Sept. 6th, 2025 - Sept. 11th Killarney Canoe Trip - Bell Lake, Balsam Lake and Silver Peak

We drove on Saturday from Toronto to the Bell Lake Access Point. There we met up with Steve and Hani who arrived from Ottawa roughly at the same time.

The weather during the drive was mixed: Sun, clouds and even some rain. But when we arrived at the access point the weather had improved sufficiently to the point that it did not look rainy any more.

Day 1 - Bell Lake Access to Balsam Lake

We got our canoes from the outfitter place (Killarney Kanoes) right at the lake and loaded them. The same outfitter was also responsible to handle the Killarney Park reservations. It was about 3pm when we started paddling.

Our destination today was Campsite #152 on Balsam Lake. To reach Balsam Lake we had to paddle a good chunk of Bell Lake eastward and then find a 50m portage at the end of a little creek. We actually found the portage without too much problems mostly by following the guidance given to us by the outfitter and Steve checking his GPS from time to time.

Our paddle on Balsam Lake was relatively short. And our campground turned out to be a very nice one.

Day 2 - Balsam Lake to David Lake

The weather looked pretty reasonable today. After Breakfast we paddled to the Balsam Lake to David Portage. It is about 700m long and takes a bit of time. The portage has a certain steepness in parts and I actually managed to take a wrong turn. But it was all manageable. It just took a bit of time going forward backward to get all the luggage across.

On David Lake our paddle was again relatively short. Our destination was Campsite #182. We had booked it for 2 nights and it turned out to be spacious and again a very pretty one (most of the campsites on David Lake that we paddled by looked nice (183, 185, 188, 189)).

Day 3 - David Lake: Silhouette Trail Hike towards Little Mountain Lake

We decided to do some exploration of David Lake. We paddled to the portage from David Lake to Boundary Lake (without our gear). The portage crosses the Silhouette Trail (the big loop trail in Killarney). We decided to hike this trail west towards Little Mountain Lake. The trail went along a few scenic ridges but also traversed a few forest areas. We did not make it all the way to Little Mountain Lake (we stayed on top of a hill and only looked down a bit). Then we headed the same way back. And also paddled the same way back across David Lake.

Day 4 - David Lake

Our destination today was Campsite #193 on David Lake. After breakfast we loaded our canoes and paddled again. Unlike the day before it turned out to be a very windy affair. Margaret and I were not able to cross the open portion of David Lake and we ended up being blown towards the shore near Campsite #191. From the shore we looked what the others were doing. And for a while it looked as if one of the canoes were toppled. Margaret and I actually unloaded our canoe and paddled towards the place where we thought a canoe was toppled over. However the wind was still too strong for us and we were blown back close to Campsite #191.

From what we could see was that one canoe had made it to the shore close to Campsite #193 (our destination for the day). But we could not see the other canoe at all.After about 1 or 2 hours we saw that a pair of canoes was coming our way. And it turned out that Uta and Hansi, as well as Hani and Steve both had made it successfully to Campsite #193 and that only Margaret and me were missing. In any case both canoes came now our way to look for us! We distributed our luggage a bit around and started to paddle again. This time the wind had calmed a bit and we made it all across the lake to our intended campsite. Our campsite was again quite nice.

Day 5 - Silver Peak Hike

We moved our tent gear early on to Campsite #192 (just 80m away from our current campsite). Then we walked from Campsite #193 to the David Lake - Boundary Lake portage point (about 200m or less along the lake shore). From the portage point we hiked again the point where the Silhouette Trail crosses the portage. From there we headed east on the Silhouette Trail towards Silver Peak. Silver Peak is the highest of the quartzite hills/mountains in Killarney Provincial Park. It took us about 6 to 7 hours of hiking to reach the peak, having a rest on top and then walk the same way back to Campsite #193. It was a cool hike. We had good weather and good visibility.

Day 6 - Paddling back to Bell Lake Access Point via David Creek

We had a black bear visit this night. The bear managed to get to the food we had hung up and destroyed a few bags and also bit into our cooler box. We thought we had done a pretty good job hanging our gear up. At least it was definitely one of our better hanging the food up efforts in recent years. But somehow the bear appeared to have torn apart the rope that was wound around a nearby tree to keep everything in place. We did hear some noises but did not see anything. However the bear visited a 2nd time and moved directly through our campsite. I guess he might have been looking for more food. Steve woke up and chased the bear away. That got everyone else except me waking up and coming outside as well. After a while everyone went back into their tents. In the morning we noticed that the hung up food was on the ground.

The bear visit wasn't a disaster for us. It was our last day anyway. None of us was hurt. Also paddling out without a breakfast was not a big issue. We had 2 portages and not too much paddling ahead of us. The weather was very nice again and the paddle caused no problems. One of the 2 portages was a 700m portage. We arrived in good spirits at the access point. There we heard that another party on David Lake was visited by a bear the night before. Unlike ours, it was the first night of their canoe trip and they had to abandon their trip. I guess it was the same bear.

We drove that afternoon back to Ottawa via Sudbury. We had our first lunch of the day in Sudbury (Steve charged his EV car during the time we had lunch). We also had a late dinner at the Irving Big Truckstop in Pembroke and arrived late (and safely) in Ottawa.

Sept. 16th, 2024, Day 20 East Coast - Parc National du Bic to Ottawa

This was our last day of the trip. Again the weather was nice. We packed up our gear, had breakfast and then started the drive from Rimouski home. We mostly used the various highways. Our first stop was a coffee stop for Margaret at the next Tim Hortens adjacent to the road.

Our next stop was at Fromagerie des Basques in Trois Pistoles. This is a very large fromagerie in a relatively new building. They also sell bread, sausages and dairy products. We bought some cheese from them.

We also visited Poissonnerie Verseau 11 in Trois Pistoles and bought more smoke fish items.

Then we continued our drive to the Costco in Quebec City. On the way we ended up in a 20 minute traffic jam close to Quebec City. At the Costco we filled up gas, bought more cheese and some bottles of wine that are not available in Ottawa.

We had a lunch stop a Parc des Berges near the town of Donnacona. This was a very nice stop. There were benches and a washroom in a nice setting with trees. Having nice baguettes with smoked fish items and cheese also helped lifting our spirits. Afterwards we continued our drive to Les Fromageries de la Table Ronde. The fromagerie is located north of Montreal and Google Maps guided us even earlier north than we expected to avoid rush hour traffic jams in the Montreal area. We made it in time to the fromagerie and bought a decent amount of cheese (Fleuron, Menestrel, and Fou du Roi (a new cheese of theirs)).

Now we embarked on our last leg towards Ottawa. Google Maps guided us on very rural roads to avoid further traffic jams close to the St. Jerome/Mirabel area and then we finally were on the right highway without much traffic towards Gatineau. The remainder of the trip was uneventful. Only the low sun in the evening sky was a bit of a nuisance while approaching Gatineau. Anyway, we made it safely home. 

Sept. 15th, 2024, Day 19 East Coast - Rimouski and Parc National du Bic

We started breakfast at Brûlery d'Ici in Rimouski. Margaret was in need for a coffee to get started and this was the right breakfast place.

 

Afterwards we walked through the whole downtown of Rimouski and before we ran out of ideas we got more pointers in the local tourist office. The water front and the downtown of Rimouski are worthwhile a visit.

 

We had lunch at Le Crepe Chignon. This place can be recommended as well. It is still as good as 7 or so years ago when I visited Rimouski with Gongyu and Daniella.

Other places we visited were Poissonnerie Ste-Odile, Poissonnerie Gagnon (this was the best poissonerie we have visited on this trip),

 

and Fromage en Tete right in the downtown in the market hall. It was difficult to scale down the quantities of the various smoked fish items :-). Actually resistance was futile. We bought a decent amount.

In the afternoon we returned to Ferme Rioux. Margaret wanted to complete the whole trail from Cap a l'Orignal towards Fourche-a-Louison and return via LeScoggan (basically completing the Le-Grand-Tour). 

 

 

 

 

I happily declined this opportunity and had a seat in the Ferme Rioux visitor center and started to work on a handful of blog posts. I also had a good look at the artist pictures on offer in the Visitor center and ended up buying one. Margaret completed Le-Grand-Tour just before sundown (again using the low tide window) and I managed to post a few blogs. After Margaret came back from the trail we visited Bay-du-Haha! and watched the remainder of the sundown. Then it was time for us to return to the campsite.

Sometime in the night we both woke up because a train nearby blew its horn every minute or so. Also, plenty of truck braking was happening relatively close to our campsite. But the train horn was distinctive enough to wake us up.

Sept. 14th, 2024, Day 18 East Coast - Kouchibouguac NP, Bathhurst, Dalhousie, Campbellton, Parc National du Bic, Rimouski

Today we had nice weather again. We fold up the tent and headed for a Tim Hortens in Miramichi via the highway to have breakfast. We also crossed a good portion of the Acadian peninsula using the highway. About 15km before Bathhurst we left the highway and followed route 134 into Bathhurst downtown (from then on we followed the scenic route along the coast until we reached Campbellton).

We tried to park in Bathhurst downtown but did not find immediately a suitable parking lot. After seeing a portion of downtown from the car while looking for a parking lot we decided to continue driving. We stopped at the Poissonnerie Arseneau to buy some smoked fish. Then we continued along the shore of Chaleur Bay following the Acadian Shores Road Trip signs towards Dalhousie and Campbellton. We had a nice dinner at Charlo Beach near Dalhousie. There was a parking lot right at the beach with a few benches and a washroom. We had a baguette style lunch while enjoying nice view across the water to Gaspe Peninsula. Then we continued towards Campbellton. All along from getting into Bathhurst and driving along the shore towards Dalhousie we encountered again plenty of house with Acadian stars over the entrance areas and telephone posts painted with Acadian flags like the day before. I am surprised how much national identity symbols are on display everywhere in this area.

 

In Campbellton downtown we had a short stop and walked a portion of the town and the shoreline.

Then we continued our drive towards Quebec. We crossed over into Quebec at Matapedia. The drive from Matapedia towards Mont-Joli at the St. Lawrence shore is very scenic despite driving a highway. Amqui is a town that lingers in my head (it has a very nice ski hill). We had another baguette stop at Lac Matapedia. Then we continued our drive and finally saw the St. Lawrence river. From there it was only a short highway drive to Parc National du Bic. It was a Saturday and we wanted to make sure we had a campsite there. The campground was very full, but we still got a site. Actually it was the "worst" camping site we had on the whole trip ;-). After setting up the tent we went back to Rimouski for dinner at Parfum de Coree. We enjoyed a good Korean dinner there. We also managed to buy some baguettes at Boulangerie Le Farinographe.

 

Afterwards we drove back to Parc National du Bic and even managed to hike the trail from Ferme Rioux (Visitor Center) to Cap a l'Orignal along the St. Lawrence shore. We just made it to Cap a l'Orignal at around sundown (we needed low tide) and returned to Ferme Rioux via the Le-ContraBandier trail. The walk late in the evening was every bit as scenic as the one I had done 6 or 7 years earlier with Daniella. The trail can only be walked at low tide. Back then, we also walked into the sundown. We crawled very satisfied into our tent this night.