Day 1

Kiosk, Maple Creek, Maple Lake, Erables

As is the case with just about all of our trips the excitement always starts off the night before.  Ted and I live just around the corner from each other and after Brandon and I had finished packing our bags we walked over to Ted's.  After a quick visit we returned and walked back into my open garage where we just about stepped on a skunk eating our trail mix!!!  I'm not sure I've ever seen two grown men get spooked and run like we did.  We entered my house through the front door and thought about what to do.  Before really making a plan we opened up the garage door and peered inside.  No skunk to be found.  We very carefully looked around to make sure and proceeded to check out what was left of the trail mix.  Of course as soon as we let our guard down we see the skunk hiding in the corner and again, we ran out of the garage like a couple of school girls.  Needless to say my wife and neighbours were quite amused.  Anyway....

Pick up was at 5:00 am and Moe was doing the driving this year.  He borrowed his mothers van, as a car just isn't big enough for the four of us and all of our gear.  As we headed down the 417 towards Arnprior I noticed the van was starting to chug a bit, like it was running out of gas.  A little alarmed I told Moe to stop screwing around but he wasn't doing anything.  It seemed like there was some water in the gas and the van was just cutting in and out every few minutes.  After about 30-40 tense minutes it went away but there certainly were a few anxious moments.

A little bit of music for the ride....

7:00 and we are at the Laurentian Dairy for yet another great pre Algonquin breakfast and milkshakes.

Approximately 9:00 am and Brandon is looking for an early start!

This year we we rented our canoes from Algonquin North Outfitting Company, as usual the store was full of outdoor stuff and some pretty neat artifacts.

Algonquin North Outfitters

Out front of Algonquin North

We arrived at Kiosk around 9:50 AM and was a bit surprised with the amount of people around.  We pulled the van up proceeded to unload, after everything was out Moe parked the van.  The waves on Kiosk didn't look too bad but we knew it was still a long paddle to get to our first portage.

Ready to go!!!

We headed West on Kiosk to the point then South West and missed our turn off.  It wasn't until we were in the small channel that we realized we went too far and turned back.

Finally at the first portage

It was while we were heading to the first portage that we saw what we believe to be an Osprey swoop down and snag a fish right out of the lake, truly an amazing site!!

Our first day had a total of 7 portages, on one portage I went to take a step down onto what I thought was just a muddy bank.  Turns out it wasn't and I fell into the water, or at least partially as my back pack managed to anchor me to the shore.  For the first few minutes the mud was thick enough that I actually couldn't get out.  The guys were nice enough to leave me there, laughing and taking pictures.

We finally got to our site where we cooked up our first steak dinners in the park, though it proved to be a bit tougher to eat than we thought.  With only bowls it was tough to cut, but we managed.

Setup Time

Day 2