Labor Day long weekend, we, me and DH, went to Algonquin Park to do a canoe trip. It’s my first canoe trip, his second. Tony went camping at Wheatley PK with his friend’s family. This was the first time ever that Tony didn’t go with us for overnight trip since we came to Canada, and his first time ever home alone overnight, for we left on Friday and he left to camping on Saturday.

I called in sick to work on Friday to make the long weekend to four days, enough to do a decent canoe trip. DH used up his vacation time early this year due to his dad’s health problem, so we couldn’t do any big trips, so we tried to make the most out of our weekends, especially long weekends.

We left home at 8:00, and only did two quick bathroom stops, and make it there at 11:30. Normally it would take us five hours for we always have longer bathroom stops and picnic on the way. Only we two this time, we were able to do it the way we needed to.

Parking, getting our permit, and canoe rental, and then we were in our canoe at 12:30 sharp. It was a perfect sunny day. The temperature was just right, and I was perfectly happy and excited. We stopped at 1:30 for lunch, peanut butter spread bagels and bananas. These would be our lunch for the rest three days too. Everything is easier and more efficient, including meal plan, with a small group of only we two.

Two hours later, we were standing at our first portage entrance. Only one portage for this first day. It was a 295 meters trail, flat and easy. My knees had been weak from doing tree-top trekking the weekend before, and I had tried to avoid stairs at work, but now on this portage trail, with a heavy backpack on my back, my legs didn’t complain at all. They felt strong and perfectly fine. I cannot explain.

And then we were at Teepee Lake, our first day destination, at 3:30. We were early enough to shop around to find a perfect campsite. It was a big, open site, with water at the front and woods at the back. We thought we would be mosquitoes free. But when I went to the woods to release myself, I got at least ten mosquito bites. We were almost eaten alive at Algonquin park two months ago, at Canada Day long weekend camping. The scars on me are still very visible. We, Chinese people, are very attractive and vulnerable to Canadian mosquitoes and bugs. I didn’t attract bugs at all in china. They never were a problem to me. In Canada, I fell into one of the easiest victims to them. My colleagues say that my, or ours, blood is just sweeter. I don’t know. My reaction to bug bites are getting stronger every year, so that’s not a good thing. I checked the Park mosquito report before we left. It wasn’t very good. But I just couldn’t resist the nature call.

We set up our tent and went to explore a bit more of the surrounding lakes in our canoe, and also to get some water for dinner. People don’t pack water on canoe trips, considering everything you pack will be on your back on portage, and water is heavy.  We brought a portable water filter, and lakes would be our water source.

Teepee Lake is good enough for water, but since we have tons of time and cannot do hiking because of the mosquitoes, we paddled about one hour to Little Doe Lake, and collected and filtered some water at the centre of the lake. On our way back, I saw a big animal swimming right in front of our canoe, literally within two meters. It looked like an alligator to me, the size and the shape, and I of course was startled. But DH reasoned that it was impossible to be an alligator at Algonquin. It must have been a beaver. It was at dusk. The animal appeared and then disappeared right away, so I couldn’t stand on my argument. It was exciting anyway, and I expected to see it or something as exciting again, but nothing for the rest of the trip.

When we came back, we found that our backpack was teared a bit by chipmunks. There was a Ziploc bag of walnut inside. We opted not to take the bear barrel at canoe rental, and thought it should be fine since we didn’t have much food and absolutely nothing smelly. Well, that was to the nose of us human being to say nothing smelly. Now we had to rethink about it. It took us some trouble to remember that we brought a dry sack and that might do the trick.

We cooked instant noodle on our tiny propane stove for dinner, and feel luxury eating by the beautiful lake view. It was very quiet and peaceful, except the constant fighting with mosquitos. Our closest neighbour was probably some hundred meters away.

The sky was clear. The air was crispy. The stars were bright. It was beautiful and romantic.