Flack Lake Loop

Map provided courtesy of Toporama which contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. I have marked my route in blue and portages in red.

2020 had a record number of people visiting provincial parks and backcountry destinations; it was busy all across southern Ontario's usual paddling destinations. Reports of trashed campsites, increased bear encounters and booking issues were rampant in many of the popular locations like Algonquin and Killarney. Even crown land campsites were feeling the increased pressure.

With the Covid pandemic still raging in the spring of 2021, I decided to plan my summer trips further north to avoid the crowds. The Algoma Highlands was on my bucket list for its beauty, remoteness, and fantastic fishing. It was here that I did my first summer trip of the year. By June 30th, I had wrapped up my classes, finished report cards, attended my last online meeting, and was packing my gear for departure the next day.

Day 1 - Flack Lake to Astonish Lake

With everything locked and loaded to go the night before, I left Peterborough at 5 am. I had a 7-hour drive ahead of me on Canada Day. The early departure was a necessity; the roads would most likely be busy and I was hoping to reach Ezma Lake for the first night.

The drive was uneventful and, indeed, Highway 17 west of Sudbury was laden with traffic. I made fairly good time, however, and was pulling into Laurentian Lodge on Flack Lake shortly after noon. I had contacted Melanie, the owner, earlier in the week and had arranged to park my car and launch from the resort for a marginal fee. The same thing could have been done from the Mississagi Provincial Park office on the east end of the lake, but for a similar price, I felt my vehicle would be in better hands under the watchful eye of a resort owner. The resort itself was beautiful; a waterfall goes right through the middle of it!

Melanie was great! She jotted down my itinerary so that she would know to send in the cavalry in the event that my car was still there after I was supposed to have returned. She directed me where to launch and where to park my car. She even drove up to the canoe launch in her ATV to wave me off as I was paddling out into the lake.

Unfortunately, Flack Lake was not in a happy mood that day. It had rained most of the morning and by afternoon the wind wanted to join the party, as well. Luckily for me, the wind was coming from the northeast which meant that it was at my back. Travelling solo on this large, round lake against a strong headwind would not have been fun. I made it to the portage at the west end of the lake in good time. The massive rock face known as Old Baldy watched over my take-out.

While researching this trip, I had read that I had three tough portages ahead of me to get into Astonish Lake. I'm not going to lie -- those ports kicked my a$$. Later at my campsite that evening, I named them Bad, Worse, and Worst in consecutive order.

What made the first one bad was that it was a solid uphill climb. Other than that, it wasn't too nasty given that it was under 500m.

Emerging from the woods at the put-in on Bruce Lake, I was happy to see the sun trying to poke its nose from behind the clouds. At that moment, it happened to be shining on the carcass of a canoe that had seen better days. I always wonder about the story behind a canoe rotting away at the end of a portage.

Putting in and moving around a point, I could get a better vantage point of that rock face on the south side of Old Baldy.

A few minutes later, I was unloading the canoe and soon humping it up Portage Worse -- an 845-meter steep incline to Olympus Lake. This one seemed to veer slightly north and up onto the slopes of Old Baldy itself before veering southwest again down through a swampy area just before the put-in. I did not dillydally at the far end as I frantically loaded my canoe in a cloud of mosquitoes.

Happy to be out on the lake with the sun trying to make its presence known and out of the clutches of the mosquito plague, I loaded up a trout spoon and eagerly cast out into the lake. My joy immediately dissipated. Somehow, my line tangled in and around my reel so horribly that I had to paddle next to a log on shore to take the whole darn thing apart. This process took the better part of 20 minutes to untangle. Yikes!

I suppose that is one way of 'winterizing' a boat.

The trail into Ezma was loads-better than the ones from the previous day. It goes to show what a little maintenance by the Ontario Parks people can do. Fresh blowdowns had been neatly chainsawed and the trail avoided any horrible, swampy bits. I made a mental note to hug a park warden the next time I saw one. (Glad I didn't follow through on that. It was a few weeks later in the Kawartha Highlands when a pair of young wardens came to our site to check our permits. They might have unloaded bear spray on me had I attempted to move in for the hug.)

Ezma Lake was also very nice -- a fairly large body of water sporting a beautiful shoreline of tall coniferous trees.

Then, I climbed down the rock face near my firepit, picked some blueberries, and enjoyed them in some pancakes with a coffee for breakfast. Yum!

My goal for the day was to land some trout for a meal and take a day trip to Lower Mace Lake and back. The evening prior I had fished the western area of the lake but had no luck. I paddled to the beach to take a gander and saw that there was a site there, as well. As enticing as that beach was, on this new day, I would take my time and fish other areas of the lake using a variety of strategies.

By late morning I loaded my boat for my day trip and saw a canoe coming in from the eastern end of the lake. I paddled out to say hi; I suspected that I would have neighbours on the lake that evening. Besides, these people were the first humans I had seen since the trip began, so I thought a greeting would be in order.

They were three young ladies in a massive white canoe on holiday from their health-care jobs in Toronto. It turned out that they were doing the same loop that I was, but were a day behind me. They were staying on Ezma and came into Upper Mace to spend the day at the beach there. We shared thoughts on the trip so far and I wished them luck. They seemed nice, eager, and keen to be out on their trip.

It wasn't long after that when I hooked into a large lake trout. I enjoyed a fantastic battle, got him to the boat, and lost him as I reached for my landing net. Grrrr! I didn't have my net within easy reach in the canoe and I inadvertently gave the line too much slack while I was reaching for it. That specimen was probably a good 6lbs or more. Grrr, again!

Hanging my head in shame, I paddled to the southeast corner of the lake to start my day trip to Lower Mace Lake. The 215m portage went down a huge rock slab to the left of a remarkably long water chute.

When I was putting in at the bottom, I took a swig out of my full 1.5L Nalgene water bottle. It slipped out of my hand and crashed onto the hard slab of rock next to the canoe. It shattered at the bottom and all my water for the day ran out. Stupidly, I didn't pack my water filter thinking I would have enough until I got back to camp. Grrr, yet again! It looked like my day trip would be considerably shorter than I had planned. It was a hot, sunny day and it would not have been a great thing to attempt the trip without any water. (I would spend the remainder of the trip drinking out of my orange bail bucket!) Besides, my mind was on that laker that got away. I wanted another try!

So I paddled the length of the small lake immediately to the south of Upper Mace just to have a gander. I noticed a small cabin there on the western shore. I got to the portage into Lillypad Lake before turning around. I was already getting thirsty!

The portage was only 200m but it was straight up at about a 45-degree angle for most of it. My reward at the put-in was the pretty western bay of Hyphen Lake that sported an amazingly large cliff on its western shore.

I traversed the small western section of this lake and lifted over a small beaver dam to get into its larger eastern section. As I rounded a bend while skirting the southern shore, I saw a black head moving across the narrow section of this lake. It was a bear cub frantically swimming to the northern shore. My second bear sighting of the morning! I took a video of the little guy emerging onshore, but in my haste, I didn't check the focus and it turned out quite blurry, unfortunately. He scampered up the slope toward the direction of the portage that I was about to use only a few hundred meters away. What concerned me was that Baby Bear of this tiny size was most likely following Mama Bear that had already crossed the lake and into the woods before I had rounded the bend. I could hear him (or both?) crashing through the bush on the shore next to me as I paddled toward the port.

I found the portage into Dollyberry at the very northeastern tip of the lake to the right of a large slab of rock face. I paused a bit and listened for any animal sounds in the woods at the top of the ridge. After a few minutes of not hearing anything, I was somewhat satisfied but apprehensive. I completed this short, but tremendously steep uphill portage in record time with both a bear banger and bear spray in my pocket as I went. For good measure, I loudly sang an off-key version of Springsteen's Born to Run to make my presence known and to give me the incentive to do this one quickly.

Hey, judge me not! If I startled a Mama with Baby, who knew what kind of reaction she might have had. I was alone and I could smell it (them). It was a musty, pungent odour. I suspected that it (they) had passed through or near the portage just ahead of me.

I was able to put in and paddle into Dollyberry without any further encounters of the ursine nature. Dollyberry was quite a pretty lake, containing a rocky shoreline and large pines.

It was a quick paddle through Bobowash and equally quick through the short 25m portage to a small unnamed lake to the east. Paddling to the end of that lake, I spotted an odd portage sign on a point on the eastern shore. Since I was double tripping the portages, I felt this sign was rubbing it in a little, reminding me that I had to do each trip twice -- one sign for each load.

Ten minutes later when I reached the 110m portage, I was getting pounded by rain. By the time I reached the end of the portage with my second load, the thunder and lightning began.

I would have liked to have waited out the storm there, but the put-in was basically in a swamp and the mosquitos were atrocious -- even in the heavy rain. So I made a mad dash up the northern shore of this unnamed lake and was able to take out at the base of a tree-clad rocky slope. There, I pulled the canoe ashore and I climbed up about 8' off the water under some trees. Not ideal in a storm situation, but I didn't want to chance being on the water any longer as the thunder and lightning were getting nearer. Besides, the rest of this pond was a mosquito-infested swamp. I rode out the storm there for about 45 minutes without incident before getting back into the canoe. The storm seemed to have passed for the moment.

The 140m portage to the next pond was a slippery descent next to a small chute. After all the rain it was terribly slick and I accomplished it at a snail's pace. Slow and steady wins the day in those conditions.

The 1125m portage was better in terms of footing, but it seemed long. The path was clear to follow, however and was downhill most of the way. There were only a couple of tricky deadfalls to negotiate. The air in the deciduous forest on the carry was extremely close and humid though. By the time I had finished both trips, I was absolutely drenched to the bone in sweat under my rain jacket.

Back on Flack, I had a 4km paddle due north across that large round lake to get back to Laurentian Lodge. The storm looked like it had subsided, so I made a beeline straight across the lake. About halfway across, as luck would have it, dark clouds moved in very quickly from the southwest once again. Thunder and lightning soon followed. Boy, did I paddle those last two km quickly! I made it to the lodge about 20 minutes later just as streaks of lightning began lighting up the sky. About 20 minutes after that, the storm passed directly overhead as I was pulling out of the parking lot. Whew!

Though the portages on this trip were demanding (especially for an out-of-shape, 50-year-old paddling solo!), it is highly recommended for its scenic beauty (it surpasses Algonquin in many respects in my humble opinion), excellent campsites, good fishing, wildlife, and remoteness. I encountered only one other group of canoeists and one fisherman in 5 days during the first week of July -- at the tail end of a pandemic, a time when it seemed that everyone and their mother was heading out into the backcountry in a canoe. That's saying something!

Driving back to southern Ontario later that day, I told myself that this would not be my last trip into the Algoma Highlands.