Route Planning

Algonquin canoe trips are usually planned with an official Canoe Routes map spread out on a table, with pencil and paper in hand .. or by accessing its condensed online version. Usually, a general area and its corresponding "Access Point" are chosen as the starting point.

Right: Here's the kind of detail found on the official "Canoe Routes" map ....

From the Access Point on, the daily paddling and portaging distances and times become the deciding factors. At the outset of the planning process, you should have an honest awareness of your physical ability and your personal preferences.

Do you want a 'grand tour' seeing as many lakes as possible, being early to rise and late to sleep? Or, do you want a leisurely trip, with opportunities to explore shorelines, search out wildlife, fish, swim and lay about?

Your expectations, combined with your abilities and the potential demands of each watercourse and portage, should determine the "location" at which you plan to be each evening.

Unfortunately, its not a simple matter of scaling your maximum capabilities onto a "Canoe Route Map". There are a number of "variables" that don't show up on such a map, but which can adversely affect your comfort and safety. They include topography of portages, wind speed, wave height, rainfalls and extremes of temperature.

Topographical maps allow you to gauge the general grades of portages. However, their actual roughness (rocks, roots and/or muck) can only be learned from those who have already travelled them before. This information has to be gleened from personal contacts, printed accounts and online trip-logs.

A period of rainfall can turn a rocky portage into a slow and slippery affair, demanding much more time to carefully maneuver. Likewise, a lowland portage can become a struggle through mud and over slippery boardwalks.

Wind speed is truely variable. There are two generalizations to remember ... the prevailing wind is out of the northwest and wind tends to build through the afternoon and drop off in the evening. Unfortunately, these are only generalizations.

A high wind out of the south is no less dangerous than one out of the north. And no established storm is going to observe a lull just because the sun is setting.

Because a lake is small doesn't mean that it can't have powerful wind whipping across it.

Left: With shoreline trees blocking a west wind, this creek valley is almost calm. However, should the wind shift, this creek valley could become a demanding paddle.

If a lake is located at the downwind end of a marsh, bog or valley, the wind will be quite high before it even arrives at open water. For the same reason, what may appear on a map to be a narrow, twisting and sheltered creek may have large open areas of windswept bog-mat or grass on either side that rise only a foot above the creek and offer no appreciable wind protection. In addition, such creeks often twist back and forth upon themselves with much more actual paddling distance than the map portrays.

Topography can combine with the wind to produce still another annoying effect. There's no certainty that a west wind will be blocked by the shore of a long, narrow lake that runs at 45 degrees to the wind. Shorelines, ridges and hills have the annoying habit of deflecting and channelling wind.

It's a wise move not to plan your trip distances and times straight down the middle of lakes. Generally speaking, its safer and more practical to plot your route along the west and north shores, or incorporate corresponding wind-shelter restspots behind obliging islands.

Even beavers' dam construction can raise water levels and flood previously dry portages. Alternatively, a collapsed beaver dam can transform a navigable pond into a morass of muck.

Low water levels typically develop through the second half of summer. An enjoyable early summer river trip, if repeated in August may be an exercise in carrying your canoe along exposed muddy or rocky creek and river bottoms. A period of drought can worsen this condition.

Right: Plan your trip so as to not cross large lakes in the afternoon, since winds and storms usually worsen as the day progresses.

By using a topographical map in conjunction with the latest "Canoe Routes" map, by referring to the experiences of other canoeists and by maintaining an honest awareness of your own limitations and preferences, you should be able to plan a daily energy and time "buffer" for dealing with the majority of unfavourable surprises.