Desolation is an incredible thing. It can lead the mind to wander, go places it hasn't gone before, even lead to some wild theories about what's happening in the outside world.
Being in Canada for an entire week disconnected from reality is a harkening experience everyone should at least try. It was my turn recently, as I headed north of the border of the great state of Michigan to have a experience unique to a select few.
This page is dedicated to Michigan, but this trip is so unique, so different, it deserves its own log and footage. Armed with my brand-new GoPro Hero 5 (bought specifically for this trip), I ventured into the Canadian wilderness in the Blind River Provincial Park with the church youth group for the one-every-two-year trip of a lifetime.
The route we embarked on was the Dunlop Lake/Mace Lake loop, which in total amounts to 42 kilometers. We did a little less than that, deciding to launch midway along Dunlop Lake and shaving a few kilometers off the weeklong trip. Here, we traversed nine separate lakes over the span of a week, carrying all our gear in four canoes and portaging across the rugged, rocky terrain.
Here's my log of the trip, day-by-day:
Saturday
After launching into the water, we spent some time canoeing Dunlop Lake, a long, narrow lake but quiet that afternoon. Today's trek was all about getting comfortable in the boats and learning the paddling techniques. We had several newbies on the trek and others who were still new to this style of canoeing.
The lake itself that night was welcoming and fairly smooth, save for the wake created by the speedboats and pontoons traversing across its waters. Scoping the northern edge of the waters led to the discovery of the portage we'd take the following morning, plus a small campsite. With eight people and three tents, we resorted to having to use some of the path for the portage and hope no one came knocking on the shores.
Sunday
Waking after after dealing with pouring rain was less than ideal, but the sun finally came out and we packed up and left camp down the first of eight portages we'd embark on.
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| Some of the rocks along Ten Mile Lake. |
This portage clocked in at about 400 meters, a typical length for this trip. The canoes felt heavier on this route, which had very little elevation changes. We carried the gear to the shores of Ten Mile Lake and began to paddle out.
This lake, the largest we saw on the trip, presented plenty of challenge and stress. Combine the size of the lake and the blowing wind coming in from all directions and creates a recipe for disaster. Whitecaps crested in the middle of the lake, smacking our canoes with a force I hadn't seen in over a decade. This lake took hours to cross, leaving us little time to enjoy the picturesque cliffs in the distance. Even docking along the shore waiting for the rest of our crew left us vulnerable to waves spilling over the gunnels, prompting some baling of water.
This lake then narrowed in its northwest corner, leading us to a more difficult portage. Worn out from the waves and stress of nearly flipping on the second day, the thought of doing another portage wore most of us out.
After lunch, we began to pack up when an ATV rode toward us. Turned out it was the owner of Ten Mile Lake Lodge headed to pick up fisherman for the day. We exchanged pleasantries, and he offered to transport some of our gear to the end of the trail, which we gladly accepted. He was a kind host and if you're looking for fishing, his lodge looked premier.
After hiking up the large hill and across the swampy area covered in a wooden bridge, we reached Ezma Lake. The lake was a welcome sight compared to the rough waters of Ten Mile Lake. We dipped in and headed to our campsite on the lake, where we'd call home for two days.
Monday
Deciding to take a layover day, we spent Monday resting and exploring Ezma Lake, a decent-sized body of water with several campsites.
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| Ezma Lake from our campsite. |
It was a solid site, but not as spacious as the one we occupied. We canoed back to camp, the kids swam and we set up a tarp to keep the looming rain away for the night.
Tuesday
We woke up to a wet morning, similar to several mornings on the trip, not knowing the misery that awaited us while traveling that day to Upper Mace Lake. We packed the camp up and loaded the canoes to head a few hundred meters to the next portage, a 200-or-so meter trek along some rocky trails. Rain continued to pour and spirits were down, especially as we approached the next lake.
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| The landing spot to the portage from Swamp Lake to Upper Mace Lake. |
This next portage, less than 300 meters, would end up being the worst of the trip. We should have known from the fact we couldn't find the sign for the trail, which had been mostly ripped off the tree. All that remained was a small piece of yellow paper that looked like it was a part of the tree from a distance.
After scouting the trail, it was clear we were in the part of the loop that wasn't well-traveled. The trail was overgrown with plants and appeared to lead to nowhere at one point. Using the canoes as battering rams through the thick vegetation, we hunkered down and reached the end of the trail only to be met with a miserable landing.
The lake was low enough that swampland surrounded the portage. We began loading the boats before having to take a half-hour break to avoid the pouring rain and thunder that had come across the lake. Standing in the woods donning a poncho in silence save for the rain was a surreal experience, one I'm happy to not repeat.
After holding out for a while, we decided to push out. But because of the small landing and low water, our canoes were stuck in mud. It took one of the teenagers pushing boats out 30 meters in the mud before reaching any kind of water suitable for paddling. This young man pushed all four canoes out, including the one he was in with me, and hopped in. It was an admirable effort, one that left his jeans covered in filth.
Slowly canoeing along Upper Mace Lake led us to the most scenic part of the trip. The skies began to clear up and the rusty-colored rock faces began to show in the distance. After some quick exploration, we discovered a beautiful campsite, complete with a fire pit and a clothesline along the shores of this wonderful lake.
Wednesday
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| Finally, a beautiful day on the water. The first truly nice day of the trip on Upper Mace Lake. |
Every other morning I had woken up to was dark, cloudy or wet. I awoke thinking I saw plenty of clouds in the sky, dooming us to another dreary day on our final layover day before heading out.
Thankfully, the sun shone bright and no clouds appeared that morning. It was a glorious feeling, the whole reason I agreed to go on the trip. The loons were singing, the sun was shining. It was the perfect day for a layover.
After cooking breakfast, most of us headed out for a day trip to Secret Bay, a large bay off Upper Mace Lake accessible by a small canal on the west side of the lake. Without a map, the bay is nearly hidden, looking just like a channel off the lake. But making the turn onto the bay revealed one of the most beautiful sights all trip.
Landing at a small rock outcrop, we surveyed the swampy area on the edge of the bay in search of moose. Like the rest of the trip, no moose were spotted, a disappoint to myself and the rest.
We fought some windy waves on the lake back to camp before retiring for the day. From here on out, we'd be heading out of the woods toward the cars and home.
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| The evenings, though filled with mosquitoes, provided for a wonderful backdrop. |
Thursday began just how so many other days had: pouring rain on the tent before 7 a.m. At this point, it wasn't a surprise, just an annoyance. Packing in the rain had become commonplace, but still didn't get less annoying now five days in.
Thankfully, the rain we experienced vanished as soon as we pushed off from the smooth rocks slanting into the water. Blue sky emerged and we set out to leave easily the best lake on the trip.
This was our last two-portage day, doing two tallying several hundred meters each. Both were unique in their own way. The first one, which took us from Upper Mace Lake to Lake No. 5 (apparently there was no official name for this lake), had us trek across nothing but slanted rockface. It proved tricky,
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| Lake No. 5. |
A quick paddle across the lake took us to portage No. 6, this one leading us to stunning Lilypad Lake. This portage was similar to the last one, adorned with plenty of rock making the hike tricky. A unique find was some signs of man near the entrance of the portage: metal spikes driven into the rock leading the creek running nearby. Our guess was this dated back to logging days, helping lumberjacks move the logs quickly down to the stream.
After hiking the canoes, which are getting lighter at this point, down the hill to the lake, we followed the pathway created by the lily pads led us to the large portion of the lake, but the beauty of the aquatic flowers was incredible. The lake was the scene of perhaps my favorite photo I took the entire trip:
Despite finishing the portages for the day, we weren't done with getting out of the canoes. The way out of Lilypad Lake took us through a river, the narrowest portion of the trip. There, we encountered a five-foot-tall beaver dam, one that had clearly been worked on for decades. Write-ups from the early 2000s describe the dam, indicating it had been a part of that river for a while.
With the dam built up, it made it easy to lift over it and into the canal to Lower Mace Lake. It took the two of us to slide the canoe across the dam and down into the shallow water before we could head out. It was one of my personal highlights of the trip; I had done liftovers on previous trips through marshes, but never such a large dam. It certainly beat taking everything out and portaging it around.
The stream then led to Lower Mace, where we encountered more wind and waves, the most since Ten Mile Lake. A quick paddle across the large lake led us to a campsite on the rocks where views of the moon couldn't be beat.
Friday
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| Lower Mace Lake at night. |
This portage was more than 600 meters and had plenty more rocks and hills. Going through the thick woods led to the army of mosquitoes swarming more than usual, especially under the shelter of the canoes as we carried them on our backs. After an ample portage, slick with plenty of rocks, we emerged onto Claim Lake, a pretty little lake that would have looked nicer had it not been so cloudy.
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| The campsite on Claim Lake. |
Saturday
The last day had some of the biggest challenges facing us.
We could see the final portage of the trip from our Claim Lake campsite, a paddle of all but five minutes. The challenge came on land for this trip.
We had planned it specifically in case we wanted to avoid this portage, which spanned roughly 1,400 meters. It's the longest one I've done, and one of the longest the group has ever done in its 30-something year history. We had originally planned to duck out the same way we came originally from Upper Mace Lake, but that portage between Upper Mace and Swamp Lake killed any desire. We opted to take our chances with the long portage.
It paid off. With all our food packs empty, carrying gear down the trail was tiring but simple. About 25 minutes after departing, we arrived back at Dunlop Lake. Dropping our bags, we made the trek back and began carrying canoes, which felt extremely light at this point. Stopping just once each time, we carried all the canoes to the shores of Dunlop Lake and spotted the cottages that dotted the shoreline.
Being in the woods for a week and away from all things worldly was an experience, and led us to come to some wild conclusions about what had happened in the world since we left. There were plenty of times we'd joke about situations, though one thought I had was whether the Queen of England, well into her 90s, had possibly died while in one of her commonwealths. That feeling was negated as soon as we saw Canadian flags at cottages flying at full staff. It was my first indication that something (or rather, nothing) had happened while we enjoyed the woods.
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| Back at the boat launch for Dunlop Lake. My canoeing partner, Christian, relaxes. |
An hour across Dunlop Lake led us back to the vehicles which we had left a week earlier. Waters remained calm, something we benefited from as the lake was larger and susceptible to waves.
It was a trip I hadn't done in 11 years, and was nervous at the prospect of doing something like this again. It began rough with some balancing issues in the canoes, which made me fear the worst. After a simple fix, we headed out for a trip that, nearly a month later, I want to return to.
The wilds of Canada remind me plenty of northern Michigan, but so much more desolate. Barely seeing anyone for a week was always my goal, and while it's difficult to leave the real world for such a timeframe, it's a trip I'll continue to treasure and remember forever.
