Algonquin Park

Algonquin Park
Originally uploaded by Chasing Light Studio ~ Pie's Photography

Log Book:
Monday, Oct. 5, 2009
I woke to my alarm at 6:15 am after a loooong night of tossing & turning. Strange dreams haunted me when I did sleep. The first night out is always the hardest no matter how tired I go to bed.
Peeked out the tent door to another dark, grey, dismal day with no potential of any interesting light. I dozed until 7:30 when I finally decided to get up & start my day. First on the agenda – CAMP COFFEE! Love it-love it-love-love it! I had about 6 cups before I moved on to my next item on the list – fire wood.
I had come across an old, unused beaver lodge when looking for the location of the second campsite the afternoon before (the map shows the site to be just off the point on the northern shore as you enter the beginning of the York River. In fact the site is on the southern shore just past the bay of the previous site). So after a cold breakfast of granola & apple sauce I jumped into the canoe with Tasha to go do some collecting. It wasn’t very far & when I beached the canoe I noticed low lying bushes covered with blue, purple & red berries everywhere. I picked one & tossed it into my mouth out of curiosity. A very familiar taste completely caught me off guard – wild cranberries!!! Everywhere! I had tasted one that hadn’t ripened yet (a bluish/purple one). So I immediately grabbed my empty coffee mug & began to fill it planning to use them in some capacity in a meal later on. Wood was collected & loaded into the canoe & brought back to the site. I had a lot of wood. I immediately set about the task of organizing it into different size piles & cutting down the larger diameter logs into more manageable pieces. Before I knew it, it was noon & I decide to start a fire to make my lunch.
The lake was actually pretty busy with wildlife activity – I counted 5 separate deer at different times swimming across the lake – 2 of them were about to come ashore to my site before I inadvertently scared them off in another direction. I’m pretty sure I watched a bear swim across as well, but it was too far off to tell.

Algonquin Park Map:
www.algonquinmap.com/