July 3, 2023. The sign at the camp office in Algonquin Park was unambiguous (at Pog Lake, which is a great name) – a ride along Highway 60 gets you there, and it is a particularly nice campground, with a great lake and private sites, the ride to it is beautiful too. Yes, we were finally on the road, after months planning and dreaming. June 2023, Two Blokes on Bikes… Dempster or Bust!
There be bears here. But we didn’t see any that night.
We’ll get to the bears.
You’re also in tree country.
Algonquin Park is the oldest provincial park in Canada, and it was established in 1893. A little research allows one to find much of the text of the Report of the (Ontario) Royal Commission on Forest Conservation and National Park, Mar. 8, 1883 which formed the basis of its establishment. You can find it on the Internet Archive, that wonderful memory of the world we all desperately need. It is a wonderful read, and the reasons for creating the park include “A Place of Health Resort” as well as “Beneficial Effects on Climate”. A small sentence is worth re-emphasizing today: “In history, we find that all countries once possessing forests become sterile after being deprived of them.” (it’s on page 29, if you’re interested, and perhaps we all should be).
Algonquin is a gift. It is huge, well looked after, stands as an educational resource, a wilderness, a haven for flora and fauna and still manages to allow logging, watched over by the Algonquin Forestry Authority. I am no expert so leave it to those who are to manage things like that, as long as they are listened to.
Experts do matter.
Owain and I had decided on a short first day, so when we got to Pog Lake we’d covered 397 kilometres. Given that the longest Owain had ever ridden before that day was a hundred or so to Ottawa, this was a major accomplishment already! More was to come, but this would do for now. At this point we were also on our first set of tires, of which more later. We’d started the day early-ish after a night of panicked “will it fit” packing and hoping that we hadn’t forgotten anything. We also ended up inside Canadian Tire that morning looking for more things, like bungees and so on to ensure we kept the things we were carrying actually on board!
You’ve likely heard the mantra: pack half what you think you need, then halve it again. That’s easy to say when you are sitting behind a keyboard with the benefit of a comfy house and all the tea bags you can use, but it is different when you actually do it. I’ve traveled a lot and can get by for a week or two, and more, with a carry-on bag, but Owain hadn’t really ever done much of this before. The discovery of what works and what doesn’t is an adventure. Despite the mantra, you can’t really get it wrong. Carrying the kitchen sink just means you get to donate it to someone who needs it more somewhere down the road when you discover that you need it less.
Discoveries are the adventures. As are unexpected side-trails, weird happenings, setbacks, drawbacks and bonuses. In fact, if it went as planned it’d be a bit boring, right?
Camping that evening was a set of discoveries and re-discoveries: best place for a tent, how to manage the sun and shade, where the water is (and who gets to go and fetch it!) and so on. Oh, and who gets to cook (me) and clean (Owain) – a pattern that continued the whole trip, even as we mastered the rest of the tasks of daily upheaval.
Motorcycle camping is pretty straightforward: ride, arrive, pitch camp, eat, collapse in an exhausted stupor, wake and repeat. The ride, through Arnprior and then to the 60, turned beautiful, if hot. We are very lucky to live where we do and be able to go such short distances to such beauty. As a shake-down of the bikes it worked well too, and we obtained yet more bungees (you can never have enough) and repacked a few things for better access. It’s a learning experience! We didn’t give away the kitchen sink. Yet.
The food was, if I say so myself, excellent.
The stupor happened even though we hadn’t gone too far, and my diary of the day ends with “I hope Owain enjoyed it…”
And ahh yes, the bears. Apparently, they were around but we didn’t see them at this camp (that comes later in the journey, as you will discover). The sign made me think though. “You are in Bear Country” – well, of course you are, you’re in Canada. I once lived just north of Ottawa near Wakefield, and there was much kerfuffle when bears came to visit in the general area. One came every year to visit me. He (or she) made it quite clear that I should stay indoors whilst the territory was surveyed. I complied.
Yes, you are in bear country. The bears were here first.
