Back Country Canoe Trips, Part 3 – 2003

In continuing my trip down memory lane, here is another year of back country canoe tripping.

In late August 2003 we headed back to Algonquin Park for another back country canoe trip.  We decided this year to launch our canoes on to Grand Lake and then paddle into Carcajou Bay.  I believe there are only 4 sites on this bay, maybe 5.  At the back of the bay, there is a small waterfall and a portage that can take you into a number of other lakes.

Grand Lake is one of the bigger lakes in the Park.  We were there 8 or 9 days and we did a lot of traveling around.  This included portaging and/or paddling into other lakes and seeing other areas of the park.  We would get up early and pack up a lunch and off we would go for the day.  But we stayed in one spot as our main camp.

You can see our site above, before we set up.  Very large with a nice table that someone built and a few big log benches so we can sit around the campfire.  And of course it’s right on the water.  For those that haven’t done this form of camping before, the toilet is way back in the bush away from the site.  The “toilet” is a wooden box………..period.  No walls, roof, nothin’ !  I’ll try to find a photo for another time.

One day we paddled back to Grand Lake, where we had launched, and took a trip to the Barron Canyon to walk along the trail at the top.  People call it the Grand Canyon of Canada lol  You can also canoe down it and camp by the shore.  One day, when we have time, we would like to do that.

We went into many different lakes that year, using Carcajou Bay as our home base.  At the one end of the Bay there was a portage to another area of the Park.  This is a photo of the portage.  So for us, it was only a day trip but we still had to portage our canoe, lunch, life jackets, paddles, etc.  Quite steep and honestly harder going down than up this hill.

Some of the other lakes we went into included Lower Spectacle, Upper Spectacle, Stratton, St Andrews and it was so long ago, I don’t remember any others !

Let’s keep heading down memory lane and so next year, 2004 we are off to Pen Lake !