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ROUTE: Grant’s Creek to Pooh Lake


If you like the idea of a weekend canoeing Algonquin, but recoil at the thought of reserving campsites, then the 15- kilometre trip up Grant’s Creek to Pooh Lake is for you. Strictly speaking, the route—which takes you into the midst of Eeyore, Piglet, Tigger and Christopher Robin lakes—lies just north of Algonquin’s boundaries but it was included on all park maps until the early 1970s and remains Algonquin in spirit. You’ll find Pooh Lake 15 kilometres up Grant’s Creek, after a series of 10 increas- ingly picturesque waterfalls. Between each cascade is a labyrinth of marsh and sedge grass full of ducks, herons, turtles, otter, osprey and moose. The campsites are all sit- uated on top of slabs of granite, typical to Algonquin Park, but they won’t cost you a dime. And don’t worry about crowds. The route was all but forgotten when the powers that be took the route off park maps.


Need to know


Even though some maintenance has been done by volun- teers from Mountain Equipment Co-op and a canoe club from Deep River, the route is in no way as accessible as Algonquin Park itself. Don’t let that stop you. As Winnie the Pooh, the lake’s namesake, once said about his expe- dition to the North Pole, “We might find something that we weren’t looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really.” The two or three-day trip begins and ends at the old access point where Grant’s Creek crosses Highway 17, 21 kilometres west of Rolphton. Park your car in a lot at the northeast end of the bridge and head upstream. There are 11 portages, all of which are under one kilometre.


Local Lore


It’s not often you come across a cluster of lakes named after a fictional bear and his friends. Despite this, no one at Algonquin or the Ministry of Natural Resources could tell us how these lakes got their names. For that informa- tion we had to go to the fountain of knowledge—a gas bar in Deep River—where an attendant told us the lakes were named by an Algonquin Park ranger in the 1930s who had just finished reading Winnie the Pooh to his children.


OUTFITTERS.......................... Valley Ventures, (613) 584-2577


INFORMATION ...................... Ministry of Natural Resources, Pembroke, (613) 732-3661


GUIDEBOOK ........................ A Paddler’s Guide to Weekend Wilderness Adventures in Southern Ontario, by Kevin Callan.


MAPS.................................... Topos–31 K/4, L/1.


2005 Annual 25


Algonquin, Ontario


by Kevin Callan


PHOTO BY ROBERT FAUBERT


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