An added treat this year was the inclusion of fresh ingredients out of Nigs' organic garden - beautiful red potatoes, some nice pungent garlic bulbs and pesto made from his homegrown basil. I don't like to go into details about meals but I'll just say that our first try at campfire pizza was a huge hit and definitely will make the meal list for years to come! This year, I was also excited about my new/old paddle; I stained and re-varnished a weather-beaten old paddle from my family cottage and was very eager to re-christen in Algonquin waters.

Friday, Sept. 5:

The mighty Tim "River"

The gang – that’s me on the left, that cheesy camo bandana has adorned me every
canoe trip since the age of 13 whether as a headband, kerchief or loin-cloth.

We made our way from the Tim access to our campsite on Rosebary Lake in about 4 hours (thanks for the tip, AA'ers, you were dead-on with that). It was a wet journey although the skies never completely opened up. The 120m portage from Tim Lake back to the river was uneventful except that deteriorating mucky stairway was difficult going downhill with the canoe (the friendly warden we met on Saturday mentioned that it's on the agenda for a revamp, fyi). At many spots the Tim can hardly be called a 'river'; Hairpin turns, thick mats of aquatic plants and snorting otters tested my sterning abilities to the fullest (not to mention an overloaded canoe with three people and all our packs).

When we finally (I think we had enough of the Tim for one day) made it out onto Rosebary, the wind picked up to a very unpleasant degree. Our plan of checking all the sites counter-clockwise around the lake suddenly became an unpleasant chore. We actually made it almost all the way around (we never made it to the beach site on the north shore near the Floating Heart portage which was ok as I will reveal later). We decided that although none of the sites were quite paradise, the one on the northeast was pleasant enough; A good landing site, some decent tent spots, walking distance to the beach, our own private bay and island and a west-facing view (It's all about the sunsets, my friends) made it a good home for the next three nights.

One of the best points of this site is the imposing white pine looming over the site, which acted as a beacon whenever we were out on the water. Best of all, we had the lake to ourselves! That's the beauty of the Park after Labour day. We all fell asleep to the wind whispering in the pines and the waves lapping erratically on the shore.

View from our Rosebary lake campsite.

Saturday, Sept. 6:

Let's just say that I'm definitely not an early riser. So when a raven landed in the aforementioned white pine right above my tent at 7am and proceeded to caw (or whatever that horrendous croaking sound they make is called), I was not impressed. I was less impressed when I heard those enormous wings flap over to our food barrel and start rustling our garbage bag hung along it's side. I intended to run out of the tent to scare it off but it took off before I even got the zipper open in my groggy state.

I awoke officially before 10 am to the sound of Nigs talking to someone on our site. Our first visit by a warden! I was actually very excited as we could pry him for his wealth of Algonquin knowledge. He was making the rounds on the lake rotating thunderboxes and such. He was on his way to the north site on the lake as apparently a large birch had fallen over the site and was suspended by surrounding trees. He apologized in advance for the noise he was about to make with the chainsaw. He also settled our dispute over the age of our resident white pine - turns out it's about 80 years old not 200 as I suspected (Nigs obviously knows his trees better than I do). Most importantly he explained why we were jinxed with moose sightings: the vegetation along the shore becomes less enticing (I think he said they don't retain their flavour and nutrients) to the moose in late summer so they retreat deeper into the woods.

Brooding skies over Rosebary Lake

With the morning drizzle, we were not overly ambitious in getting going this morning so we had a leisurely breakfast and waded along the shoreline to have a look at the famous Rosebary Lake beach (as I always say in Algonquin, beaches mean leeches!). As the rain let up, we decided it was time to start exploring. I had actually put together a roster of vigorous daytrips including Devine Lake and Latour and Loontial creek but alas, these didn't come to pass as the weather just wouldn't have any of it (look at your map and you'll notice a building of some sort on Latour creek east of he portage to Loontail... I was obsessed with making our way to it... oh, well). We started simple by checking out all the nooks and crannies of our beautiful lake where we met up with the local merganser clan who seemed to appear everywhere that we were exploring... they probably thought they were being stalked! They were very comical and provided us with some entertainment over the weekend.

We made our way down to Longbow Lake and stopped at the portage that continues onto the Tim where we had lunch. Seeing the Tim on the other end at about only 4 feet wide, choked with alders and grasses gave us all a shudder. I took the opportunity on the walk to play with the macro feature on my camera and took many pictures of the various fungi, mosses and lichens that benefited from the wet summer. I also realized how photogenic driftwood can be up close with all its curves and grainy textures. We explored the dam before realizing it was getting a bit late so we would have to cut our explorations short for the day.

Driftwood detail

I find mergansers comical with their new-wave hairdos.

Mosses, lichens and fungi enjoyed the wet summer.

A whole miniature world.

Sorry, I don’t know my fungi but this one was striking.

We made our way back towards the site the warden was occupying, as it was the one site we had yet to see. He wasn't kidding... that birch was huge! FYI, if you're heading Rosebary soon, there's lots of firewood waiting for you. This site, the warden pointed out, was pleasant but had no shortage of mosquitoes; why did he have to say anything? No sooner than he mentioned that, I started to get eaten alive... in September, no less! For the record those were the only bites I received all weekend. After bidding farewell to the warden, we walked to the beach to brave a chilly dip in the water. This ain't Aruba but it beaches are not a common Algonquin sight so this provided for some late summer fun. Interestingly, the sand preserved many different animal track not least of which were fresh imprints of what must have been a very mighty moose and what we suspected was a bear.

The famous beach of Rosebary Lake.

After dinner, the weather gods of Algonquin smiled on us and the stormy skies began to clear just in time for a spectacular sunset. The play of light and shadow between the gold of the setting sun and the brooding gray clouds made for some fantastic photo opportunities. A further treat was that the wind had died off and the world had become very still. Finally we would be able to appreciate that deafening hum that accompanies complete silence occasionally punctuated by the haunting cries of loons calling each other over great distances. It was amazing to hear the call and response over what must have been vast area covering multiple lakes in the region. With the sky bristling with stars (it was great to see Venus as I'm used to a north-facing view of the night sky), it was time to bust out the guitar! This was the first trip I had ever brought the ol' girl but I figured as we were only doing one measly portage, it wouldn't be a problem having an extra passenger. Unfortunately the moisture had made the strings a bit sticky but I still enjoyed playing campfire songs under the stars. Just before turning in for the night, we took a midnight paddle out onto the lake to get a full view of the majestic dome of stars and sit silently on the still water (I remember doing this with my dad on our annual trip to Ragged Lake in my childhood). With the skies clear, we were looking forward to a sunny day filled with adventure.

Get your cameras out, here comes sunset.

This fiery sunset was a prelude to the starry night that laid ahead.

Sunday, Sept. 7:

After reading some of the excellent blogs on AA, I was inspired to pry myself out of my cozy sleeping bag to witness my first Algonquin dawn (I've been tripping for 25 years... like I said earlier, I'm not a morning person). When I finally made it out of my tent's vestibule, my head still swimming with sleep, I was amazed to see the world had vanished. Everything was enveloped in a dense fog. The edge of the world appeared to be right at our shoreline! Oh, well, it wasn't meant to be...zzzzzz.

I did manage to wake myself around 7:30 to go for a solo paddle as the fog began to roll away. The mist on the water again provided for some great photos. Unfortunately, I was too slow in getting a great shot of our friendly warden silently paddling off to vanish in the haze. I paddled over to the portage to Floating Heart Lake. I decided that since my trip mates would be rising soon, I wouldn't portage the canoe to paddle further, I would just settle on a hike to our neighboring lake. Most of my hiking is done in the southern Georgian Bay region so large, dangerous animals are not normally on my radar. When hiking alone in Algonquin I become very conscious of large wildlife so when I encountered moose tracks that looked like something from Jurassic park (I was going to reference the ATATs from Empire Strikes back but thought the reference might be too obscure), I made sure to walk 'loudly' to alert any furry friends to my presence. Not that this worked with our site's resident chipmunk who, on spotting me, charged straight for my sandaled feet; Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I actually BACKED AWAY from a chipmunk! I'll pause while you laugh at my expense...

Morning mist on Rosebary Lake.

Just as we got back to our site, the rain started yet again. We again had a slow, leisurely breakfast followed my meandering around the site and poking at the fire - a couple favourite Algonquin pastimes. With the rain not letting up, and an aggressive wind picking up, paddling wasn't looking very enticing. Longbow Lake would have likely been fine to paddle but getting down Rosebary was a challenge that none of us were feeling.

We decided on a good old-fashioned bushwhack following the shore of our little bay to a marshy area with a beaver den followed by a hike back through the forest. Again, there were lots of interesting fungi and some enormous, pre-historic looking ferns. As we got back to our site, our local Mergansers swam by giving us the eye. As they got on front of our site, they began running on the surface of the water while making some very funny cackling noises. They were quite the characters.

The unfavourable weather had us whiling away most of our day within the vicinity of our campsite. Yet, just as last night, the skies began to clear by the end of the day. Sadly, the clouds didn't retreat in time to be treated to another sunset and the wind never died down making it a somewhat chilly night (yes, I know what you’re asking: what did we expect on a west facing site?). So although we had another amazingly starry night with some applause-inducing meteors, we turned in a bit earlier that night.

Just after we got into our respective tents there were some ominous footsteps on our site, I’m not one to panic while camping as everything sounds big and menacing in the woods after dark but these were distinctly slow, deliberate footsteps. A bear? An enormous raccoon? Anson Miner? (anyone know that campfire classic story?). We’ll never know but we all heard it. I’m convinced it could have very well have been a bear but Nigs didn’t think so. Since he was dead-on with the age of our resident pine, I figured I’d trust him on this one.

Fire pictures are like snowflakes…

Monday, Sept. 8:

Thunder?!?! Does it ever end?? We were all feeling weather-weary this morning and had that "let’s just go home" look on our faces as we crawled out of our tents. The wind was howling in directly from the west this morning – we would have to head right into it. Knowing that we had an arduous journey ahead of us, we began our final feast. This is when we try to eliminate extra weight from our food pack by gorging ourselves. Reluctantly, we began to pack up and get ready for our journey. I was well aware of the perils of high winds out on the water where you have to dig in with all your might just so you don’t get blown backwards; I remember a horrible fight against nature a few years back on North Tea and wasn’t looking forward to reliving the experience. Much to our surprise, we made good time across the lake into the relative calm of the Tim River valley. Also to our surprise, the sun made its first real appearance of the weekend. Some of the twists and turns of the river were more difficult with with the wind and we ran into the banks here and there but our spirits lifted by the warm sun. We also had some decent wildlife sightings: The obligatory Blue Heron, birds of all shapes and sizes and a family of snorting otters who were alternating popping out of the water like that Whack-a-mole carnival game.

Lorena at one of the many border crossings on the way out.

All good things (even good things with bad weather) must come to an end. As we rounded our last bend in the Tim, the access point came into view. Since we had optimistically tried to wait out the rain and wind on our campsite, we didn’t get back to the parking lot until 6 pm. As we stepped out of the canoe, civilization began to creep in (If you know the Tim access point, you’ll know how ironic this is). We still had to drop off the canoe in Kearney, get gas (the station in Kearney was closed with my tank near empty… a story for another time), stop in Huntsville for our traditional post-trip beer & meal, get my friends back to Barrie, sort our stuff and still drive back to Toronto. I arrived home at midnight on the nose, already dreading how I would feel when I had to wake up tomorrow for work.

What gave me energy the next day was hatching a plan for an October trip. I’ll be asking for suggestions soon!