Category: Misc

One of my favourite paddling locations close to Buckhorn and Burleigh Falls is Lovesick Lake, and I managed to get out for a kayak trip on October 19th that felt almost like August — it was about 24 degrees Celsius and I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. At Lovesick, the put in/boat launch is right by the highway near the dam in Burleigh Falls, and it is a gentle and wide slope with parking close by.

The lake used to be farmer’s fields before the Trent/Severn canal system was created, so it is pretty weedy in parts, but the main channel is deep and wide, and even the edges of the lake are pretty clear wherever there are rocks. There are a bunch of small and large islands, including one of my favourites, which is barely big enough for a tiny little log cabin and a dock with a couple of chairs. Luckily the height of the lake is managed by dams at both ends, or it would be underwater 🙂

Continue reading “A kayak ride around Lovesick Lake”

The weather today was fantastic for the middle of October — warm and sunny, hardly any wind, about 24 degrees Celsius or so — so I decided I had to get out for one last kayak ride before putting them away for the season. There’s a river about 10 minutes from our house, the Mississaugua, that flows down from Kawartha Highlands provincial park into Lower Buckhorn Lake (not to be confused with Mississauga, which is a suburb of Toronto). The river is not long, but since it goes through a park it is quiet and there are tons of birds and deer, and some great hiking trails.

The put-in I chose is not the easiest, but I was determined: I pulled my car over to the side of the road near a bridge and just threw the kayak in a swampy spot by some large rocks and off I went (luckily it’s a molded plastic kayak so I don’t care whether it gets scratched or not). I paddled up the river to the first small rapid, and then turned around and paddled back down the river again and under bridge, then followed its path out to where it joined Lower Buckhorn.

Somewhere deep down, even as I’m enjoying paddling in a T-shirt and shorts at the end of October, I know that this weather is not right. But it is what it is, so I figure I might as well take advantage of it while I can!

Continue reading “Paddling the Mississaugua river near Buckhorn”

I’ve seen the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis a number of times before — once a long time ago in northern Saskwatchewan, and not long after that on a drive through northern Ontario, and then a couple of times during the intervening forty years or so, but not more than half a dozen. They have always been amazing to watch, but I can safely say that I have never seen a display like we saw at our cottage in the Ottawa Valley just before Thanksgiving. We were told by friends that the ** index — a measure of sunspot electrical activity, which is what creates the Aurora Borealis — was high, so we went out to the local cemetery to try to get a good look at the northern sky, and we were gobsmacked.

Continue reading “A perfect night for Northern Lights”