Algonquin Park

Everything looks more impressive in km

We played with the idea of where to go in Canada to do something a bit less urban and where we could do some outdoorsy things.  We settled on spending a few nights with the crowd at Northern Edge Algonquin, who you’ll see, if you manage to penetrate the new-agey guff on their website, run a small camp of posh tents and cabins on a lake in Algonquin Municipal Park (that green splodge on the map above). Yes, we went ‘glamping’.

  
Roughing it. 

We were a bit unsure as to what to expect, given Chan’s aversion to being told what to do (which is also why she booked everything herself and not through a travel agent). So if it was going to be regimented Hi-De-Hi (Google it, kids) activities, we might be in for a rough ride.  As it turned out everything was really chilled: they made the water activities available to us, but if we wanted to go walking, cycling or sit around doing nothing, that was OK too. 

The first night was a bit of a getting to know everyone session.  We had a meal and took out the dessert for a drive to attempt a ‘wolf howl’ – where we howl at the wolves to get them to reciprocate.  Despite our guide Jeff’s best efforts, they weren’t playing ball.  It was a fun little jaunt though, and the sky was pretty.

 

Chan managed to get up for a sunrise on one of the mornings, but apparently I wasn’t obliging to being roused.  She took some rather nice photos though:

  
Enough to evoke emotions in my black heart

During our stay we went paddleboarding and canoeing, both of which are new to us.  The two of us in a canoe required a bit of practise, as I was knackered and ill-humoured in the rear for a lot of our first attempts until I worked out the steering and “cooperation with the grumpy moo in front” aspects.   I am now familiar with several more varieties of insects that are rather fond of me. I make friends easily like that

  
Intrepid

We were two of seventeen guests there for our trip.  Everyone was fantastic and it never gets old being asked about the UK by Americans/Canadians who’ve only seen it on TV and film. Similarly, we got to speak to some locals about what they get up to over here and their strange foreign ways (Wir haben eine deutsche Familie auch getroffen!).  We ascertained conclusively that most things are improved with maple syrup.   We also discovered Peameal bacon, which firmly established which side of the border our sympathies lie on the bacon front.

 
Smile for the camera, inmates

Food-wise, the literature had us fearing some manner of organic, ethically-sourced, mung bean-based gruel everyday. But we did not count on Gregor the Magnificent:

 
Shown here resting between building log cabins and slaying dragons.

Greg is one of those chaps that infuriatingly can do most things.  See that oven up there? He built that. You see this goddamn house?

 

He built that. And much like Steven Seagal in his films before he sucked: he also cooks. Well.  The food here is brilliant and the only concession to being ‘outdoors’ is that we cleaned the dishes ourselves.  The dishwater had a bit of bleach in it as the water is a bit dubious, but a fed Powell complaineth not.

On the last evening, Greg let us make pizzas in his clay oven, while Jeff broke out examples of the local beer and wine. This was every bit as awful as you imagine. Intolerable.

  
“Hold my beer; I got this”

And to wrap things off on the final evening, some of us lay on the jetty on the lake and watched for the Perseid meteor shower.  Owing to the relative remoteness of the place, the light pollution was nil and the spotting was good. We also fabricated some new constellations as I couldn’t remember enough of the end credits from Clash of the Titans.

So there you go.  We came, we saw, we went paddleboarding and we made some friends.  The list of places we’re coming back to will no doubt be voluminous by the time we’re done, but here will feature high.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch:  Wir sind in der kanadischen Wildnis gefahren. Wir haben eine tollen Zeit gehabt aber ich habe mit einigen Mücken freundlich gewesen.