Roaming the Upper Ottawa Valley and Beyond

 We didn't wander too far from home today. Back of us, closer to Round Lake, there are many many old logging roads and camp roads. As we drove south, the more popular hiking paths seemed to be very busy. There is a very steep trail down to a water fall quite close to us. It was BUSY. Only a short distance further and there was another car parked on a pull off. This particular spot is popular with climbers. We often see them returning to their vehicle with their climbing gear hanging off their bodies. We wanted to check out a couple of more obscure lanes we've seen in our drive by. The first trail we stopped at just meandered through some very scrubby brush. There were some markings on trees that seemed to indicate some logging had taken place in there at one time. We walked for about half a kilometer and decided to turn back. There was a lot of rubble across the lane and I'm still babying my poor old body along. Once again we were very disgusted with the amount of garbage t

 One of the entry points to the south east side of Algonquin Park is via Turners Road. At the Paugh Lake Road intersection the name turns to Basin Depot Road. It is very quiet now but there was  quite a bit of logging activity in that area until half load limits forced the big trucks off the road the middle of March. These roads follow the Bonnechere River which comes out of McAskill Lake within the Park boundary. It has a long history of logging. Back in the day there were settlements and stopping places all along it's shores. Wider spots along the river are also given Lake names.  Currier Lake Last weekend we drove up to one of these historical spots, known as the LeFleur Homestead. It is located at one of these river/lakes called Currier Lake. The name derives from the first family who homesteaded in this immediate area.  There is a blue hiking trail marker at the head of LeFleur Lane on Basin Depot Road. Immediately to the left is a good sized, clean, level, grassed, parking ar

  The past year has been a difficult time for everyone.  My heart aches for our friends and family who live in the major cities. With lock downs and travel restrictions, there are many who don't have the freedom that us folks in the Upper Ottawa Valley have. I often feel that we are in a protective bubble here. We're in this safe place observing chaos and horror "out there". My partner and I aren't really interested in travelling outside of our province these days. We're not interested in foreign travel or crossing the southern border. Our province of Ontario is massive.  We've traveled to the western fringe of Ontario and it took us about three days. Unless you are a long distance trucker or on a time restricted mission of some sort I don't think you would want to do this province in one long run. There are so many wonderful places to see and things to do!! We live right on the doorstep of Algonquin Park. We don't measure our trip to Canada's