the barron canyon

One of the things that has been on our 'bucket list' for quite a while now is canoeing through the Barron Canyon, in Algonquin Park. We have hiked this trail a few times and seen it from above, but only Colin has had the pleasure of seeing it from below, in a canoe. (He went on a guys-only-camping-trip in the Fall, about 10 years ago, and they did this trip together.)

So we loaded up the vehicle. It's a 2-3 hour drive from where we live and because of that, we decided to stay at a relatively local hotel in Pembroke. We thought about camping, which would have been beautiful, however, I'd already camped with the girls the previous week, so I'd kinda had enough of camping, if you get my gist! We put our canoe in at Squirrel Rapids and went upstream from there, it was about 16kms long (round trip), with one portage (each way) of about 420 meters. The girls were pretty excited at the start, but it didn't take long before Phebe was fast asleep! The canyon was incredible, no words do it justice. The majestic beauty of God's creation just takes my breath away.

We stopped in for a little picnic on our canoe back down river. We had a swim in a Barron River, did some fishing. Such a beautiful relaxing day... well, not for my muscles. But it was well worth the aching muscles! I took these photos with my point and shoot camera - I would have loved to bring my big camera, but alas, two wiggly girls in a canoe, I had nightmares of my camera being submerged in the Barron River!

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The above pictures were taken on Tuesday when we hiked the trail.
The following pictures were taken during our canoe trip.
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[ the flickr set is here ]