algonquin park

Date traveled: May 19-20, 2018

I’ve had many almost-trips to Algonquin over the years of living in Ottawa. I consistently heard it was the nicest provincial park, but it’s about a three hour drive to the nearest gate, so it takes a long weekend with nice weather to make the drive out there. And it books months early. And most the time when I tried to organize a trip there, I heard familiar refrains from people who had already been and would rather try somewhere new, or why not try a closer spot, or a trendier spot, or somewhere with more of a party atmosphere, etc.

I just wanna hike. I want to climb up hills for hours until my lungs are exhausted, then I want to fill them with smoke and feel dizzy from the fresh air in my brain, adjusting to the colours flushing around me.

I want to pretend I’m not in Ontario, the province of highways to city after city, the province of stress pushing from all sides of the continent.

I want to find the nicest spot of forest and water and walk until my legs are too sore to do anything but sleep in a tent even though it’s cold because the May-long weekend is the only long weekend not booked six months before and even though I can’t sleep anywhere except my own bed except when I’m too drunk or tired for my circling thoughts to keep me alert.

You know what, Algonquin was the nicest place I’ve seen in Ontario. There’s a reason why people drive there from the GTA. It’s beautiful. In a province of over 13 million, it’s the nicest thing around, so of course it’s busy.

We stayed at Pog Lake campground, which is one of the centrally located campgrounds and my guess is one of the busiest/less serene ones, but it’s near several hiking trails. We went on Bat Lake Trail, Track and Tower Trail, and one more I can’t remember the name of, but it was a shorter one and not quite as nice as the other two.

I wasn’t as excited for Bat Lake based on the description, but that goes to show that one sentence on a brochure can only say so much. It ended up being the nicest trail of the weekend, partly just because it had variety and some surprises.

Our first day at the park we took a long, meandering drive through side highways to get there, just the way I like it on a nice day. It started to rain shortly after we arrived, and we only had a few hours of daylight anyway, so I tried to remember how to tie tarps to trees and set up a tent comfortably and we spent a lot of time in the back of the minivan we rented, with the trunk up as a shelter, playing games and sharing a mickey of bourbon.

It can feel miserable being a little cold and a little wet but that’s the beauty of spring camping in Ontario. To tell the truth I don’t love camping, particularly at that time of year, but what I don’t love is the knowledge that I’m probably going to have a tough time sleeping and the feeling of being stuck in an uncomfortable state. Once I take a breath and accept things as they are I can normally get past all that, and the rest of camping – the being in a forest part – I really love.

What makes Algonquin so special?

I really don’t know.

I don’t know the names of the trees or birds we saw. I know that there were lookouts and water and a lot of trees, and I was told that this bird was a rarity so I snapped two dozen photos and this was the best one.

Without looking it up, I don’t know what it is about the place that makes it unique. I don’t have the words for it, and it’s debatable whether that would add to my enjoyment. What I do know is how it looked and how I felt when I was there, and if you told me it’s something specific about Algonquin that makes it so pretty I’d probably believe you.

For me, it’s a large park, filled with all the park-things you’d expect, and it scores well on all that stuff.

It’s supposed to be great for canoeing, but we’d didn’t go. It’s a lot to organize for someone inexperienced, but sometime I would like to portage into a site there. Maybe next year sometime I’ll do backcountry camping for a few nights, hike from site to site, play wilderness out of cell reception for a little while and see how cranky I get.

If you’re in the area, yes, absolutely go see this place. Maybe you have a larger vocabulary for what you’re seeing and its particularities will descend on you. Or you’ll be like me and just enjoy being in a really nice forest.

Is it as nice as other parks I’ve been to in other provinces? Not really. But not every park has to be the best in the world, and I think I need to do a better job at appreciating what’s near me and what I can readily access. So, that being said, Algonquin is probably the best I’ve seen within a short-ish driving distance, and you know, it probably falls short of a ‘must-see’ for the person coming from somewhere else in the world, but it’s beautiful, and I’m thankful I’ve been and can go back.