We go to extraordinary lengths to get in touch with nature, writes QUENTIN FOTTRELL, but Canada rewards the intrepid traveller with elegant outposts of civilisation deep in its vast forests
THE MOST foolhardy or, perhaps, adventurous among us will go to extraordinary lengths to catch a glimpse of a beast trundling along without a care in the world, minding its own business in its own natural habitat. Armed with binoculars, camera, insect repellent and a pair of hardy walking boots, we tell ourselves that there is something profound and life-affirming about it. We will do almost anything to experience that moment: take a taxi to the airport, sit on a long-haul flight flicking impatiently through the
National Enquirer
or
New Yorker
– or the former folded discreetly inside the latter – then take a bus to a vast expanse of water, sit in a canoe and paddle like the bejaysus to get far away from human life or, at least, a mobile phone signal.
I did this and more. I flew into Toronto, stayed at three Ontario lakeside lodges in five days, before coming face-to-face with my first certified wild animal on my third day. It was a moose, so serene and handsome and pretty. And dead. Hit by a pick-up truck. Sadly, its lifeless body was lying in a ditch on the side of the road. That put my carbon footprint into perspective.
But hours later, canoeing in Opeongo Lake, one of 3,000 in Algonquin Park – 7,725sq km of forests and water teaming with wolves and moose and bears, oh my – I finally saw a couple of live ones. In a remote waterway called Hailstorm Creek, I glided quietly passed a female moose in the water. Her calf stayed on dry land, wisely remaining close by her side.
There was nothing between me and the moose except a stretch of water, sunglasses and a generous slathering of factor 30. The moose had come out of the woods to bathe and cool down from the heat of the relentless midday summer sun. The mother first noticed our canoe when we were way off in the distance and, as we approached, she didn’t take her eyes off us.
That’s the price one pays for entering their world. I felt like an intruder. Adam, my canoe guide from Algonquin Outfitters, an outdoor adventure store, told me a story about a couple who were cooking steak in these parts some years ago. The man was found alone, hysterical. His girlfriend had been killed by what Adam said was a hungry and, unfortunately, demented black bear.
Fear not. The Spring/Winter Algonquin Information Guide, a seasonal newspaper for visitors, says bears attack people only on extremely rare occasions. They are usually shy of humans. If you do see a bear, the guide advises not to turn and run, as this may trigger a predatory response. It adds, rather ominously, "Do not climb a tree – bears are excellent climbers."
I didn’t see a bear, but a bullfrog hopped around the rocks, teasing me as I tried to catch it, always out of reach with a giddy bellyful of acrobatics. Algonquin’s waters have trout, splake and bass. Boreal chickadees and gray jays darted overhead. I half-wonder if the chipmunk I thought I saw lolling just below the water’s surface was, in fact, my own toothy reflection.
MY LOVE AFFAIR with Canada goes back 10 years when I ate butternut squash soup at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner table covered in red and orange maple leaves in a cottage on Georgian Bay. Canada is as civilised a society as you will get anywhere in the world. It’s true. Canadians are polite. They have enviable civic pride and, in 2005, introduced equal marriage rights for all.
So, I arrived at my lodgings with good tidings. First stop was Elmhirst Resort in Keene, 90 minutes east of Toronto. It started as a humble collection of cottages for American families, some of whom still come here three generations later. It’s open all year around, even Christmas when the lake is covered in ice, and has branched into farm- ing, boat plane training and horse riding.
The Elmhirsts go all the way back to the Battle of Trafalgar. As the jovial Peter Elmhirst told me on a barbecue boat ride along the lake, in 1818, King George IV granted to Phillip James Elmhirst, a lieutenant of the Royal Navy, 1,000 acres on the north shore of Lake Rice for his efforts against Napoleon. This was the family’s entry into the land-owning class.
This resort’s 340 acres and mile of lake shore were purchased in 1906 by Frank Elmhirst, the grandfather of current owner Peter Elmhirst. It is based near where the Elmhirst’s original 1,000 acres were once located. The wooden split-level cottages are basic enough, even if they do come with broadband, but there is nothing to obstruct the view between them and the lake.
Best of all, Peter has shrunk his own carbon footprint. He raises grain-fed Angus beef cattle. Chickens in the nearby farm lay eggs for breakfast. The orchard provides fruit and the greenhouse grows herbs, vegetables and flowers. Even the extensive wine cellar features only Ontario wines. Plus, you can cook in your cottage, or eat in their pub or restaurant.
Further north is the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough. Once known for Quaker Oats and canoe-building, Peterborough is now primarily a college town. This museum boasts the world’s largest canoe collection. There are 120 on view and another 500 in storage. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? In truth, I was dreading it. But the history of the canoe is the history of Canada.
First Nation men harvested bark and animal skins to build the crafts. Women were designated to do the stitching. Some things haven’t changed. Museum worker Ipie, a good-humoured and remarkably zen middle-aged woman, sat making garments like those worn by early European settlers. “I used to build canoes then they found out I could sew,” she said, perhaps half-joking.
Later, canoes were given as wedding gifts to royalty (including Queen Victoria and Charles and Diana) and eventually manufactured for the middle classes. In 1904, the Cedar-Strip Comfort Courting Canoe or Canoe d'amoureux, en Lattes de Cèdre, had a built-in gramophone with a vinyl of an Indian love song By the Waters of Minnetonka. And, yes, that song is on YouTube.
En route to our next overnight stay, we made a random stop in a quiet one-horse town on the Lazy Gull River called Minden. It’s hard to believe now, but it used to be a booming and hell-raising logging town. Algonquin Park, where I saw the aforementioned moose, is only 45 minutes away and if you were to stay here, there is ample hiking and canoeing in the area.
I ate a hamburger for lunch in the backyard of the Dominion Hotel, which has been here since 1865. Our waitress said she saw a bear the other day while she was with her young son at a recycling centre on the edge of town. “He was going through rubbish, so he was fine,” she said of the bear. Knowing her bear etiquette, she recycled first, then slowly backed away.
Since the cancellation of Ontario’s spring bear hunt to prevent too many bear cubs being orphaned, there has been a marked increase in the population of the black bear in these parts, according to local newspapers. Some, like the rummaging bear in the bins on the edge of town, have become increasingly brazen when it comes to humans. It is an inevitable role reversal.
The hotel, a modest establishment on main street, offers romantic getaways, yet the waitress told me about the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth after a relationship with a logger. (They’re starting a ghost tour as spirits are good at drumming up tourism.) That was when Minden was a hive of activity. “Unlike many others back then, Minden wasn’t a dry town,” she explained.
WHEN I ARRIVED at my second destination, Pow Wow Point Lodge in Huntsville, I immediately went swimming with the fishes. How could I not? It has 1,500 feet of pristine lakefront with a southern exposure and 35 acres of open and wooded grounds. My one-room cottage was even more rustic than those at Elmhirst, and the warm, sparkling blue lake was even more inviting.
Pow Wow has a buffet lunch and dinner, and more upmarket cottages, too. The 1930s boathouse takes two people and has Cathedral ceilings and a whirlpool. There are deluxe cottages, some of which are lakefront and others nestled in the trees complete with jacuzzis and stone fireplaces. But those fancier places are by the by. You really want to come here for the waterfront view.
And, finally, we arrive where I began this story of moose and men: the great Algonquin Park. This is the prize jewel of the Ontario province. After I took my previously recounted canoe trip, I had a special treat. Pilot Sebastien Marty, a Frenchman from Toulose, flew me over the park in his yellow 1953 De Havilland Turbo Beaver. Trees, trees, trees, as far as the eye can see.
Sebastien is a happy man. He lives in a wooden cabin on the edge of Smoke Lake, on the outskirts of Algonquin, with his wife and children. This is one of those “best jobs in the world” you heard tell about. He flies employees of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources on fact-finding missions like, say, tracking the survival rates and behavioural patterns of moose calves.
He spoke with a lyrical Franco-North American twang; he often said “Yah! That’s awesome!”, or, “Cool!” When I asked how fast we were going, as we swooped over a children’s summer camp deep in the forest, Sebastien replied, “I dunno! I can’t read.” Pilot humour. In fact, he landed the float plane on the glassy water, a deceptive surface, without so much as a bump.
The flight gave me a glimpse of the unwelcoming terrain that black-robed missionaries contended with as they forged their way through this foreign land. Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons is a recreation of a 17th-century Jesuit mission that lasted just 10 years. The mission brought God to the local Wendat tribe, plus deadly doses smallpox, influenza and measles.
The earliest European settlement in Ontario and fourth oldest in Canada, it’s built on the original site with wooden farm buildings with real furs drying over smoky fires, a locked waterway and Church of St Joseph. The interpreters are also method actors: Peggy sat quietly in her bonnet in one house. “I’m making a pouch,” she told me. “I’ll probably attach it to a belt or something.”
The men in black robes and wide-brimmed felt hats wandered around speaking as if they all lived here nearly 400 years ago. “We settled here in 1639,” one robed man in his 20s said. His tussled Zac Efron haircut could have been straight out of the 17th century. Another robed “missionary” walked by in character. “Hiya, Larry!” our guide chirped at him, as he passed.
The missionaries were well-intentioned, but their presence here was a disaster. The Wendat’s sedentary rather than nomadic lifestyle made them good trading partners for the French and a favourite of the missionaries. Some Wendat converted to Christianity, some didn’t. This caused deep divisions. War and disease eventually decimated the tribe of 22,500 by around 70 per cent.
It does seem macabre to celebrate this way of life when the interpreters themselves acknowledge how naive and life-threatening the missionary presence here was. But having had a taste of this Little House on the Prairiepuritanical way of life, Sainte-Marie does stand alone as a remarkable piece of social history. Certainly, it was far less luxurious than my next stop on the tourist trail.
My last overnight was at Severn Lodge. I liked that they didn’t go with a token First Nation name. It has over 2,000 feet of shoreline, and its own private bay and beach. A popular wedding destination, it is on the northern shores of Gloucester Pool, which is part of the Trent Severn Waterway in the Muskoka-Georgian Bay lake district. As a resort destination, it is stunning.
The Mordolphton Club from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, purchased the property sometime around the 1870s. In the 1920s, it was sold to George Barrick and Glen Crummel of Akron, Ohio, renamed Severn Lodge, and in 1936 sold to William H Breckbill, who began working here as a student. In 1940, he married Jeanne E Krammes. For years, husband and wife ran it together.
A black-and-white photograph of William and Jeanne, the sole owner-hostess when her husband was in Europe during the second World War, still graces a wall of the lodge just inside the restaurant. Their sons Rick and Ron now run the lodge. Rick has the rounded, tanned look of someone who grew up in something close to paradise . . . in the milder summer months, at least.
My wooden one-roomed red-and-white cottage gave me a bird’s eye view of the water’s edge. Originally a lodge for loggers, it is now a refined and romantic retreat with an outdoor pool, 1922 mahogany motor launch on-hand to allow you to view the lakeside mansions and, if you and yours want some time for yourself, the staff also organises group activities for children.
I travelled to the outback to see moose and marvel at distant horizons. On this my last day, I had found an elegant outpost of civilisation. Canada is a beautiful, socially progressive and, today at least, more welcoming land than what the early settlers faced. Severn Lodge would be the perfect wedding venue. Who knows, I may yet return here one day with the man whom I will marry.
Where to stay and what to do
Where to stay
Elmhirst’s Resort offers cottages from C$150 (€92.50) per night for two, C$32 (€20) per extra person (cottages have one to five bedrooms). www.elmhirst.com or 001-705 295 4591.
Pow Wow Point Lodge offers rooms from C$215 per person for two nights including all meals. www.powwowpointlodge.com or 001-705 789 4951.
The Severn Lodge offers rooms from C$89 (€55) per person bed and breakfast, based on two sharing. See www.severnlodge.on.ca or 001-705 756 2722.
What to do
Algonquin Outfitters offers guided canoe day trips into Algonquin Park from C$59.98 (€38) per canoe, based on a group of four. www.algonquin outfitters.com
The Real Muskoka Experience offers steamship cruises for $48.95 (€30). www.realmuskoka.com
Canadian Canoe Museum. Heritage centre exploring the significance of the canoe in Canada. www.canoemuseum.ca.
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. Explore the 17th century headquarters of the French Jesuits. www.saintemarieamong thehurons.on.ca
Algonquin Park Visitor Centre. www.algonquin park.on.ca
Go There
Air Transat (www.airtransat.ie) flies from Dublin and Shannon to Toronto. Air Canada (www.aircanada.com) flies from Dublin to Toronto