GOOD FOOD TIMES IN CANADA - THE STARTER
Day 9 Wednesday 17th September (continued)
We made it to Algonquin Provincial Park without incident. It was very warm by the time we arrived at the western entrance to the park, where there was a very helpful visitor centre. We managed to pick up some maps (Bob loves a map) and some useful advice about what we might see and do in the Park.
This included what to do if confronted by a bear, which happily, we were not.
We thought it best to carry on to Killarney Lodge. If we had wanted to do any trail walking or to use other facilities in the Park we would have needed a permit. Part of the deal with Killarney Lodge is that they provide a permit for the period of your stay.
We got to the Lodge and the reception staff were really helpful and, to our surprise, they had upgraded us to a two bedroom lodge on the lakeside. They explained that all our meals were part of the deal and there was a building stocked with snacks, soft drinks, ice and canoe safety gear. The lodge is not licensed, but you bring your own bottle and they will not charge any corkage. Luckily, we knew this in advance and certainly had stocked up!
We unloaded our luggage, got some ice for our drinks and checked out our home from home, which we were very happy with.
The main attraction was the view from the balcony, which was splendidly spectacular, and slightly scary at the same time. Note the canoes on our own little dock, ready for our use.
We weren't quite ready for a canoe challenge yet. We really needed to stretch our legs after the drive. There are a lot of waymarked interpretive trails alongside the main highway through the park. Killarney Lodge sits on the Lake of Two Rivers. The nearest walk was the Two Rivers trail, so that is where we headed.
We arrived at the car park a few minutes down the road to be confronted by a Tesla Cybertruck. I don't believe I have seen one of these so close up before. This merely confirmed my view that they are incredibly ugly.
We picked up our guide leaflet and headed into the the forest.
I guess like many visitors from abroad, we thought we were entering a largely untouched native woodland. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Just like home, all woodlands have been affected to a greater or lesser extent by man over thousands of years. In Canada these effects have been most profound over the last 200 years.
In the early 19th Century, demand for timber in Britain was ever growing. In winter, logging crews would fell huge, old trees and then float them downstream in spring to ports and waiting boats to satisfy the ever increasing demand for wood. These crews would push ever deeper into the forests every winter. They reached the woods where we were in the 1870's. The change brought about by felling was immense, but the loggers would also burn the land after felling. These fires, along with the many natural fires that took place, provided ideal conditions for the forest to regenerate and the trees we were walking through are the result of that.
We do like a walk in the woods, especially if it is varied and full of interest, unlike the monoculture of plantation woodland such as we get at home.
The trail winds away though the trees and reaches a cliff, from where you can get fine long views over the forest.
Perfect for taking photos.
The sun was still shining and except for a small, slightly noisy, group of walkers we were on our own.
It really was just how you imagine the great outdoors to be.
It wasn't all about the trees. This is a forked aster and it is native to this part of the world. It is also fairly uncommon, to the point that it is considered to be endangered.
The trail is listed as being moderately difficult. It certainly was not too long and it didn't involve any scrambling or the like. It was more difficult than you might think, due to tree roots and the very uneven nature of the path. We did enjoy it, though.
There was still plenty of the day left when we got back to the lodge, so we decided to risk everything and get into a canoe. Neither of us had ever done that before. We went to the safety gear store and happened to meet a couple from Australia who were returning their gear after being out for a paddle. They showed us the basics and also agreed to take some photos of us if we managed to actually do this and paddle past their cabin.
There was a canoe for use by guests at a small beach which we thought might be easier to get into than straight off the dock in front of our cabin. There was a couple sitting in the sun there, and the wife agreed to take some photos for us from the beach.
The photos do not exactly convey the level of anxiety and lack of confidence in our ability to actually get into the canoe without capsizing. Her husband apparently used to go on lengthy canoe adventures and reassured us that we would be fine. he seemed reluctant to give us more detailed advice!
There was, of course, nothing to it and we were soon in the canoe on the water.
That was fine, but we did seem to have a few problems with direction and were heading inexorably towards the rushes.
Without the slightest argument or resort to foul and abusive language, we were soon paddling like swans across the great expanse of lake.
We went out to the headland.
Passing by where our Australian teachers came down to watch glide serenely by.
Nothing to it, really.
After a while, we paddled back to the beach and managed to get out of the canoe without any mishaps or loss of dignity whatsoever. Indeed, the canoe adventurer said that we had done very well!
Sharon also made friends with the local wildlife.
Enough of the chipmunk having dinner, it was time for us to eat. We scrubbed up and went along to the dining room. Killarney Lodge is over 90 years old and a lot of it has not changed over the years, but if you ask me, that adds to the charm of the place. Indeed, I suspect that the lodge, being within the Park, is limited in what it can change. There is very limited Wi-Fi and no fridges in the rooms, no mini-bars and the like. It all adds to the getting away from it all feel. We really liked it a lot.
The dining room did have a bit of old log cabin feel about it.
We each had the rocket, beetroot and feta salad with walnuts and balsamic.
I have to say I had mine without the beetroot, because, as every one knows, beetroot tastes of soil.
Sharon enjoyed hers, and her lamb main.
Again, we had the same thing - herb crusted lamb rack, with home-made mint sauce, potatoes and veg. I have to say the lamb was really well cooked and the mint sauce was revelatory. I think they had used fresh mint with a balsamic vinegar, so it was a little sweeter and less pungent than the mint sauce we often get at home.
I then had apple pie. The Lodge is, apparently, very famous for its fruit pies. Certainly the apple pie was very good, although I was less sure about it coming with cheddar cheese, which is, apparently a thing here.
We really enjoyed our dinner and the whole of our first day in Algonquin.
Day 10 Thursday 18th September
Today was a bit cloudier than we had been used to, but we still had breakfast on the balcony.
You have the choice of breakfast in the dining room or in your cabin. We chose our cabin each day - well, why wouldn't you? It was delivered to the minute that you had previously decided. There was an omelette of the day (mushroom) and a variety of other goodies - prunes, granola, yoghurt, juice, tea and coffee. They also had biscuits, which were really scones - does that count as another etymological disaster?
Once, you've eaten, you put the tray outside and the fairies come and take it away and wash up! Almost like home.
We could have pretended that we saw bear, wolves and moose, but actually they were part of the holographic displays.
There was also information about the indigenous peoples who lived here for millennia before we ever got here. The rules they lived by could usefully be applied to our modern lives.
Algonquin was the first of Canada's Provincial Parks, established in 1893. Many of the principles used elsewhere in the parks system were developed in Algonquin. This environment has long attracted artists and outdoor enthusiasts, which has engendered huge enthusiasm for the Park throughout the country.
We decided to find out a bit more of what it was that attracted people by finding another trail for a walk. This was the entrance to Beaver Pond Trail.
As you might expect, with a name like Beaver Pond Trail there was plenty of signs of the animals themselves.
You might not think there are signs of beaver here, but this is a beaver meadow. Originally this was all forest, but when the beavers dammed the river downstream the area flooded and the trees all died. However, beavers are the architects of their own downfall. They eat all the available food before it can be replaced. They end up having to go further afield to find food and they become more susceptible to predation by wolves. They abandon the pond and after some years, the dam will fail and the pond drains. The mud that is left is colonised by grasses and sedges to form this meadow. As an aside, the way to tell which is which is this little ditty "Sedges have edges, rushes are round, and grasses, like asses, have holes."
The beavers also don't eat trees and bark in summer, but prefer water plants like lilies, which thrive in situations like this.
This is an abandoned beaver lodge at the edge of the meadow.
The trail involves a lot more steps than expected! My knee certainly let me know about it afterwards.
Further round the trail, there is a lake. The lake was created by the beavers, which dammed the river. People often think that beavers engineer their dams to make ponds. Actually, the behaviour is instinctive. They react to the sound of running water. They can be persuaded to dam still water purely because tape recordings of running water are played. They often build wider dams where narrower ones in a different place would have had the same result.
We thought we heard something in the water. It might have been a beaver, but who knows?
Oddly, when we walked away from the water, we could hear gnawing sounds. We were so excited. After skulking through the trees, Sharon eventually found a pile of sawdust at the base of a tree. It would seem that some very loud insect was eating this tree from the inside - no sign of any beavers!
Here is the dam that the beavers have built to form the lake. It is a pretty impressive bit of engineering and the whole walk was really very interesting.
Once we were back at the car, we needed to find somewhere nice where we could eat our lunch. Killarney Lodge includes your lunch, which you can take as a picnic. We took a picnic and ate it at Lake Opeongo. We had gone there because someone at the visitor centre had recorded seeing a moose there that very morning.
Lunch was a very nice lobster roll, juice and fruit from the Lodge. We ate it sitting immediately beside the lake. The lake seemed to be where people set off on long canoe trips into the wild.
There was a couple who were about to load all this stuff into their canoe along with a huge Alsatian dog and themselves. They were off for 4 days and nights.
This was them on their way. We missed the embarkation, which was a pity.
Someone else was using the cheat's method.
On our way back to the car, we spotted this garter snake. Unfortunately, it was dead.
On our way back to the highway, we came across this completely unconcerned fox.
We still had time for another walk, so we headed to the Big Pine trail.
White Pine are emblematic of this part of the world. They are distinguishable from other pine species like Red or Jack, because their needles come in clusters of five, not two like these other trees. They differ from the main imported species, Scot's Pine for the same reason. Of course, Scots Pine should not have an apostrophe, but it does here. Another etymological disaster! Anyway, the White Pine hereabouts exist because of fire and the conditions it creates to allow regeneration.
They can be very tall, these are more than 120 feet high. All the big pine in this area of woodland are 235 years old, which would suggest that they are the result of seedings that took place following the right kind of fire in 1790!
White Pine grow very straight and have long trunks with no branches, making them ideal for sailing ship masts, which, in turn, made them very attractive to timber cutters. This long moss covered mound inside the fence is actually the trunk of a White Pine felled in 1890. The loggers found a flaw in the trunk once it had been felled and it was left to rot. It is continuing to rot back into the forest floor to this day!
This process of decay is critical in the evolution of forests and it is often accelerated by fungi. This is coral tooth fungus. It is actually found in Britain as well and it is edible while young
I don't know what this fungus is, but below it is an American Toad, one of only two toad species in Ontario. The American Toad can be distinguished by the light line down its back.
Round about here are the almost invisible remains of a small logging camp, which operated in the winter of 1887-88.
There really isn't a lot to see, because most of the construction was of wood and canvas. What did remain was largely destroyed by fire in 1928. There might have been up to 50 men working here. One or more of them would have been boys or old men called a chickadee. They had the unenviable job of clearing the sleigh haul roads of horse manure so that they would stay smooth and icy. Gives a whole new meaning to my little chickadee!
The loggers had, of course, to get the logs to a mill to be processed and then shipped, mainly to Europe. It is thought they were taken across this bog on specially made ice roads. These were made from packed snow, sprinkled with ice at night, so that they would be frozen in the morning. The logs were taken to lakes and rivers that connected to Lake Opeongo, where we had lunch. Once Lake Opeongo thawed out they would be moved across the lake and then run down the river to Ottawa to be processed. A journey of 100 miles!
These big White Pine trees are over 200 years old and they may live for a further century. They are an organism that is much larger than the biggest whale or dinosaur that ever lived on Earth. Remarkably, however, studies have failed to find any single species that depends on these pine trees. In essence, they do not seem to be outstanding from an ecological point of view, but they are pretty impressive, are they not?
We finished the walk and then drove about a little before going back to our cabin. It had got a little bit cloudy and windy, so we resisted the urge to get back into the canoe! Instead, before dinner, we had a glass of the very nice bubbles that Michael and Cindy had given us in our hamper.
Dinner was another 3 courses in the dining room. Again, we each had the same food from the menu, starting with a salad of crispy chickpeas, avocado, cucumber, feta, sweet potato and a Dijon vinaigrette.
A bacon wrapped filet mignon, with peppercorn sauce, potatoes and veg.
Another pie! This time Raspberry Pie with maple and walnut ice cream.
Suitably replete, we walked back to our cabin. Later in the night there was a fabulous display of stars. There is, of course, no light pollution here, so the stars were quite resplendent. It was such a clear and still night that you could even catch the reflection of the heavens in the lake.
A spectacular end to the day.
Day 11 Friday 19th September
We were awake very early this morning and that was a real bonus. We watched the beautiful sunrise over the misty lake.
We were noisily serenaded by honking geese as the mist dissipated. It was a magical awakening.
We were awake so early, I walked up to the cabin to get some juice and snacks for later in the day. This tuck shop was well stocked with all you could want, including ice to keep our wine cool for the evening.
Before I got to the supplies, I was absolutely astounded to see a moose trotting through the cabins! I did not have a camera with me, and I knew I couldn't get back in time to let Sharon know. Luckily, another lady was up and about and got a photo, which she passed on to the reception and they printed it off for people to copy.
I was absolutely amazed. When I got back to our cabin and told Sharon she ran out, but failed to find the moose. She was able to verify my story, because I am not sure she actually believed me at the time.
After breakfast on the balcony, we drove to the west end of the park and the Whiskey Rapids trail. Now, proper whiskey should not have an e, so I will count that as another etymological transgression, but it is forgivable, because a lot of countries make inferior whiskey with an e, but only Scotland makes true whisky.
It was a little cool as we set off to find the Oxtongue River.
We had been promised rapids, but the early part of the walk was very pleasant and benign.
This placid scene belies the origins of the river some 11000 years ago. It was formed when the last 2 kilometre thick glacier melted and the resulting meltwater carried millions of tonnes of sand and gravel along this valley. What we see now is a trickle compared with what raged here for probably 200 years as the ice melted.
It may be a shadow of its former self, but rivers like the Oxtongue were important transport routes for indigenous peoples, trappers, loggers and, now, for recreational canoeists.
They are also very important habitats for plants, insects, fish, birds and mammals.
The main reason we were here was to see if this was a suitable spot for us to place a climbing nut. This had belonged to Craig, the son of our neighbour who had tragically lost his life in 2008. His parents often ask people who are travelling to adventurous parts of the world to place some of Craig's climbing gear in places that he might have liked to visit. Whiskey Rapids sounded like it might just have been the right kind of place. It has a story, it is remote and it is is rugged and beautiful.
It may not look like a raging torrent at the moment, but apparently it is a different beast in Spring. It was in spring around a hundred years ago that some loggers decided that they deserved a bit of a celebration after a long season of driving logs downstream. They all contributed to the $3.85 cost of a 3 gallon barrel of whiskey. This was left for them at a rail station on Canoe Lake, some miles to the east. Two of the loggers paddled up to get the barrel. On their way back they thought they deserved an early drink as they had done all of the hard work to get the barrel. One drink led to another and they were a little bit over the limit when they reached the swollen rapids in approaching darkness. They decided to try and shoot the rapids, without success! The whiskey, of course, had gone. Despite the whole of the logging camp turning out to search for the barrel it was never found. Whether the two loggers charged with transport of the whiskey were ever spoken to again is not recorded.
The last drive of logs down the Oxtongue River was before the First World War after only 20 years of felling. Once the trees ran out, loggers moved on to new old forests. While rivers were useful for floating logs out, they were not so useful for getting supplies in to the logging camps. Companies built tote roads for that and we walked along the remains of one of these to get back to the car park. This probably fell out of use following the arrival of the railway at nearby Canoe Lake in 1896!
The day was warming up nicely as we arrived at our next walk, Peck Lake trail. This trail is designed to explain how lakes in Algonquin work. For instance, we found out that in summer there are two distinct layers of the lake. A warmer top layer and a much colder deeper layer. The difference in temperature can be as much as 16 degrees centigrade. In spring and autumn, the layers mix and the temperature of the water is the same at the surface as it is deeper down. Even more odd, is the fact that lakes "breath". They naturally hold less oxygen (1%) than air (21%). The most important source of oxygen is surface action of waves in spring and autumn. The water is very cold then as well and cold water holds more oxygen than warm. So the lake charges up with oxygen in spring and autumn, It basically breathes twice a year.
Peck Lake is not enormous and the trail takes you right round the shores, with some lovely views across the water.
Obviously, it is attractive to intrepid canoeists. I firmly believe that all people who take to the lakes in canoes are intrepid.
Increasingly, the deciduous trees are changing colour, adding to the views.
There is colour and interest on the surface of the water as well as around the shoreline.
The gallery had a lot of pieces that we might well have tried to find room for, but it was expensive and mostly impractical to take home on a plane. Shipping was possible, but it is a bit of a hostage to fortune, so we declined in the end.
Algonquin is closely connected in Canadian art with the Group of Seven, painters working in the 20's and 30's. Most of their work was concerned with depicting nature and uses bold colours and dynamism to reflect what they saw in the surrounding landscape. These painters were heavily influenced by Tom Thomson, who drowned in nearby Canoe Lake in 1917, before the group formally existed. He is a huge figure in this kind of Canadian art, which nowadays, although popular, has its critics. Most notably it did not appear to pay attention to people in the landscape nor to the indigenous heritage of the places and scenes it depicted.
Nonetheless, Thomson is held in high regard and many conspiracy theories revolve around his allegedly mysterious death to this day.
There are a lot of prints of his and the group's work in the gallery as well as an outdoor interpretive trail related to him.
It was difficult because of the sun's position to photograph the interpretive panels. This one shows his most famous painting The Jack Pine. He painted that the year he died. His body was found to have a gash to the temple and he had bled from the ear. He was buried locally, but two days later, his brother had the body exhumed and he was reinterred in Ottawa. Rumours of murder or suicide persist to this day.
Whatever the circumstances of his death, the fate of the tree is a bit more prosaic. It was eventually tracked down by park staff in 1970. It was dead by this time. It later fell over and was used as firewood by campers! The art outlived the reality.
Our reality was that we needed our picnic lunch. We had to find somewhere scenic to have it. As it happened Canisbay Lake was not very far away, despite the fact that the original Canisbay is only 120 miles from our house. In reality it is over 3000 miles from one Canisbay to the other.
Like Canisbay in Caithness, there were not a lot of people at Canisbay Lake, which was a surprise, because it really is very attractive here.
There was even a couple of picnic benches. We sat on the one in the sun, because it was a bit chilly in the breeze and the shade.
I had a very nice chicken salad roll prepared by Killarney Lodge.
A young couple had launched their canoe from the beach and were paddling into the distance. This was them, a bit less than a mile away. What you can't see is that directly in front of their canoe was a moose up to its withers in the water. We could watch it through our binoculars. After a time it went ashore and joined its mate. They spent a bit of time in and out of the water, whilst we could see people on the beach who must have been in close proximity.
After a while we decided to drive round and see if we could get closer, even though I had almost been able to touch the moose this morning! Honest.
It was quite a pretty little beach, but the moose had gone. However, we had seen them and that counted for something.
No moose, meant we had no reason to linger, so we set off for what was shown on the map as Cache Lake Historic Site. What might that be, we thought. We arrived at a packed car park at Cache Lake. It wasn't clear why the place had so many parked cars. Having said that, Bartlett Lodge was on the other side of the lake and the only access was by foot or boat, so some of the cars, at least, must have belonged to guests.
We asked a young guy about the historic site. He didn't know about it, but said there were some panels in the trees. Off we went and stumbled on something of a ghost town.
This turned out to be the site of the Algonquin Park headquarters from the 1890's to the 1950's. There was the Park Headquarters, a major rail station and a large hotel here. We were invited to follow the line of the old railway platform, which we did.
The railway was built in 1897 and the station was built here in 1906. It was a busy freight and passenger line and the main way to get to Algonquin on those days. The last train left the station in 1959.
This concrete wall and the hill behind bear testament to the Highland Inn. The railway opened the first section of the hotel in 1908 and it could accommodate 150 people when complete in 1910. The Inn catered for fishing, boating, swimming, tennis, billiards, dancing to a live band, music and reading rooms, a shop and a post office. Hotels declined during the Great Depression and after the Second World War, camping became hugely popular in Algonquin. The hotel fell out of use and was dismantled in 1957.
The hotel was quite a substantial building.
The removal of all the buildings in the 1950's was part of a drive to return the Park to a more natural state. Now, so very little remains of what must have been a bustling scene. You can't eradicate the past completely and these enigmatic vestiges remain as signposts to a bygone era. It was fascinating.
Time for an ice cream, I think.
It had been a full day and we headed back to the Lodge.
Sharon wanted a photo of the cabin from the lakeside. To do that she had to get out on our jetty, where I could get a photo of her.
Here she is with the Lake of Two Rivers behind her.
Here are her photos in the other direction.
We were joined for pre-dinner drinks by Sharon's best friend, who had been a fairly constant visitor to the balcony since we had arrived.
No wonder, really, with a constant supply of wine and nibbles!
We were a bit early when we went for dinner, so we took a little bit of a wander.
The communal deck was very enticing.
So was the residents' lounge.
Ultimately, I found myself, bottle in hand, outside the reception and dining room.
Dinner tonight started for me with a broccoli and spinach salad.
Sharon had an onion soup.
I had stuffed chicken for main.
Sharon had ravioli.
We shared a rhubarb and strawberry pie.
Now, it was time for bed.
Day 12 Saturday 20th September
We were up a bit early again today. We had to get the car back to the rental company in Ottawa by 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We also hoped to drop our luggage off at the hotel as we ought to be able to walk from the rental office to the hotel if we weren't dragging luggage around with us.
It was another misty start on the lake.
By the time we had driven the 175 miles to Ottawa it was an altogether different picture. Blue skies, freeways and traffic. It turned out there was a lot of traffic and we had to phone the rental company to let them know we were going to be there - at some point!
To be continued......
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