The first stop on my Epic Trip was Grundy Lake Provincial Park. I wanted to get a good distance away early on my trip. My thinking was that, anything less than a days drive away would be easy enough to check out on weekends in the future. So, that first drive was a good seven hours. On top of that, I didn’t want to waste any time and just get right into the backcountry. So I had to do some paddling and portaging as soon as I arrived.
There’s a few lakes in the park. When you drive in, Grundy is to the left and Gurd in on the right. There are a number of small parking lots scattered around the park and I was lucky enough to snag a spot next to Gurd Lake that I scouted out in advance. It was actually at a small dog beach area they have and there were only about six or so spots. From there it was easy to launch my canoe. The destination was campsite, B4 on Pakeshkag Lake, the furthest available campsite from where I started but still under four kilometers.
First I crossed Gurd Lake and did a 650 meter portage to Beaver Lake. The portage was in pretty good condition but there were a couple challenges. The first was a rock face about four and a half meters high. I couldn’t carry the canoe on my shoulders for this so I had to lean the canoe against the rock vertically, climb up and then pull up the canoe. The second challenge was the flies! They were all over me during the portage. Just swarming! All I could do was keep walking to try stay ahead of them. It was the same thing on the way out too but each time, as soon as I hit the water, they disappeared and I never really encountered them again.
Beaver Lake was a very short paddle, followed by 105 meter portage to an even smaller lake, followed then by a 95 meter portage into Pakeshkag Lake. Pakeshkag was a beautiful paddle and a beautiful lake to camp on. I spent the evening setting up camp, taking pictures and just generally enjoying the peace. Across the lake from me I could see campers at site B5 wandering around the rocky peninsula. Looked like a cool spot to camp as well. The next day I paddled all the way around Pakeshkag, including an extra little part on the north end, on the other side of a “lift-over”. At the end, there was a tunnel running under the train bridge, I considered portaging to the other side but the rocks made it treacherous and the tunnel was short.
After arriving at my site and getting setup I was surprised to notice I gained an extra hour of sunlight from when I left home. That wasn’t something I even expected would happen this early in the trip and it was light out well past 10pm. Another surprise was how chilly it got at night. I’m the kind of person who usually runs hot, so I specifically went out and found an extra lightweight sleeping bag. It all worked out though, I just threw on some extra clothes including some joggers.
I really enjoyed my stay here and it really got me pumped for all the adventures to come. Could not have chose a better starting point for my Epic Trip 2022. I only wish that I took more pictures because there are things I saw that I can’t show you here, not yet anyway. I did take plenty of video with my goPro but I haven’t processed any of that yet. Not to mention I really need to find some editing software and learn to use it before any video will be ready to share 🤪.
