Somehow I've been paddling for 42 years and never made it to Killarney...planned to go a couple of times, but the plans always fell through. So this year, I woke up early on a February morning, booked some backcountry sites, and we did the long drive from Thunder Bay, breaking the trip up with a night at White Lake Provincial Park (boo jetskis!) and the Killarney car campground (yay Herbert Fish and Chips!).
Out of the car campground early to get to the Bell Lake access point...the Bell Lake Road isatrocious!Potholes, washboard, flooded areas...complete embarassment, especially once we saw how many Honda Civics and Hyundai Elantras were parked at the access point. Drive slow, watch carefully, and hope nobody comes flying down the road in the opposite direction!
Bell Lake was flat calm...in fact, we didn't have a breath of wind for the first three days, which made for an annoyance of horseflies (apparently the official name for a group of horseflies is a "business", but I'll be calling them an "annoyance" henceforth). We made banner time through Bell and Three Mile Lakes, arriving at the short portage into Balsam in about an hour. That portage had an interesting bit of history - an old marine railway that would probably still work if somebody built a cart to fit the rails. The actual portage is a few metres away from the marine railway, but we decided to use what amounted to a concrete sidewalk between the two lakes.
Twenty minutes of rain on Balsam took the edge off the humidity and quit just as we arrived at the portage into Pike Lake. Which is more of a creek...depending on which map you look at. Jeff's Map shows it as a long skinny lake, the 1:50,000 NTS maps show it as a marshy creek...and both the Friends of Killarney guidebook and the park staff warned us that we might have to drag our stuff a couple of kilometres when we got there. I had a reasonable level of trepidation.
But...surprise! water levels were fine for paddling. At least so long as we kept to the centre of the channel. Try to take a shortcut and you'll bog down (literally). But we made it through with dry feet, no problem. The portage from Pike into Harry Lake was unremarkable, and we made it to our campsite earlier than we'd expected.
Site 171 was pretty nice...open stand of pines, plenty of places for tents and reasonable swimming off the smooth bedrock landing. Firewood was pretty scarce though (seems like all the sites in Killarney are picked over), and the thunder box is in need of repair, but those were minor inconveniences. Reflector oven pizza and off to bed.
The second day was our tough(ish) portage day. Harry to Cat (or Frank, depending on which map you're looking at) was easy enough, though the portage marker was hard to see from the water. There are a couple cached boats to the right of the portage, it's actually easier to land there. Plenty of big leeches though! The south half of the portage between Cat and Lake Panache is flat and easy; when you come to the Y in the trail, take the right fork (look for a small yellow marker). The north half of that portage is steep, and follows a dry creek bed. Lots of head-sized to cooler-sized rocks, some loose, some not and all covered with thick green moss. Twisted ankle waiting to happen if you're not paying attention. The landing at the north end of that portage is fairly steep, and there's an old-style provincial park fire grate there, though it looks like it hasn't been used in many years.
The short portage between Brown's Bay and Taylor Bay on Lake Panache is an easy one, but there's a hunting blind at the top of the hill...beware if you're doing the route in the fall. The paddle over Lake Panache was pretty unremarkable (still flat calm)...we only saw one motor boat in the two hours we were on the lake (it was a Thursday), and a couple of people at camps along the way. Hideaway Lake was pretty, and from the water, the one campsite there (#166) looked pretty nice. But the portage from Hideaway to Peter Lake was brutal. Under good conditions it should have been easy, flat and short, but some (insert expletive here) has been mud-bogging their ATV along the portage trail and has turned the whole thing into a heavily rutted, muddy mess. (Insert expletive again).
Peter Lake was our lunch stop. Site #165 didn't look appealing from the water, so we stopped at #164. Nice enough place for lunch, but we wouldn't have wanted to camp there...the tent pads were in a heavily shaded cedar grove, the fire pit is on a sloping rocky area with no good place to sit, the water wasn't appealing for swimming and we saw no good food hanging trees. Then the portage from Peter to Fox, our longest of the trip (1500m). The length itself wasn't extraordinary, and it was fairly flat, but there are a number of big trees down on the trail that required some bushwhacking to get around, and there was plenty of mud and bugs besides. We told the park staff about the trees after the trip, hopefully they'll get a chainsaw crew out there.
I've seen plenty of wildlife on portage trails...moose, bears, a very angry gopher...but the 1500m portage added the unique experinece of having to detour around a giant snapping turtle who'd set up shop right in the middle of the trail. If the dog hadn't started growing at it to warn us, somebody might have lost a toe...
Quick portage from Fox into Deacon and we were set up on a lovely island site for the night (#161). The site itself was nice...another open stand of pines, lots of space for tents and a west facing exposure with a nice sunset. But the water detracted from the site. Lily pads surround the site, mixed with a large amount of water milfoil. Made for uncomfortable swimming (we both needed a swim after the 1500m portage), and somewhat murky drinking water.
Day 3 was our easy day. Maps by Jeff calls the portage between Deacon and Balsam a "low water portage", but looking at the water route, I'd pick the portage every time. It's an easy one, whereas there looks to be a maze of dead timber to navigate in the water route. And the portage from Balsam to David, while steep, is wide and well travelled. Though I was dismayed to see the evidence of what appears to be many, many, canoes dragged, rather than carried, up the rocky hill. I guess there are a lot of people who subscribe to the adage "treat it like a rental".
We were on our site on David (#192) before lunch...it was a real treat, a true 5-star campsite. Except for the (insert expletive yet another time) who shat in the middle of the trail to the thunder box. I guess they really needed to go.
We spent the rest of that day swimming and watching a big flock of loons socializing in front of our site. At one point there were eleven of them; I've never seen so many in one place before.
We stayed at #192 two nights...on Day 4 we took the morning to climb Silver Peak, the highest point in Killarney. It seems that most people pick up the trail at the portage between David and Boundary Lakes, but we did the entire portage into Boundary and picked up the trail at the east end of that lake, which saved us about 2 km of walking in either direction. The marker on Boundary that shows where to land to access the trail is a bit hard to find (it's a small red marker on a white pine), but we were happy we'd made the choice. The trail up the peak is about 4km from Boundary, and pretty challenging, but definitely worth the time and effort. But you'll want a swim when you're done.
Up early on Day 5, a short paddle and two easy portages (with boardwalks) got us back onto Bell Lake, loaded and in the car by 10am. We made the short drive back to the car campground for showers and fresh clothes before hitting the road back to Thunder Bay.
Despite the couple crappy portages, we really enjoyed this route...sticking to the standard Bell-David Loop would have been too short to warrant the drive from Thunder Bay, but the Figure 8 route and the hike to Silver Peak gave us a nice five days in the backcountry. Low water would have made the Pike Lake stretch miserable, but we lucked out there, had great weather, and saw some unique country. Great trip.
