Beaver Dams – love ’em or hate ’em ……. or both I suppose. Those beavers sure keep busy, so many lakes where we paddle you encounter a dam, or dams. But rarely do you see the beavers!
Here is how this story goes – there is a lake in Algonquin Park I have always wanted to paddle. For years I was thinking of different ways to get into it and we came to the conclusion that we would have to put in at a spot on the highway and go over a beaver dam to get there. Little did we know that we had to scale three dams to get there and then we hit a fourth which was huge so we called it a day lol.
View of our truck on the highway from our canoe 
First and what we thought would be the only dam
We paddled a bit more and there was a 2nd dam!
You can tell they have been here quite a while 
Our canoe sitting on top of the dam, I’m hovering somewhere trying not to fall in the water 
Looks nice, now to get back into the canoe 
Coming back over the 2nd dam 
Worth it…. 
Nice lake to paddle and in the fall it’s particularly lovely
Well finally, over two dams now we can get going! Nope, wait yet another beaver dam…..
Coming up to dam #3 
There it is, a fair sized one, bigger than the last two 
This is a shot of the third dam caming back 
this was not easy, I fell getting out of the canoe and I was like a turtle on his shell trying to get up! 
Finally off the dam and away we go
Finally, we get to paddle West Smith Lake and it’s quite lovely. There was a historic site we wanted to get to but there did not seem to be a way. We had also left later in the day and it was getting late so we thought we should try this another time.
So quiet here 
Beautiful clouds that day 
Otter 
Otter 
We had a really lovely paddle
It was really nice paddling around and we spotted some otters, the pictures quite frankly are crap, the lighting was not good. But I have proof of the otters! We kept going and headed to the end and then……………
Oh for crying out loud! One more dam and the biggest yet. We hit dam number 4 and we decided to call it a day. It was a big dam and we weren’t quite sure how to get over it and drag our canoe and our camera gear so we headed home. We had to go back over 3 dams again to get to our truck. So the photo below shows the 4th dam, we were low in our canoe and could barely see the lake on the other side. This dam has been here a long time, those beavers are very creative and their engineering skills are unparalleled. And trust me, getting in and out of a canoe and clambering over dams is not as easy as one might think. These aren’t the first dams we have went over but normally we just do one a day lol. We are very careful going over dams not to cause damage that would impact on its integrity. We pick spots that are on the outside edges. These dams have been here for years so there is a very minimal chance of doing any damage. One thing of note, lots of dams are full of leeches and if you read my Blog you know that I do not like leeches….at all. And I might add, Clint and I have done a lot of back country canoe trips and there are a lot of dams out there and you have no choice but to get yourself, your canoe and your gear to the other side.
So we had a fun? afternoon and I would like to take another run at this. I need to go further …..
Take care everyone.
Trums Travels 