World Canada Ontario Algonquin Provincial Park

Hola! Pete & Jen's Big Adventure

Beavers, Moose and Bears 4 Jul 2005

On Monday we picked up a hire car and drove north from Toronto to Algonquin Provincial Park, where we hired a tent and set-up camp at Kearney Lake. The park has a number of trails and we managed to walk a couple of the short ones on Monday afternoon - 'the Lookout', from which, as the name suggests, we got good views of the park and 'Beaver Pond Trail', where we didn't see any beavers but did see a moose at the other side of a lake. We were able to watch it for quite a while and it didn't seem at all phased by us being there.

Back at our tent we just managed to get food before a thunderstorm started - typical! The rain carried on all night and it was very hard to sleep as there were also lots of other noises that we are not used to, such as very loud frogs and a bird (possibly a loon?) which makes a sort of honking noise.

On Tuesday, although it was still raining, we picked a 10km walk - 'Centennial Ridges' - which took us over a number of ridges and past several lakes. We saw a Great Blue Heron at the first lake and it was then some time before we saw anything other than mozzies, although the views of the park from the ridges were very good. After lunch we reached another beaver-made lake, where after sitting quietly for a short while we saw several beavers. It was hard to tell how many we saw as it looked like they were going back to a few different lodges. One of them came right up out of the water near us to get grass and took it back to the lodge nearest to us, where it sounded like there may be babies waiting for food. We also saw another heron and a red squirrel.

When we got back to the car, at the entrance to the trail, we realised that we had left the car lights on and the battery was dead. Fortunately there was one other car in the car park, so we waited for the people to come back. After waiting for an hour we decided to walk the few kilometres along the track, up to the main highway through the park and to a campground office that we knew was not far away. About 500m down the track we spotted a bear in some bushes by the side of the road. It was about 50m ahead of us, so while Pete got a little bit closer to check it was a bear, I started walking backwards! The general advice about bears is to make noise and scare them off, however as this bear hadn't seen us and knowing that our car wasn't working, we decided not to risk startling it and made a hasty retreat to the car! Within minutes of getting back to the car (& praying), the other people came back and they were able to give Pete a lift to the nearest park office. 10 minutes later he was back with a Park Ranger, who got the car going again!

Driving back to the campsite we saw two more moose by the side of the highway. One of them was standing next to a sign for a hotel/restaurant and at first glance Pete didn't realise that it was real!

Quite an adventurous day!! God is definitely teaching us about relying on Him!

On Wednesday the weather was glorious and we managed to fit in another 11km walk - 'Mizzy Lake Trail' - where we saw some turtles basking in the sun and more heron, squirrels and chipmunks before heading back to Tim & Claire's.

Jen

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