It is the time of the year when we look back at the great adventures of 2017 and start planning for the year ahead. With numerous camping trips, countless microadventures and a three-week road trip to Newfoundland, choosing the most memorable moments wasn’t easy. Every nature outing, no matter how short or close to home, is an opportunity to stop time, breathe deeper and marvel. Some trips, however, stick in your memory more than others. Here is my attempt at capturing ten best nature adventures of the year.
Ontario Parks
Winter at Silent Lake: revisiting our yurt stay
Winter finally showed up in Toronto late on a Monday afternoon. Its arrival was heralded by snow blobs the size of cotton balls tearing through the December twilight. As I watched their graceful dance outside my office window, I could feel familiar longing.
“Let’s go camping this weekend,” I greeted my husband later that night.
“Where to?” he replied without missing a bit.
“Wherever there’s a yurt or cabin available.”
We didn’t hold our breaths since roofed accommodations get booked far in advance. To our surprise, we had several options to choose from. We ruled out Quetico (too far), MacGregor Point (too flat), Algonquin (we camped there a couple of weeks ago), which left Silent Lake. The next question was: a cabin or a yurt? And while we have the best memories of staying in a camp cabin in Killarney, we decided to go with a more rustic yurt, the same yurt # 5 we stayed at a few years ago. It had a wood stove, no electricity and was a walk-in – just the way we like it. That last one didn’t exactly pen out –the park roads had been cleared so we were able to drive right up to our yurt. But the rest was just as we remembered it, except for a new wood shed outside.
Algonquin Park, the in-between season
November is when the restlessness usually sets in. Darkness slowly eats up the daylight hours. Camping trips get shorter and far apart. Even Saturday microadventures are sacrificed to accommodate other engagements. Somehow the month passed by without a single nature outing. I could feel November’s foggy vagueness making a permanent camp inside me. I needed a deep nature therapy. Fast. Luckily we had a yurt booked in Algonquin for the first weekend of December. I was counting days till I could start my morning with coffee and campfire instead of an overcrowded bus ride.
Magical fall weekend in Algonquin
Fall is definitely upon us. I can feel its cool breath in the morning. I can see its brisk reflection in puddles and pools. It’s busy repainting the world around as if trying to make up for shorter days and gloomier skies.
I am going on a solo hike: Backpacking in Algonquin
Remember those childhood riddles about an animal that carries its home on its back? About a week ago the answer was me making my way along the Highlands Trail in Algonquin. Not only because I was lugging my home, a.k.a. tent, on my back, but also because I was so slow.
Our camping weekend at Algonquin: itchy bodies and soothed souls
Camping is always good for my body and soul. Occasionally, though, along comes a trip so perfect and emotionally satisfying it feels like a dream. Our most recent trip to Algonquin was one of those. Minus the bugs. But then bugs are part of the camping package this time of the year.
Backcountry camping at Frontenac
May long weekend is an important milestone here in Canada. Many consider it the unofficial start of summer and/or the opening of the camping season. It certainly was for us until we started camping year round and May 2-4 lost its special status. So we had to rethink its purpose and for the past two years May long weekend has become the opening of the backcountry season.
On transformation and hope: Easter camping at Wheatley and Point Pelee
I am way behind on my writing. It’s been two weeks since our Easter camping trip and I am only just getting to it. But before I begin, I have a confession to make: I am not a very religious person, more of a questioning agnostic, but I love Easter. Its message of rebirth and transformation lifts my spirits and brings hope. And nowhere is this message more pertinent than in nature so that’s where we choose to spend our Easter holidays. This year I welcomed Easter morning watching the yellow Easter egg of the sun roll out of Lake Erie and right into my heart, sparkling a fire akin to religious devotion, a feeling I haven’t experienced in any of the churches except for Nature’s cathedral.
Our last winter trip of the season at Windy Lake
Spring is officially here. And even if the temperatures took a bit of a plunge this week, the signs of nature awakening are definitely in the air. Winter, however, didn’t go away without a fight staging a magnificent comeback last week, especially in south-western Ontario and from what I heard along the east coast. So we thought even if winter this year was slightly disappointing weather-wise in our part of the world, it still brought us some memorable moments, like a New Year’s trip to Gatineau or a surprisingly warm Family Day weekend at Killarney and therefore deserved a proper send-off. Windy Lake Provincial Park seemed like a good place for our last glamping trip of the winter. The park’s northern location carried a promise of snow. Plus we’d never camped there before.
Winter at its best: Our Family Day weekend in Killarney
Where do I even begin?! Glorious weather, mounds and mounds of pristine, sparkling snow, a cozy cabin in the woods — it was certainly a Family Day weekend to remember!
Gone Camping 