Outdoors

Bon Echo is located north of Napanee in the Southeast Region of the Ontario Parks system. It is known of "Mazinaw Rock" which is a rock face above Mazinaw Lake which is one of the deepest lake in Ontario...aside from the Great Lakes of course...and has visible native pictographs.

This particular trip will always be extremely memorable.

We were in Mazinaw Campground, Sawmill Bay, Site #93. It was a really great site on the very top of a hill, comfort stations were located at the bottom and it was surrounded by trees and very quiet. We had a resident chipmunk named "Ollie" who came to visit all day and night...he liked to sit on top of the case of beer.

There is a small lookout near the gate house with a view of Mazinaw Lake and Mazinaw Rock. We also went on a hike to The Narrows and watched the birds swoop and skim across the water. During one walk down our site road, we spotted a young deer grabbing some lunch off some bushes. He didn't appear to be bothered by us and stayed for a few moments before slowly wandering into the forest.

We spent a lot of time at Bon Echo hiking. We explored the Abes and Essens backcountry trail. We didn't see any bears but it was great hike and the trail was well maintained.

Bon Echo became especially memorable for Keir and I when we ventured in a canoe to tackle the Kishkebus Canoe Route. It takes approximately 5 hours to complete and is about 21 KM and includes portages. For those of you who have not done this trip before, keep in mind the following:

• Check the make sure the map in the park newspaper is to scale....
• Do not count on the visitors centre being open...we went looking for a map and info pamphlet for the route and it was closed for staff training.

Make sure you start the route at the beginning and not the end. Had we a proper map, we would have known we did the entire thing backwards....

On with the adventure....we paddled fom the lagoon to South Mazinaw Lake to Campbell Creek which took us to Semi-Circle Lake. We portaged over an abandonded beaver dam into Shabomeka Lake and then into Kishkebus which was a long and narrow lake. A little intimdating as it was beginning to get very windy and overcast.

We finally reached the last portage and hiked 1.4KM with a canoe, 2 paddles, and wet gear as it started to rain. It was mostly uphill as we did the trip backwards...next time, the trip should be much easier. We reached German Bay, then North Mazinaw Lake and finally returning to the lagoon.

Bon Echo is one of those parks where there is so much to see and do that you need to go back again to experience it all. Our next trip we plan to explore more of the trails and some of the side canoe routes.