La Vérendrye Nature Reserve is an
RDE (real darn easy) canoe camping adventure for kids. Natural sandy beaches. No
need for reservations. Lots of beautiful canoe routes with short portages that are well marked and uncrowded. Only a three-hour drive from Ottawa in mid-summer when popular campsites like Sandbanks and Achray have to be reserved online in February. It’s “way up north,” as southerners
think of it, but a rare opportunity for spontaneous backcountry camping. Located about 250 kilometres
away, past Maniwaki, you can drive or get there by Voyageur Bus from the Ottawa Bus Terminal right into Le Domaine campground in the middle of the reserve. A fully stocked outfitter, a convenience store, a restaurant and the main put-in are all at Le Domaine. Bring food, since the store has only basic supplies. You can camp at Le Domaine if
you’d like to get an early start on your trip the next morning. Canoe routes in La Vérendrye
have a restriction on the number of groups allowed at any one time. You find out what circle routes are
available when you register, so plan with flexibility in mind – a small price for deciding now, in summer, not in February when you’re unsure about your kids’ canoe skills, and you’ve no certainty about summer weather. We’ve been to La Vérendrye three times and always got the route we wanted. At Le Domaine, buy a detailed map ($8.25) for your route. Campsites and portages are well signed, but a good map will keep you on course. Each route has a suggested
direction of travel based on prevailing winds, and the “right” direction is a good idea, given how the winds can pick up on some of the bigger lakes. It also means paddlers are travelling in the same direction, so you get that remote feeling as paths cross less often. Routes 10, 11, 15 and 16 all begin and end at Le Domaine. Other routes require that you register at Le Domaine and then drive to the put-in. Another La Vérendrye rule is one night only at a given campsite. This works well if you like to keep moving, as our family does, but could be trickier if you prefer to go day-tripping from an established base camp. Each route has the likely number
of days it takes to complete for beginner, intermediate and advanced paddlers. We usually add one day to the beginner route to allow the children a day to rest, explore, build sandcastles, swim, look for turtles, nap, collect rocks, read, and hike portage trails without our gear. Even with the one-night-per-
site rule, the next site is never far if you’re having a rest day. It could be that lovely beach across the lake with the moose tracks by the blueberry patch. If your children are too young for portaging, Le
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Domaine is on beautiful Lac Jean- Peré with campsites less than half an hour away, with one parent paddling while the other is the kid wrangler. With low August water levels last summer, some portages were longer and muddier than usual. So instead of portaging through mud, we got out and hauled the canoe with a rope, and our daughter found she could pull us all by herself through shallow waters by the beach. Just for fun. Giving children their own
backpacks helps motivate them along the portages. Once upon a pre-kid time, my husband and I were famous (at least in our own minds) for seamless one-trip portages. With two kids and more gear, that’s not possible anymore, but we’ve gotten our system down so the kids only have to walk the portage once. When we arrive at a portage,
everyone hops out with the bags. One parent grabs a big pack and the canoe and takes off at a brisk, adult pace. The kids take their packs, life jackets and paddles and walk with the other parent who is carrying packs but has free hands to help them over rocks or tricky bits. At about the halfway mark, parent one
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