Fiftieth Anniversary of Our First Canoe Trip
Six Nights on Whitson Lake -- 1973 July.

Bob & Diana's first canoe trip was from July 01 to July 06 in 1973. The destination was Whitson Lake. And as some of the pictures illustrate, we didn't have a clue (although we thought we did.)

This account is based on our memories, our old slides and some partial notes and packing lists. We didn't keep a trip diary (although one of the photos shows that we took a clipboard, for some reason we no longer remember). Unfortunately we have lost the chronological order of the slides although we can identify some from the second day and the last day. (There are no photos from the first day). The slides are of varying quality, since we used several different types of film and some have aged better than others. Most are useable but the colour balances vary significantly. We have made some minimal effort to address this but we didn't obsess over it. They are what they are.

For the most part, Bob and Diana's memories of the trip are consistent, but differ in detail here and there.

The plan was to launch at McManus Lake and travel upstream on the Petawawa River, passing through Smith Lake, and camping on Whitson Lake for five days of swimming, fishing, exploring and relaxing. Our target campsite was recommended by Diana's brother Evan (maps of the era did not show campsites). But while we were briefed on the campsite we were not briefed on the portages. The maps showed portages, but not necessarily accurately.

We were paddling a borrowed canoe, a St. Maurice (heavy chopped fiberglass), with borrowed paddles and PFD's. Diana's parents dropped us off at the McManus Lake access point and would return in a week's time to pick us up. There were a lot of campers camped right at the access point — it was a holiday weekend — but none elsewhere on the lakes.

canoe trip Whitson Lake 1973 July 0106 — (Click to view full size). These are the two maps that we had available at the time. On the left is part of the Ministry of Lands and Forests map no. 47a (1958), while on the right is The Algonquin Provincial Park Map of 1972 (the "Tom Thomson" map). As we recall, it was the Tom Thomson map that we actually used on the trip.
These two maps and the corresponding National topographic sheet constituted the only available published information on this route that we had access to.
Note that neither map shows campsites. The 47a map does not show any portages on the stretch of river from McManus Lake to Whitson Lake, whereas the Tom Thomson map shows a 100 yd. portage between McManus Lake and Smith Lake and another between Smith Lake and Whitson Lake, both on the south shore of the river. The former existed; the latter did not.

We paddled up McManus Lake and portaged into Smith Lake without any issues that we can remember (except for a certain amount of inefficiency). However, when we reached the top of Smith Lake, we ran into a problem — we couldn't find the portage to Whitson Lake. Our map clearly indicated a 100 yd portage on the south side of the river. We blundered around for a while but it became clear that no such portage existed. But some helpful fishermen fishing the bottom of the swift in a motorboat (legal at the time) directed us to the portage on the north side. We started across the portage and managed to get our stuff as far as the campsite at the top of the sandbank about halfway along. We then decided to walk ahead to see how much farther we had to go. At the end of the portage, the put in was underwater with current. We had no confidence that we would be capable of launching there and paddling up into Whitson Lake without getting swept back down to Smith Lake.

After walking back to where our stuff was, we decided to stay there for the night and reconsider in the morning. Our dominant memory from that first evening was the bugs. As I said, we didn't have a clue, and as an example, after setting the tent up, we left the door wide open. We learned that lesson at dusk when we entered the tent for the night; it was full. However, one advantage of being a newbie is that you over provision. One of our 'superfluous' items was a can of Raid.

The night was uneventful — or at least, not memorable. We got up and had our breakfast of freeze dried omelette, cooked on our "Grasshopper" stove — a propane fueled stove that used a propane cylinder as one leg of a tripod supporting a burner. It was a neat design and it worked well enough provided there was no air movement. But the propane cylinders were heavy.

We were pretty discouraged. We could look up the swift and see our desired destination but didn't think that we could reach it. So near and yet so far.

But then a group of whitewater canoeists traveling down river showed up and were swimming and cavorting in the swift. They couldn't see our problem and just dismissed it — "if we can swim in it, you can paddle in it". Anyway that spurred us to give it a shot. We broke camp, finished carrying to the end of the portage, loaded up the canoe and proceeded to wade it upstream. This involved chest deep wading (and irreparable damage to Diana's shoes). But we made it up to slow water and were able to paddle into Whitson Lake and to our intended campsite.

Without being too specific, we need to say something about the campsite. The campsite, at the time, was commonly used. Currently it has not been used for many years as it was never recognized or designated as an official campsite. We suspect it to be on some internal, confidential Park list of sites to be protected and not developed or publicized. The reason that Diana's brother Evan was aware of the site is because a couple of his friends were involved with an archeological exploration of the location. Indeed the fire pit was situated in a depression related to the that investigation. Other depressions existed around the site. The ethics of modern archeology are stringent with respect to leave no trace but perhaps less so then. Anyway, we camped on this site as was the practice of the time. And truth be told, we thought it was a very nice campsite.

Canoe trip three nights on Whitson Lake — The campsite as it appeared in 2018 (45 years after our initial visit).

Canoe trip 2 nights on Whitson Lake — A somewhat similar shot — this really is the same location — as it appeared in 2017 (44 years later).

We look back fondly on this trip. In retrospect, in many ways we were woefully unprepared and not nearly as "bush wise" as we thought we were at the time. But we survived and had a good time and we have returned to Algonquin many times in the ensuing 50 years.

We had planned to mark this anniversary by returning to Whitson Lake on or about the anniversary date. Unfortunately, Diana's knee chose not to cooperate. Bob has a cataract operation scheduled for mid summer which will then preclude him from any lifting for up to six weeks. But if everything falls into place appropriately we may still be able to get back to Whitson Lake this year in late September. We'll see. Otherwise we'll just have to wait for our 51^st anniversary.

Fiftieth Anniversary of Our First Canoe TripSix Nights on Whitson Lake -- 1973 July.

Fiftieth Anniversary of Our First Canoe Trip
Six Nights on Whitson Lake -- 1973 July.