Wed, Aug 22 2007 - Canoe Lake Scugog & Nonquon River (View Original Event Details)
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Hi, I’m event coordinator Justin. You might remember me from such write-ups as Killbear car camping (June 1-3, 2007), and Sauble Beach and Bruce Peninsula National Park car camping (August 10-12, 2007).
I returned my rental car which I had used to get to the previous night’s TOC event before biking to the meet up location at the GO bus stop near the Port Perry waterfront. (The former has some relevance later on I assure you.) The GO bus arrived several minutes later and Andreas and Margaret got off. It was Andreas’ and Margaret’s first TOC event and I hoped the weather would bear with us. It was cloudy and generally overcast, but the weather forecast at worst predicted drizzle. It was perfect weather, in my opinion, for canoeing with a gentle breeze.
We walked along the waterfront trail to the Port Perry Marina where we rented two canoes. The rental processing took longer than for renting a car the night before, which I thought was wrong in some small way. We were issued an aluminium canoe and a fibreglass canoe, the former looked like it hadn’t seen action in awhile as it had a few spider webs in it. The life jackets looked to be older than I was, and the paddles were all the same size, short.
We started out for a practice run around the lake while we waited for the official start of the event and our last member to arrive.
We went back to shore to pick up Diane at the meet up location. Myself and Andreas took the silver aluminium canoe while Diane and Margaret took the brown fibreglass one. We began our journey across Lake Scugog in an attempt to get to the Nonquon River. A signpost for snowmobiles looked out of place on the lake shore in summer. Our progress was a little slower than I had hoped for and we stopped for lunch at what looked like a grass shoreline. I jumped out of the canoe and soon discovered that it was not as solid as it appeared, as I sunk up to me knees in a bog-type mud. I slogged my way to the grass only to find that it was also boggy. Andreas captured the event using my camera. We had lunch in our canoes, and Andreas and myself were able to stand up in our canoe as it was quite solidly lodged on the bog shoreline.
During our journey we encountered several different types of wildlife. Andreas was a keen bird watcher, and pointed out several species of birds, including a heron, sandpipers, and several kingfishers diving into the lake for fish. I pointed out a beaver crossing the lake though some dense lake weeds.
Our return journey was much faster than on the way out. Andreas had mastered the ‘J’ stroke and sterning quite well by this time and we were sliding across the water with ease. Diane and Margaret were quite adept as well, keeping up to us and then passing us upon returning the marina.
Upon returning the canoes, the marina operator asked if we had been on the water for the entire 7 hours that we had the canoes. Upon telling him that we had, he seemed visibly impressed.
I wasn’t able to convince anyone to attend my favourite restaurant, The Jester’s Court. Diane and Andreas headed back to Toronto, while Margaret stayed for a brief tour of downtown Port Perry by myself. Two new TOC members had officially survived their first event and were looking forward to future events. So this is where I, your humble narrator, leaves you with these remembrances with the hope that I will see you on a future TOC event and share an adventure.
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Erik Sonstenes at photos@torontooutdoorclub.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.