Springtime is often one of the best times for a kayak trip down a nice river — the water is usually nice and high, and when you get a warm day it’s lovely with all the spring green and the earth coming alive after a long winter. So this week I decided to take a day and paddle down the Otonabee river, which runs through Young’s Point, about 15 minutes from our house. So I strapped the kayak on the car and had my wife Becky drop me off in town next to the river. I hauled the kayak on my head down a hill and under the bridge (highway 28) where there were a couple of guys fishing, and then I threw it in the water and jumped in off some rocks and off I went.
The Otonabee is quite wide where it flows out of Youngs Point — plenty of room for a yacht like the one in the picture and me. But he was kicking up quite a big wake, so I let him pass and waited for the waves to die down a bit. One of the first things I came across was a little island, which according to Google Maps is called Polly Cow Island (I didn’t take a picture unfortunately).
I found a forum where someone said they did some research and found out that it was named after young indigenous woman who passed away in the early 1800’s. She loved to canoe around the area, this person said, but she caught a fever when she was 16 and the tribe’s medicine men could not save her. So her father placed her body in a birch bark coffin and he and a few others (including one of the Young brothers who settled Young’s Point) towed Polly to the island and dug a grave there under a balsam tree, and every year he would paddle to the island and sit under the tree by her grave.
I paddled by this ancient boathouse, which as far as I could tell was the only structure on quite a large piece of land (there might have been something back in the trees but not that I could see). I mostly took a picture because of the No Trespassing sign, which in true Canadian fashion says “Please No Trespassing.” I’m pretty sure the print at the bottom says Lakefield College, which is a private boarding school in Lakefield, which is on the Otonabee south of Young’s Point. It was originally known as Sheldrake’s Preparatory School for Boys, and Prince Andrew was there for a term in the mid-1970s. The photo below shows it from the waterfront, with the boathouse and other buildings.
In addition to the College, which has quite a lot of property, there are some quite large “cottages” or homes near Lakefield, including the one below.
When I got to the end of the Otonabee I was basically in the town of Lakefield. I paddled as close to the dam as I felt I could while remaining safe, and then I just pulled over to the stone wall lining the river and got out, and then pulled the kayak up beside me. I called Becky to come get me and then while I was waiting I walked over to the Canoe & Paddle restaurant and got an ice cream cone. All in all, it was a great day on the water!
