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Ernest’s Endeavour The human carry-all, APMA Machado Collection (859)   Story by Bob Henderson Fall 2004 Issue So you want to see Algonquin Park through new eyes? Try it Bob Henderson style, with a 100-year-old diary in hand. A century ago, camping was a commitment — not a few nights’ stand ... By 1903, the passenger pigeon had been officially extinct from Canadian skies for a year. In that year, Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier launched an ambitious policy of railway expansion including the second transcontinental railway. The plan helped get him re-elected but almost bankrupted the new country, which would soon include Alberta and Saskatchewan. Trains and boats and planes Meanwhile, at Kitty Hawk, Orville Wright piloted the first successful petrol engine, heavier-than-air aircraft flight. But what piqued my interest was an entirely different mode of travel, and an event that didn’t make the news. In 1903, a successful canoeing and fishing trip traversed Ontario’s Algonquin Park. The tourist party of three was supported by three Algonquin Rangers (at the time there were eight hired Rangers), and their trip records tell of their wood stripper canoes, their duffels with tumplines for portaging, the trains and wagon carts they used for access, and the shelter huts and farm clearings where they camped. A 100th anniversary trip Curious about what 100 years would mean for canoe tripping, I joined Ben Huynch, Carol Correia and Jason Bodham to roughly follow their route. Specifically we were curious about how the Algonquin landscape was different, how the travel gear differed and how tourism in the park had changed. Of course, it was a fine excuse for a little holiday, too. In September 1903, American Ernest Machado, Joe (likely his son), and Ottawa resident Alfred Whiteman headed by train for Canoe Lake. They had planned a 13-day trip that would cross Algonquin Park (which was significantly smaller than today), via Burnt Island, Big Trout, Happy Isle (then Green Lake), Opeongo, Booth and Victoria lakes. The trippers had seven camps along the way, allowing days for fishing and exploring. Finally, they departed the park via an eight-mile walk and wagon cart track out to the rail line which roughly follows the current Highway 60 Corridor. On the portage, APMA Machado Collection (860) A feast for the eye As newsworthy trips go, it was uneventful — just one of a long line of camping holidays in the last hundred years. But a hundred years later, what distinguishes this trip is the detailed diary and the quality of the photo images all neatly preserved in a large scrapbook style presentation wisely donated to the Park archives in 1994. What do we learn from this 1903 “diary of the canoe trip?” Not many people canoe camped in Algonquin then. The trip was a big undertaking. It seems odd that three Rangers of only eight in the park would join this party. Perhaps it was a rare, coveted outing to close the canoeing season. (It was colder then. The leaves were at their peak in late September.) Or perhaps there was simply not much happening at that time of year. The Rangers would be busy shortly: winter patrols to control poaching were not far off. If canoeists were scarce, evidence of people was everywhere. The park had farm clearings and 34 shelter huts. In those days, logging activities were part of the natural complexion of the park. Wooden crosses on the riverside provided graphic reminders of drowned lumbermen. A sawmill operation had recently been abandoned, and the trippers came across “dry kai” or “slash” areas, sluice ways and a few drowned lakes: lumbermen changed the water level to more efficiently move logs to mill sites. At Booth Lake, the lake level was so low, they said, that “the water didn’t come to the shore.” Canoe Lake, too, was much affected by dam operations. However, Burnt Island, Big Trout, Merchant and Happy Isle lakes were all highlighted for their picturesque qualities. It was a different “picturesque” than the Algonquin of today. I was most impressed by the description of two shoreline trees on Crotch Lake. The travellers, who had a penchant for naming landmarks and campsites, called them the Siamese twins. These distinctive trees were just that — distinctive. In 1903, much of the secondary, post-logging forest was immature, with slash piles and clearings remaining from both earlier logging days and the ravages of forest fires (largely unchecked in those days). Esther Keyser, an esteemed Smoke Lake guide in the 1930s who is now in her eighties, often reminds us that Algonquin “is much prettier now.” Today the Siamese twins would blend into the “green sea” of the forested shoreline. Machado’s 1903 photos and text showcase this difference. Landscapes change — and it is exciting for us that the Algonquin canoe camping experience has survived the transformation of the land. Not all landscapes are this lucky. (We are certainly no longer swimming in the bay of my home town, Hamilton.) A lumber sluice, APMA Machado Collection (866) Reading the land and waters Ernest and his cohorts had a sound knowledge of wildlife, identifying flora and fauna in a manner that is generally rare today. (Perhaps their knowledge was particular to this party, but likely not.) They knew drainage basins and watershed crossings, too. Today you would be hard pressed to find a canoe traveller aware of the crossing from the Oxtongue/Muskoka drainage to the Petawawa drainage, which occurs at the Burnt Island/Otterslide Portage. The same is true for the Happy Isle/Opeongo headwaters portage between the Petawawa and Madawaska Rivers. This 1903 group was “reading” the land and waters. Reading the waters also meant fishing — lots of fishing! The best spot for the 1903 travellers was the rapids of the Upper Opeongo, south of Annie Bay. They caught perch for breakfast, lake trout and speckled trout for lunch and dinner and hunted the occasional partridge as well. People fish in Algonquin now, but for the ‘sports’ of those days, it was the central passion. The green difference Algonquin for us in 2003 was a sea of green, punctuated with the beginning of fall colours. That was the biggest difference between Ernest’s trip and ours. Today there are only seven shelter huts (now called ranger huts) in a much larger Algonquin. Clearings have filled in, the sluice way between the South and East Bay of Opeongo is gone as is the Canoe Lake sawmill, the Dennison farm buildings and the riverside graves. Entering Annie Bay, however, is still a shocker of a beauty. (See sidebar “September 30” above.) And at the Otterslides, as Ernest Machado noted, “the effect of the scenery was very dreary in places, but most interesting.” Things have changed but much remains the same. I’ve been told the fishing is still good on the Upper Opeongo. Portage, APMA Machado Collection (875) Our one-day people count Our group in mid-September saw over twelve canoe groups (more than thirty people) on our first day. This included an English couple, an Italian and others of European descent visiting from afar and a large Ottawa area high-school trip. We met an American couple from Colorado celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. It was the husband’s first time back to Algonquin since his 1963 Scout trip. At Happy Isle — given the portages in and out — there was not a soul, and we cherished the opportunity to enjoy a campfire lunch and the “primo” island campsite. We wondered what the 1903 tourists and rangers would think of the massive power line crossing at Shall Lake, the steps and erosion walls built at the busy Burnt Island portage, the directional signpost at the Joe Creek forks and the summer camp complex at the 1897 Smith Lodge on Victoria Lake. We wondered, too, what they would think of us. A commitment or a three-night stand? Tourism has changed in the north. In Machado’s day, Algonquin required a commitment. Machado’s party travelled 312 miles by train, 150 walking and canoeing. Canoe trips of this length were generally a two-week affair. People, if they could afford it, took large parts of the summer off work. Today, schedules seem more taxing. Visits may be more frequent, but they are much shorter. This is true whether we are speaking about Algonquin or Jasper National Park, Alberta. In parks right across the country, the numbers show that long trips covering big distances are down. Short destinations and repeat visits are the modern way. Look at our trip, for example. People’s work schedules meant that we had five days. While Ernest’s party made seven camps (all named in the tradition of the day), we had three from our Smoke Lake start. In our first hour we passed by the 1903 group’s first camp on Canoe Lake, the Gilmour Island home and boat house, which they christened Camp Acquaintance. We took up the naming tradition. At our Opeongo site, Camp Bonavista, I wondered what they’d think of our pace. “We did two of their days in one,” I noted in my journal. Hmm, they’d think we were nuts. Camp Acquaintance, APMA Machado Collection (852) Still, if we had been able to sit together at a shared Opeongo campfire at their site, named Camp Shelter House, I suspect that we would have found that, despite the differences, we had much in common. Both their group and ours sought time in the wilds to replenish the spirit. We both delighted in the ways of the north, the travel, the camping, the friendship and the mystique of living “in the present moment.” What a tonic to the hectic day-to-day pace back home! Around that fictional shared campfire, we would certainly have discussed the differences: not only the landscape a century later, but also the weighty differences in gear. In 1903, they travelled in wood stripper canoes. On portages, everyone returned for a second carry, toting duffels on tumplines, and heavy canvas, three-sided tents. When they were not in shelter huts, they camped in logging clearings, making “Yankee beds” (cut balsam fir boughs used as sleeping mats.) We, of course, had lightweight tents, canoes, packs and cook sets. We had lightweight everything! They dined on ‘broiled trout, onions, broiled partridge and apple sauce, bread and butter, tea, prunes and sweet chocolate, nuts and raisins, cigars and cigarettes,’ and one day created a ‘bean hole’ in the ground to bake the next morning’s beans. (See “September 26”.) We had packaged soups, oatmeal and pasta dinners — but we did keep the reflector oven tradition alive for bannock scones and tea. Finale, APMA Machado Collection (895) Our 2003 trip, even without the 1903 Machado diary, was enjoyable in and of itself. Of course, long before the trip we knew that a hundred years had brought major changes to Algonquin’s landscape and its tourism, and the tripping experience itself. With the diary, however, and a keen memory of the photos, we experienced the differences. We paid attention, and I think, developed an acuity of insight for the past that made this Algonquin trip particularly special. Bob Henderson and Kanawa wish to thank the Algonquin Park Museum Archives (APMA), Machado Collection for generously supplying photos. Suggested Reading Chrismar Adventure Map, Algonquin 1 Corridor North, $12.95 ($11.66 mem.) Algonquin Visitors Centre, The Raven, #12, 2003. Bob Henderson, the KANAWA heritage specialist, teaches Outdoor Education at McMaster University. Email him at bhender@mcmaster.ca