July 8--Algonquin Park

This is one of DJ's most favorite places in the world. Algonquin is this massive provincial park that is used primarily for hiking, camping, and canoing. We mostly drove through (it's 35 miles from the west gate to the east gate--and that's at the very narrow bottom of the park. This place is huge), but we also stopped at the visitor's center, museums, and gift shops. We were going to go canoing, but it was drizzly and windy.

I just looked it up, and it's 7,630 square kilometers big. I have no idea what that is in miles.


The museum has a section dedicated to Tom Thompson. He was one of Canada's famous painters in the early 1900s called the Group of Seven. He was found dead in the park back around 1917 and his death remains a mystery. There's monuments to him everywhere up here. It's a very interesting story--I recomed you look him up online.






We hiked the 2 km trail around Beaver Pond, and this is one of the many beaver lodges we saw. Looking through binoculars, we did see two beavers swimming way across the lake, but Angel wasn't able to zoom in close enough to get a picture.








Dam.













Dam. Again. Small, but still holds back the river.














Still at Beaver Pond.

















This is Ragged Rapids, and it's so tremendous you can hear the water thundering from pretty far off.

















This is Oxtongue Rapids, and it's usually calm enough to swim in. However, there's been enough rain lately to really swell the river and make it too dangerous to splash around in.










This place is so beautiful and wild. There's just mountains, trees, rivers, and lakes as far as you can see.











Here's what we were really hoping to see in the wild instead of stuffed in the museum. There were several sightings of moose, but mostly on the various hiking trails. It's not uncommon to see them as you drive on the main road however.