Killarney Provincial Park

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My Canoe partner Nick gave me a call and said he was looking at one of last seasons Canoe rentals at Killarney Outfitters. A fully restored 17′ Quetico from Souris River. He told me about the price and I told him that was a long way to drive, from Western Mass, for a canoe, but it would probable be worth it if we bought TWO canoes and did a little paddling. We drove 13 hrs to KO and arrived at 1 PM, finished paying for the canoes and reserved a site on David Lake for the night. Took a late lunch at “The World’s Famous ‘Herbert Fisheries’ “.

We put in at Bell Lake and paddled down to the first carry. The new Kevlar canoe was a lot better then my Royalex at almost twice the weight.

On David Lake we turned North and paddled around a peninsula to our campsite as it was starting to get dark. As we approached we saw a good sized bear digging in the bank next to the site and it wasn’t real interested in leaving what it was doing.

‘OK, where’s the next site?’

‘200 feet up this shoreline’

‘OK, where’s the next site?’

‘On that point over there.’

‘Let’s go.’

We started setting up camp in the dark, but thankfully I had two Luci inflatable solar lights https://www.mpowerd.com that really worked well and made a bad situation a lot better. We finally got to bed around 10PM after a 22 hour day. Needless to say we didn’t get the biggest of jumps to our start the next morning. We paddled to the north end of the lake and carried over to Balsam and Paddle thru to Three Mile Lake and back into Bell and carried over to Johnnie after picking up a couple pieces we left in the car, (Park Pass) and Paddled down to Ruth Roy Lake. Putting in at Ruth Roy is a bit of a trick, lots of steep rock and deep water. It’s not a forgiving place. We had to paddle to the site at the far end of this crystal clear lake. The site is set on a nicely sloped rock that look out to a white Quartzite Cliff across the lake that lights up golden red in the morning. Assume!

The next morning, our last one in the Park we had a breakfast that could not be beat.

We paddled back up Johnnie and carried back to the car and headed out to Huntsville to go to the “Forest Store” and then down to Peterborough where we finally found the last room in the city way out on Rt 7 towards Norwood. Turns out everyone in town was getting married that day, it was compared to a night when there was a hockey game in town. The next morning we went to the Canadian Canoe Museum and it was a special book signing day and they opened the warehouse. We got to see all the canoes, paddles, tools that didn’t make the display across the parking lot.

This canoe did make a display

For the second half of our trip home we crossed above Watertown NY and drove thru farm country as the huge full moon rose and watched the full eclipse that finished just as we arrived home.

Killarney is a fantastic place to paddle. The stone structure there is unbelievable and a ‘Look at that!’ around every turn. We will go back for an extended trip in the near future.