Another Algonquin Adventures welcome .. this time to Darren Dare! Darren has a website entitled www.canoeguy.ca. His son, Kevin is the webmaster. Together, they've started a chronical of the Dare family's Algonquin adventures. In case Darren's name seems familiar, he recently won the Dec./Jan., 2007 Photo Contest.

"We relaxed for the balance of the evening and were treated to a wonderful display of the Aurora Borealis later in the evening. The next morning we were up early. We ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal and pop tarts and broke camp around 8:00 A.M. It took us just over 2 hours to make it back to the beach at Brent ..... I live for these trips with my son. Next year, my 10-year-old daughter Meaghen is joining us for he first time. I really think she will fall in love with park as Kevin and I have."

Here's an official Algonquin Adventures welcome to Jim Cavers of Newcastle, Ontario. Jim has been posting on the website forum for a while now and hosts a unique blog with a definite Algonquin theme, named Algonquin Canoe Trips . Each of Jim's blog's articles can be commented-on. By clicking on an article's title, one can access it directly and post comments directly to it.

"The fist time I went on an Algonquin trip was in August of 2005. We spent five days on an island on Cedar Lake and on day 3 we did a portage up the Petawawa River to see the small and large waterfalls. The portage was a smaller one (715 m) , but it gave both Gerry and I a taste of what doing a "real" canoe trip would be like. As we returned from the falls and dipped our 75 lb Gruman aluminum canoe back into Cedar Lake, both of us vowed that next year we would plan and complete a serious interior canoe trip and along the way, earn back our camping self respect."

Joe Zaleski (a.k.a. PaPaddler) keeps an online blog called "Pumpkin Pine Farm", to which he has added a trip-log of his "young" family's first Algonquin interior experience ... Zaleski Family Algonquin Camping Trip - Summer 2005. Joe has written it in an introductory vein for families still considering their first interior Algonquin trip.

"The noise that woke us up the first night was caused by a raccoon that was rustling in this bag of garbage that we had hanging outside in our campsite. We realized in the middle of the night that it needed to be hung up with our other food to prevent scavengers from ransacking our loot. Joe exited the tent with flashlight in hand after I convinced him that something was already sitting on top of our food pack while it was hung high on a rope. He went out to investigate and not only found that a wrapper which once carried a full loaf of bread was now empty sitting on top of the pack, but that this scavenger had a friend and he landed on the ground with a thud right by Joe and took off into the darkness."

Mike Burns has put together an epic 8-page, 100+ photo trip-log of the White Partridge Express Canoe Trip May 6th - 13th, 2006. Make sure you've a soft chair and some substinence to fuel your reading-session! It's a good, but mighty long trip-log!

".. A large old log lay half in the water on the beach landing. On this log was a bar of soap. Irish Spring soap. Smoke was coming from the campfire area. We all inspected the site. This is such a beautiful site that Markus said he'll try to snag it when he makes his 2006 September trip with Joan. We passed a few canoes on our way to this site. They must have stayed there that night. Preacher found a container to put out the embers with water. This is a fishing site for sure. A frying pan was hanging in a tree. There were tables set-up around the firepit and even a homemade rake! Dogbyte and I set out to explore the site further, when we heard this awful yell. We looked at each other and went back to check out what was going on. Well, Markus was in the water wearing his birthday suit taking a bath. He hates cold water. It was funny indeed."

Ken Born (a.k.a. "Bo") has sent us a "trip-log" of a short family trip he took last summer on Lake Travers. Rather than including it in the Trip-log Inventory, I've added it to the Resources/Commentary section. I've also taken the liberty of retitling it What Possibly Could Go Wrong?  It's an extremely humourous account of Bo's Lake Travers trials and tribulations.

"The lake was calm when we left. However, the wind came up about three-quarters of the way down the lake. Although Linda was having some difficulty steering, we managed to make it to the small opening where you turn to go in to the access point. As luck would have it, just as we were about to turn in, three other canoes were coming out. Linda tried to make a last second adjustment to avoid a collision, but didn’t do so well. I didn’t see them capsize, but Raheem did and he was laughing his head off."

Dan Ouellette (Dano) has submitted our first trip-log out of the MacManus Lake access point ... Whitson Lake (Petawawa River) Aug. 30 - Sept. 2, 2005.

"We fished some of the pools with good success, many smallmouths and to my surprise, many, many channel cats. On one occasion, I was walking the shore at the base of a large, sand filled, slow moving pool, when all of a sudden, I saw this huge, slow moving dark fish at the bottom of the pool. At first I thought it was a sturgeon because I noticed large whiskers. But no. It turned out to be a, no kidding, a 3 to 3.5 feet long channel cat. It must of weighted at least 30 lbs."

Phil and Holly Williamson have added a detailed account of their 5 day hiking holiday to their website ... Algonquin Park Eastern Pines Backpacking Trip - July 16/06.

"I was standing alone under the tarp while everyone else was stuffing their things in bags when I heard crashing in the bushes moving towards me. Out of the forest appears a full grown male moose with full rack of antlers running wildly away from the sounds of snapping trees! The massive animal saw me from roughly 18 feet away and threw on the brakes, we both stood there making eye contact for several seconds before it turned its head and disappeared."