Introduction
Back on August 4 in the year 2000, a much younger version of myself woke up from his sleep in his Camaro after spending the night in the Killarney park office parking lot. Soon after, he started his solo journey along the La Cloche Silhouette backpacking loop. Somewhere along the way, he came across a few canoeists who were portaging a canoe along the same trail. He shrugged them off as a bunch of crazy lunatics as he continued along the trail.
Little did he know that he’d be that crazy lunatic over 24 years later.
The objective of this trip was to take advantage of the warmer weather to complete a short 3 day 2 night trip in Killarney provincial park. Although the park was operational, the only access point available was George Lake. Which was fine since it’d make for a good start to paddle the Crack and Back. One of the most popular routes in the park.
Day 1 – Put in to Killarney Lake (12)
After departing Toronto at a leisurely 9:15am, we eventually made it to the Killarney park office around 3pm. Upon booking our campsites, we were told that we were the only paddlers in the entire park which was mind blowing! My partner Judy and I, along with Hana the portage puppy had the crown jewel of the Ontario parks system all to ourselves!
Shortly after departing at 3:30pm, we were greeted by the majestic white quartzite of the La Cloche Mountain range. The view was incredible but we were racing against time so we paddled on.
By the time we approached the second portage at the end of Freeland Lake, it was 5:10pm and was getting darker by the minute. Although it was relatively bright at 5pm during my last canoe camping trip just 2 weeks prior, it came to my realization that our clocks went back an hour since then.
Needless to say, we had our headlamps ready by the time we completed the 400m portage into Killarney lake.
Upon arriving at the campground, we quickly gathered some firewood under the remaining sunlight to keep ourselves warm while we had our dinner and set up our tents.
I remembered from my Gros Morne trip in September that my partner was an early sleeper. Not only did she jump into her tent at 8pm but Hana joined her as well so I spent the following ~2 hours tending the fire before going to bed.
It’s too bad she slept so early because the sky was so beautiful. The 3 stars of the Orion belt along with the Pleiades cluster were so clearly visible.
I wasn’t able to take a picture since I had my iphone but managed to take this pic of my canoe.
Day 2 – Killarney Lake (12) to Kakakise Lake (51)
After a fairly cold evening which dropped to near zero, we made ourselves a quick breakfast before departing our campsite at around 10am.
Our destination for the second night was Kakakise Lake which wasn’t too far away but required two portages.
The first portage into Norway Lake was around 1.4km and relatively flat. I gave my partner the opportunity to try her first portage and thankfully, she quickly got the hang of it.
The second portage from Norway Lake to Kakakise Lake was also around 1.4km but significantly harder due to the hilly terrain. And interestingly enough, this was the first of two portages which shared some of the trail with the La Cloche Silhouette trail as indicated by the blue markings on the trees.
This meant that I was actually on this same trail just over 24 years ago. Of course my memories were so vague that I barely remember this section of the trail. And no, we didn’t encounter any hikers so late into the season.
Once on Kakakise lake, we paddled straight to our campsite which only took around 15 min. The campsite was just one of two on the lake and while it didn’t have any spectacular views, it was sheltered from the wind and very spacious. Since we arrived at 2pm, we had plenty of time to collect firewood unlike the night before.
Once we collected enough for the evening, we ate our dinner and enjoyed the periodic rays of sunshine which broke through the clouds. Hana went straight to Judy’s tent and claimed her -17C bag as her own. It’s really strange but Hana rarely spends the night with me when we go camping. She’s always sleeping around with other people. What’s up with that?!
Day 3 – Kakakise Lake (51) to Put In
The last and final day of our trip brought us to our objective – the crack.
The crack is a feature along the western edge of the La Cloche Silhouette trail. A crack around 20m high which splits a huge block of limestone. It also happens to be near one of the high points on the La Cloche mountain range which provides a great view of the surrounding area.
After departing our campsite at 10am, we quickly made it to the end of Kakakise lake where we merged onto the trail leading to the Crack. It was also the second of two parts of the trail where we’d be hiking the La Cloche Silhouette trail. Finally, it was also the start of the portages to Killarney Lake and Freeland Lake.
Since we were in a canoe, we quickly stashed it alongside the trail with our packs and headed up towards the crack.
The trail to the crack involved some scrambling but it was never exposed. In fact, Hana made it up and down with only 2 sections where we had to lift her onto some boulders. Since I was wearing neoprene boots suitable for portaging, I had to be careful not to slip on some of the smooth slabs.
Once at the top, we were greeted to a beautiful view. We could see Georgian Bay to the south and the wind farms to the east while OSA Lake looked temptingly close. We could’ve spent a lot of time at the top but we knew we still had a long portage ahead along with a long drive to Toronto.
Upon retrieving our gear, we took turns to complete the 1900m portage so fast that we had to double check our map. However, what we saw at the end of the portage was shocking – the entire end of Freeland Lake was dammed by beavers!
The drop to the other side was quite high so we paddled to the end, got out and considered a few options including bushwhacking to the adjacent portage.
In the end, we decided to get wet and pull the canoe onto some loose/wet reeds and enter the canoe once we reached the main flow to the lake.
It’s not uncommon to come across beaver dams on creeks and rivers but this was the first time I’ve come across a dam which covered an entire side of a lake.
This little problem cost us around an hour of time but that was ok since we still made it back to the put in before dark.
Here’s the final pic taken during the crossing of George Lake.
Hana seems to have found a comfortable position “planking” across a portage bag and the padded yoke pad.
Hang in there little buddy!