontario - The Perfect Canoe Trip In Algoma

What makes the perfect canoe trip? Is it ideal paddling conditions? Haunting misty mornings? What about a picturesque sunrise? Wildlife encounters? In surprising quantities? Maybe it's a serene sunset? All of these things are great. But for us, what makes a perfect canoe trip is the perfect partner. Someone you maybe could do this trip without but wouldn't want to. Someone who makes every sunset magical. Just by sharing it. With the right partner every trip is perfect. So we're back again in the forest. This time on a place called Northland Lake is where we start our journey. I've lived about 30 minutes from this spot for my entire life and this is the very first time I've been on this lake. So there's a really neat little loop that we're going to be doing here in Algoma Ontario on some crown land. So we hope you enjoy it. We're just about exploring new places here. You ready Cher? I'm ready. Let's go. So we've made it to our first portage of the day. It's a little bit after 6 p.m. We're in the middle end of August so we still have some hours of sunlight but we've got a couple of portages about 1,250 meters worth of portaging before we can camp out for the day. Brad Jennings made a trip report of this area and so we're just reading through that valuable information. This is very popular in the wintertime so this is like skidoo trails and four-wheeler trails so we want to make sure to not take the wrong turn and someone's already done that work for us so we don't have a ton of time to spare so we're just reading those trip notes to make sure and Cheri did the reading of them for me so I'm literally just walking around wherever she tells me to at this point. This one's only 700 meters. It's a little bit mucky not too bad but it's really steep in some parts so it's getting the blood flowing and heart rate up right away but it is absolutely gorgeous in here lots of ferns pretty cool it's a huge rock wall so just as an FYI if you're ever canoeing you're on some back lakes that aren't used all that often in summertime you figure it's kind of your portage if not there are others coming through so maybe don't put your canoe right there so that we can't actually get onto the port there's a beautiful little section here gorgeous waterfall and we have this little sort of like a 50 meter portage and then we are into Falbin lake and then a 500 and then we're on our home lake for tonight so we have one 500 meter port till we're on Jarvis lake where we're going to spend one glorious evening so we're here at the start of Jarvis lake but this end of the lake is super low i feel like the normal put in is like way back there anyway water levels are historically low and it's just up in the distance there at that narrows that i think i see a beaver dam so we're gonna have to port through deep mud in order to get to that beaver dam well there's the culprit well the work of the culprit let's say that was boggy that was tough to go through that was way harder than the rest of the port lots of moose tracks tons yeah yeah happy to see it actually there was a what i believe to be a great blue heron parked in this little spot here but um he flew away and then he landed and then flew away again as i approached a little bit closer but he was just humongous and just like flapping his wings it was amazing he's probably still on the lake so hopefully we can catch him if we're quiet enough not a lot of trees but it's supposed to be nice tonight so we're not worried about rain and i think we're gonna get a nice sunrise and probably a good sky tonight too if you guys follow the channel you probably know that we don't stay up all that late typically in the backcountry but i don't know what time it is but i think it's probably almost 8 p.m now taking us maybe two hours to get here so the sun's basically it's set you can see that's where the sun just set so um we're actually probably gonna eat when you're in for a treat too um but we're gonna well we're in for the treat you're just gonna see us eat the treat um we're gonna probably see uh some dark so we might get some nighttime shot beautiful lake beautiful lake yes Jarvis lake is a gem good evening friends how did you like that trip in me it was good it was it wasn't too hard and um Jarvis lake is beautiful i mean we we came in we saw a blue heron we saw a beaver we saw a loon saw a sunset it was a beautiful crescent moon i'm not sure if we have time we'll get out Cher's nice cannon and we'll try to get some footage of it but it's just a gorgeous pink sunset it's amazing got a fire started and Cher as she always does a beautiful job of set up camp um we got a little camp juice here and most importantly we have a friend who runs a shawarma in Sault Ste. Marie back home Georgie's shawarma he's our brother from another mother and Georgie makes the best shawarma i've ever had um it's authentic syrian beautiful but he makes these darn things so big we had it for lunch and we saved an entire other half for dinner as well so it it looks kind of just like a wrap on cheating on film and we're just going to enjoy this shawarma and this beautiful fire and we're probably going to stick around and chat for a little bit and look at the stars and i'm proud of us for being awake when it's dark good morning kippers morning it is such a foggy misty morning here and we stayed in bed until jeepers it was almost 8 30 when i got out so yeah we stayed up until after midnight last night which is the first time in the backcountry for a long time so we slept in a little bit and it was a glorious glorious evening didn't get any rain um but Cher was woken up a few times by yeah the loons we have some loons here which is lovely we love the loons but they always are loudest at 4 a.m yeah now they're just quiet and sleeping now they're like oh now we need our beauty rest anyway so we got up and we were sort of getting organized for coffee and breakfast and uh i heard some rumbling and there was definitely a moose in the on the shoreline just didn't poke his head out we sat quietly for about five minutes and it kind of scampered back into the bush so we missed a pretty cool encounter this morning but the fog went away and now it's back in full force so Cher and i are having our morning coffee with maple syrup from Hogan's as always and uh and we're going to try a new thing for us new breakfast for us from OTG meals so a lot of our excited about these yeah a lot of our friends are really into these OTG meals they're cooked small batch and they've got really great recipes and they're all sort of natural so and they're comparable in price and the packages are smaller so we thought why not try it so we've got a couple of different breakfasts that we're going to show you when we try them out so we'll be back soon friends initial reaction on the OTG meals is big thumbs up way to go you can just taste the quality and the small batchness yeah they're great but we're going to enjoy these this is actually a lot of food um we're going to enjoy these and then pack up and hopefully this fog lifts and we can head out and find the portage trail wish us luck so it's again a really big wide beautiful portage trail so i don't think it'll be tough to find but sounds like there's a few intersecting trails and you just got to stay diligent and toward where we're wanting to go it's a sign of a healthy lake the put-in is definitely more challenging than that portage and the one-armed dismount good thing there's nothing breakable hey babe so we're out here on Kaufman lake Michelle and I encountered a nice cute pair of loons that were none too shy they were more than happy to hang out with us for a bit there and then we keep paddling we see something on the far side of the lake looked like a paddleboat well sure enough it's a paddleboat with a dock maybe Sherry can get some video footage here um yeah it's like it's somebody's built a cabin out here on it's not marked on any map that we've seen but uh it's a quaint little cabin little dock with um their sort of little 14 foot aluminum three seater and such a cute little chair is that right tucked up keep having a little barbecue and oh this is great so we're just starting off the 600 meter port into um reserve lake from Kaufman and uh it's looks like it's also decently well maintained but I don't think it's an atv trail at least not this part of it but when you're camping on crown land in Ontario you sometimes get this now it looks like someone has actually compiled these maybe with a plan to come back and pick them up um some point so if we had capacity to do this we would have brought a bag and uh taken it out but this is what happens when crown land is used by maybe people who don't have the ethics or the understanding of um stewardship so the trip report says you'll run into an atv trail but this is no longer an atv trail this is a logging road full on makes our portaging slightly easier I guess but gets rid of the illusion of remoteness which we do know there's just basically an illusion but still so we're just gonna have to keep our eyes peeled for the turnoffs from here babe so we're here a beautiful reserve lake like I said the last time I was on this lake was in winter and it was um when I was about 13 so about 30 years ago but since then these logging roads have come in there's a couple of boats permanently stashed here like motor boats it's a bit of a highway getting in here so it's not as there's not as much solitude out here but but this is a gorgeous lake and this is going to be the most paddling that we get to do this whole trip uninterrupted tough to say does it almost look like that trail is straight up ahead there but it almost looks like there's a trail here to the right uh-oh sherry sees chaga so here we find ourselves on wishcog lake sherry and I noticed that there's two campsites listed we're not camping but we're gonna uh gonna check them out just for the next time because we're definitely gonna come back this is a great little trail here we have one more portage of significance about a 500 meter right now and then uh and then it's just small jumps into the lake we wanted to be in today sure we're having fun such a beautiful day for us hey yeah we're not in a rush to get anywhere we have lots of time it's been a night and the weather's been just coming into the end of wishcog here and portage is coming up through this beautiful little swampy section wishcog is another lake that I was on in my youth a fair bit fishing in the winter so the nostalgia is palpable ladies and gentlemen yeah and away we go some rocks okay so this 500 from wishcog into christman is no joke it is work it's 500 feels like a mile but loving it I think we're almost there this chair barely broke a sweat waiting for me that one was tough okay so we got to go through those islands and then maybe just around and then right across from the the campsite is where we would pop into the next part okay friends so we're just making a plan of attack we always like to check out really beautiful there's some pretty islands dotted with gorgeous pine trees again we have such beautiful weather a nice light breeze to wipe most of the stink off not all i've still retained a fair bit of stink for myself and for sherry for later but hopefully we can go for a nice swim at the end of the day today because we're both working up a frothy lather we did it oh well you look at this beautiful lone pine on this rocky outcrop that beaver den just made it we were kind of nervous how much of a slog we'd have to do to get through this channel in such low water but the beaver has actually helped us all i had to do is that quick little lift over and this should bring us safely all the way to the 75 meter port here we are on the crooked lakes so yeah we're not beat but we're looking forward to finding a nice campsite chilling out in the breeze maybe having a swim we have probably have a bit of work to do so we it's just not quite 4 p.m so after less than a five hour day and as you can attest to viewers friends campers it wasn't all that hard and there was some nice portaging some beautiful paddling and a nice breeze so but we have found home for tonight it is an absolutely gorgeous spot we didn't get to the spot we wanted to which would be like the north sort of arm or the north lake just because it would have been too much of a slog possible but we would have had to portage the whole thing probably about 400 meters or 500 meters and through like muskeg and all that stuff so and then back out in the morning in the morning and we are on vacation and we're having such a beautiful easy time with this one that we didn't want to put a wrench in the plans so we've we've got now four hours before it's going to be a gorgeous sunset over this shore i think and uh right now standing on our swimming rock because that there looks like a spot for us to have a little dip and uh cook up some dinner another otg meal to try out and just really have ourselves a time what do you think it's beautiful out here beautiful whoa she's quite a deep out here there you go oh it's refreshing refreshing on a day like today when we need a refreshment so i just recorded this with no audio somehow so now it's going to be forced and not just beautifully off the cuff it's going to have to be seen rehearsed so hello friends we have done a lot of beautiful things already today haven't we Cher oh my gosh amazing things so many we have common setup camp sherry set up the beautiful tent and we have had a swim that's thing number two swim we then gathered wood and built this fire pit here and then we journaled we had some snacks we definitely got our water set up and sherry's reading after we journaled sherry started reading sherry what is it that you're reading let's do this again i know you've already done this once once around algonquin an epic journey by kevin callen kevin callen everybody's outdoor pal and one of the finest uh outdoor authors in the world and so kevin sent this book to to sherry and um oh look at it and they signed it and they put funny little quips there there that are just for us you can't read those just for it's so lovely but sherry cannot put this book down i haven't been able to actually read any of it she started reading at the start of the week and she's going to finish it on this trip and then once she's done i'm hoping that she allows me to to read it but she's just devouring it because as usual it's just a beautiful piece of literature yeah it's a great book about algonquin and the link and a history the meanest link yeah the meanest link and it has some like anecdotes and history just it's a really good read really good read i'm really enjoying it hey friends so it's dinner time we've watched the sunset golden hour was magical as it all always is as long as there's a nice calm sunset but now it's dinner time and we've dug into a couple more of the otg meals and we rehydrated a chicken alfredo and a thai thai coconut chicken thai coconut chicken the one thing that we both agree on we agree on lots of things friends but one thing about these that we both agree on is that they rehydrate beautifully the meat rehydrates absolutely perfectly like there were like halved cherry tomatoes in the alfredo that come back to life perfectly so that's so great about these the thai coconut chicken we both absolutely loved we think we might have put a little bit much in terms of water into the alfredo so it's a little bit watery that could be our bad but uh could be operator error so anyway we're just enjoying dinner here on this magical site on this magical evening on this magical trip this magical life together and we hope that you guys are enjoying whatever it is that you're doing we're going to continue into the evening here but not too late i don't think our fire is just about as tired as we are i think so we'll see you around bedtime friends hello friends hola amigos start this is cute all right i was camping with the coals here tons of false stats okay pals so we have decided that we are cutting the night dramatically short uh on account of the mosquitoes right yeah so we've decided to just hunker down in the old tent and uh probably hit the hit the old dusty trail so to speak and go to sleep early ish so we're just gonna mess around in here a little bit and do some reading maybe finish up our journals and mess around and then uh and then yeah have an early night tonight we had a big day tomorrow probably like six or seven k with five portages probably three hours of work including the drive home and a fun surprise and possibly a fun surprise yeah oh dear oh dear i forgot about that so yeah what an amazing day to recap what did you think of the weekend so far darling oh my gosh the the weekend has been amazing the weather has been amazing this trip is amazing the views are spectacular the campsites are spectacular outdid my expectations i will do this trip again absolutely like this is a beautiful trip in the fall it would be amazing so many trees changing colors i can't yeah we're coming back this was an amazing trip and the loons the loons on this trip very elusive yet very social so i don't know how to explain that but they were they came very close several times to us but then immediately disappeared i called out and then immediately disappeared before we had time to get our cameras ready yeah so so it goes we those we experienced it and we're not going to be able to share that sorry guys you should just be out here for those of us who get out camping regularly it's a pretty easy trip and it's close to home and it's just gorgeous just amazing and there are very few others out on this trek with us there's lots of loons but they don't want to be seen with yeah okay friends we'll see you in the morning good night you're kissing them now yeah you guys how did you sleep last night babe not great not amazing eh the tent pad had like a curve to it so like your head was like lower than your back which was higher than your feet so it was like sleeping on a bowling ball for me yeah and the loons started screaming at about 12 30 they were having a battle of the battle of the lakes yeah so we couldn't believe there's so many loons on all of these lakes it's just they're it's covered with loons which is such a beautiful thing because that means healthy lakes right so it's such a great thing but it is tough to sleep when they're screaming all night and they just happened to scream right here near our campsite but it was great because it was a nice opportunity this morning we got up at 7am just before the sunrise and we actually managed to catch capture you would say on film some of these loons these loon culprits so we kind of got our revenge a little bit so you're going to be able to see some footage of that plus a family of like 20 mergansers that i say a family but they're known for stealing other chicks collecting them collecting so but that's kind of amazing too so we've had a beautiful slow morning it's about 9am so we've been up lazing around journaling taking photos taking video making coffee at our leisure and just looking around for a couple of hours but now we've got what does our day look like today Cher you've been studying the map um we have five portages back into northland lake and the last portage is this the first portage we did on this trip so it's fairly long 700 meters but the weather's nice and we're not in a hurry so we're just going to take our time enjoy the day do some exploring check out any campsites that we see on the way out there's supposed to be a couple really nice lakes left to see and the breeze is picking up thank goodness it was glassy this morning but the breeze is picking up because it's starting to warm up it is after all um mid-august so it's it's summer and we're feeling it so stick with us friends lots of beautiful things to see today it's it's a decent looking campsite but it's a bit trashed like not with necessarily garbage from personal use but like sort of old metal implements um that have been there for decades and somebody left a tarp up there that we're not we don't really have the capability to to bring out fun fact though we were getting out at the water access and your old pal jay got a real nice soak of my right leg just went right in up to my hip so we didn't get it on camera for a good laugh but we will remember that one and so that cooled me off and now i've got a soaker for the rest of the day but the rest of the day is very short just pulling out from this campsite at the north end of crooked lake and it's another absolute gem of a site beautiful tent pad nice little overlook the first portage of the day 325 meters around this little beaver dam lots of frogs in there this is a gorgeous little spot we're gonna get our feet just a bit wet here because the dam is making the water level pretty high but here's where we're going there's a fair bit of blowdown in the trail this being not the least of which we have to get by the trail is faint but we can see it that was a task okay now we gotta get sherry we both are just absolutely pouring sweat it's about 28 29 degrees right now and in that bush this breeze doesn't exist so that says it was 350 but i'm like i felt like about 600 but i'm sure it's just the muggy there's a buggy in there too lots of uh oh there's a hawk hang up there baby um and uh yeah so there's a lot of a lot of blowdown a like large trees across the trail but otherwise the trail's in pretty good shape thank goodness a little sketchy but a little bit sketchy there like underneath the muck is about like six feet deep like our paddles would just go right until bedrock probably um so we're happy that we didn't have to get out of that out into that um but share i think just got a video of it but this is one of those big old birches that we're talking about here that you don't often get so that's got to be three feet at the base in diameter big huge beautiful birch tree white birch that you just don't see around here most trees that age are laying across the trail and most of them were just on the trail we just did between uh crooked lake and the other lake that we just got off of yeah they're massive today is a warm day friends i don't want to complain but it does sap the energy and the water out of your system but beautiful summer day so we are on clear water lake just a small quaint little lake here's the beacon that we saw across the uh across the lake it was a little copy maker well this is a gorgeous little site it's pretty open so you get a good breeze through gorgeous tent pad there in the open beautiful view nice i'd stay here we're here at the top of this beautiful sort of rock outcrop uh at the portage for from clear water out into uh basically white birch and that was a scramble to get up here yeah there's no easy way up to this campsite it's straight up a rock so i can't imagine with my pack on to get up there easily but after a long day once you do the view is amazing yeah you look out over the whole lake you look down all the way down there's our canoe you can see why they call it clear water lake you can see bottom here and then finally this is the scramble up so it's an aggressive scramble still still a gorgeous sight you know people don't often do this but we have a guy thanks matt he's like you're not even trying guys is that the beavers or is that the trail tough to say so um we're getting real close and we just wanted to double check so we're back here at another little sort of beaver dam stoppage point here and then there's a little sort of very minimal flow but we think we can probably line it but i wanted to run ahead just to make sure that we could actually this was the spot and we didn't need to veer somewhere else and i could see this trail kind of leads down and i could see water you can also see water so we are there we just have to do some fancy lining through this pretty treacherous little space and we're good well it wasn't pretty but it worked hey pals so we are on the last little stretch this is a little pond or whatever that they call white birch lake that you might remember from a couple of days ago the breeze is glorious it might make hearing me a little bit difficult and i apologize for that but uh it is a welcome addition to our life right now we've overcome all that this root was able to throw at us so sherry found a delightful little stash of blackberries that's a welcome treat oh my gosh nice and sweet back to northland at last at long last there's only a couple of days oh i'm being dramatic but that was a big one well pals we just finished one of our favorite trips we've ever done yeah yeah we loved it it's super close to home very accessible for like the intermediate or beginner traveler as long as you go prepared this is our ride home after such a beautiful trip we ride off into the sunset on this beautiful floating unicorn