View topic - Canoe - Burnt Island - Big Trout - Tom Thomson v Happy Isle

Four days, 86km and one root fire. My annual fall trip. This year on the hottest September weekend ever.

http://cmkl.ca/canoe-burnt-island-big-trout-tom-thomson/

Nice report, thanks for sharing. I travelled through Otterslide Creek a few weeks ago and actually found it to be perfect - the portages had some muddy sections, but no muddier than all the other portages in the park with all of the rainfall we've had. The landings were great though and so were the water levels overall.

Which island was it on Big Trout with the fire?

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Trip Reports & Campsite Pictures
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I appreciate the feedback on Otterslide Creek. I'd be happy to take that route next time from what you describe.

Below is a screen cap of Jeff's Map marking the location of the root fire.

Great report! We paddled through Happy Isle and camped on Big Trout on year. Happy Isle is so pretty! With that bright blue water! Also, had one of my fav portages ever into Big Trout. The 2590m from Lake la Muir into Big Trout goes through an old growth deciduous forrest and it's gorgeous in there! The report brought back great memories for me

A 2.5km portage counts as one of your favourites. Must be a pretty amazing forest. Thanks for the feedback.

Happy trails.

cmkl

As per your last photo and questions/commentary,



"Campsite destruction, Little Doe Lake - Exhibit 'D': Who the hell does this? And why? What on earth is the point?"

I'm sure sometimes it's just reckless destruction that leads to something like this, but I wonder if some people are misguided in thinking that bark is a useful to fire-starting in some way (with the notable exception of birches)?

I would also be appalled if someone did that to a standing birch tree.

It looked to me like they were trying to collect or experiment with the tree's gum. The tree itself was within 5m of the campsite's firepit/kitchen.

It just struck me as anti-social behaviour. I mean, imagine if someone came in to your kitchen and bashed a 30cm square hole in your wall just to see what was behind the drywall. They wouldn't be welcome back I expect. And if they did that in a hotel they'd be expelled and billed for it.

I'm still not over it. You may have noticed.

cmkl

Yeah - this sort of thing gets me going too, and I know that we're not alone in this...

My fear is that destruction/litter begets more destruction/litter. This has been shown via some psych studies where people are more likely to litter in an area if there is already litter, and are more likely to properly dispose if their trash if the area is clean.

I'm sure that to some extent this transfers to how we behave when in the forest. For this reason I attempt to clean up when I can. And, when I come across green wood that has been brought to camp, I often attempt to clean up the boughs (it's almost always live conifers being attacked) and move them out of sight lest somebody else think that this is how you collect firewood.

-- not to derail your trip thread -- but, do people feel as though Ontario Parks should do more to educate on respectful behaviour upon purchase of a backcountry permit?

Every year I take my kid down to the Adirondacks with her cross-country ski team for a weekend of hiking. We camp at the Adironack Loj and climb a peak or two.

It's car camping, and the Adirondacks are a lot more settled than the Algonquin back country but one thing they do that could translate would be having a simple list of do's and don'ts of no-trace camping tacked up everywhere at access points -- including the toilet stalls in the bathrooms.

An idea I had (it's quite a bit more interventionist and will no doubt raise hackles here or any anywhere I dare to bring it up) would be making people get 7/10 on a multiple choice quiz on no-trace camping before their permit is issued.

People gotta learn that stuff somewhere.

cmkl