Devil's Staircase In My Mind
Dividing Lake & Friends
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One of my favourite trips of the year is my fall trip with my buddies Gordon, Mark and Vince. I’ve been paddling with each of these guys, either in this group or one-on-one, forever. Vince was with me on some of my very first trips, Gordon has been paddling with me for almost as long and Mark has become the driving force behind every (ridiculously challenging) spring trip I’ve done since 2022. I love paddling with each of these guys, and I love the fact that I get to wind down the season with them each year.
2025 was no different (yes, I’m aware that this post is being published in fall of 2026. What can I say? I’ve been busy). We decided to target Dividing Lake, a tucked away lake about a day’s paddle south of the Smoke Lake access. Our plan was to base camp on Little Raccoon Lake for a couple of nights, day trip down to Dividing, then finish off the route with a stop on Tanamakoon Lake, by way of Head and Harness Lakes. I was looking forward to seeing some lakes I hadn’t seen before, very much looking forward to not having to pack up for Day 2, and not at all looking forward to reacquainting myself with either of the Devil’s Staircase or the Double Devil’s Staircase, but we’ll get to that later.
Day One
We arrived at the Smoke Lake access point (access #6) around 11 am. Gordon and Mark were a little ahead of us and already had their boat in the water and bags ready to go. We caught up quickly and, after a pre-trip group shot (not to be confused with group pre-trip shots), hit the water.
It was an absolutely gorgeous mid-September day. The sun was shining, the water was calm and the leaves were changing from their summer to fall wardrobe with the enthusiasm of a middle-aged guy discovering plaid shirts for the first time. Our route was taking us south on Smoke Lake, through Ragged and Big Porcupine before ending up on Little Raccoon. That’s only four lakes, but it’s a decent number of kilometers. Each of Smoke, Ragged and Big Porc are reasonably big lakes. Smoke Lake in particular can be a beast if the wind is working against you. From Smoke’s parking lot to the Ragged Lake portage is around five kilometers of straight paddling. Apart from Molly’s Island, a small island about halfway down Smoke that sits in the middle of the lake like an abstract belt buckle, there is nothing to hide behind if you happen to run up against a headwind. Smoke is long and straight and if the wind is coming from the south it has a loooong runway to get to the far shore. Fortunately for us that morning, while there was a bit of a wind, it wasn’t overly aggressive. We were approaching the p250 to Ragged less than an hour after leaving the dock and feeling pretty good about how the day was going.
Ragged Lake
There were a few trips milling about when we arrived. Ragged Lake, and nearby Parkside Bay, are popular destinations and Ragged also serves as a pass-through lake for anyone travelling further south. As Vince and I loaded up, I chatted a bit with one of the other groups and quickly discovered that we were currently second place in a race we didn’t know we were paddling. It turns out that the group I was talking with was also headed to Little Raccoon for the night, and they were already mostly across the portage. This was problematic for a couple of reasons: 1) Little Raccoon has two campsites and from what I could gather during my pre-trip research, the northern of the two was by far the better option. I wanted that northern site. 2) While there are two campsites on Little Raccoon, the Park only issues one permit per night for the lake. A permit which was currently scrunched up haphazardly and jammed into the pocket of my PFD (I also had a screen grab on my phone as it turns out that jamming a piece of paper into something that is likely, some might say destined, to get wet is not a great way to ensure its longevity). This meant that this group didn’t have a permit and were trying to get between me and my preferred campsite. It also meant that I now had a new, overriding life goal. To beat these permit pirates to Little Raccoon and taunt them mercilessly from my superior campsite when they arrived.
That may have been my quickest trip across the (easy if somewhat uphill) Ragged Lake portage. The put-in for Ragged Lake is a wide, flat mix of beach and rock that can accommodate a number of trips. It’s directly beside a large dam that, I assume, keeps Ragged from spilling entirely out into Smoke. When I arrived at the put-in there were quite a few groups at various stages of getting loaded up. Fortunately for us the Little Raccoon Bandit Squad either hadn’t realized they were in a race with an irrationally competitive blogger or didn’t care. Half the group was wandering around the dam and the other half was loading up at a pace that would have a snail checking its watch and tapping its foot in frustration. We were on the water and heading south on Ragged while they were still checking their packs.
The paddle down Ragged was, as the paddle down Ragged almost always is, lovely. We paddled between what I think of as Ragged’s Four Corner Sites (Sites 2, 3, 21 & 22), then turned east(ish) across the top of Ragged’s big island. The day had remained spectacular. The sky was pure blue and there was a slight breeze on the water. I remember thinking how lucky we were to be out there, and wondering how much longer it would be until I had another weekend so perfect for paddling. Ragged ends with a paddle through the ever-narrowing South Bay. The waterway gradually gets squeezed between mud flats covered with sun bleached logs until you get to the end and discover that the mud has won and the water has decided to try its luck elsewhere.
At about fifty meters from the actual portage take-out it became clear that the thin layer of water covering the very thick layer of muck wasn’t going to be enough to get us where we wanted to go. We pulled over to the side and found plenty of footprints in the semi-solid mud. Clearly we weren’t the first ones to come to that conclusion. With the help of some nearby driftwood logs that had been patiently waiting for their cameo in this post, we unloaded the boats and started the Devil’s Staircase (by way of the Devil’s Mud Room, apparently).
The Devil’s Staircase is the p590 connecting Ragged Lake and Big Porcupine Lake. It is an uphill climb that starts almost immediately and finishes when you hit Big Porc. The Park has installed timber steps at intervals on your way up the hill. This levels things off somewhat. It does not make the climb any less sweat inducing. It was my turn to carry the boat for this portage, and I had made the foolish decision to not unzip the legs from my trip pants before starting. I don’t think I could have been hotter by the time I was done if I had wrapped garbage bags around my legs.
Big Porcupine to Little Raccoon
Big Porc is a lovely lake and a popular stopping spot for the first night of trips heading south out of Smoke. It’s an interestingly laid out lake in that the portage up from Ragged comes out in a Bay that connects to the southern part of the lake by way of a 3 kilometer detour around a very large point. There is, however, also a p390 that cuts across that point and lets you shave some time/paddling if you want. Which we did. While we felt like we were comfortably ahead of the Little Raccoon Bandit Squad, we figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep that lead. The last thing we wanted was for them to cut us off while we went the long way around, even if it would be the more pleasant option.
The portage is essentially an up and over. It makes you climb on one side, then brings you back down on the other. We were across it and back out onto Big Porc in reasonable time. The rest of the paddle south to the Little Raccoon portage went well, as did the portage itself. Before too long we were out on Little Raccoon, having won the race for the northern site like we were Usain Bolt up against a disoriented sloth. We paddled across the top of the lake, pulled up to the site and …
Meh?
It turned out that while the site (site 1) was empty and waiting for us, we weren’t so sure we wanted to be the ones to fill it. From the water it looked pretty enclosed and kind of dark, and with a southeastern facing exposure that we thought might make things even darker later on in the day. We decided to check out Site 2, and I’m glad we did.
As soon as we pulled up we knew this was going to be our choice. It’s not a perfect site, far from it, but it worked well for our purposes. First the good. Despite looking like a smaller site from the water, it’s got a tent pad area that has room for a couple of tents, and a penthouse spot on top of a nearby cliff that works for anyone not worried about taking one step too far when nature calls in the middle of the night (Vince grabbed this spot). The fire pit area is nice and has a decent view of the water, along with some sturdy benches that are helpful for meal prep. And the sunset view is awesome.
On the con side, the canoe landing is rocky and somewhat of a pain to navigate. There isn’t an easy place near the water to pull up your canoe for the night (we ended up just kind of jamming our boats together in a spot that wasn’t really big enough for one boat let alone two). The fire pit area is on a ledge itself, so you’re climbing any time you want to get to and from the water. And the tent area is off to the side and pretty enclosed. It’s a B site. But a solid B.
Day 2 ... Or is it?
“Guys? Guys! There’s something outside my tent.”
Vince’s call woke us up. It was early. So early that it would be more accurate to say that it was late. I was sound asleep, and then I wasn’t.
“It’s circling my tent!”
The only thing that wakes you up faster than hearing someone yell out that there’s something trying to get in their tent in the middle of the night is that same something trying to get into your tent. I grabbed my bear spray and headlight and made my way over to the ledge where Vince had set up. Gordon and Mark had put their tent closer to Vince’s location, and they were already moving around. Between the four of us we must have been making enough noise to raise the dead, because by the time I got there whatever had been hanging around Vince’s tent was long gone.
I’m not sure what exactly it would have been. At night, in the middle of the forest, the smallest noise can sound like a sasquatch crashing through the underbrush. I once spent an absolutely panicked hour on the Nipissing River listening to something grunt around in the forest, always just out of sight of my flashlight beam, always seemingly seconds away from wandering through my site. I was convinced it was a bear or maybe a turbo bear. It was probably a porcupine. Or an asthmatic chipmunk. Whatever was around Vince’s tent, it was definitely curious about his penthouse accommodation. And waking up to a curious nocturnal visitor in the middle of the Park is going to get the adrenaline running no matter what it ends up being (my money is on a fox. Or a turbo bear).
While the visitor took off, the adrenaline stuck around. I don’t know that any of us got a great night’s sleep after that, but dawn eventually came and, with it, the start of our day trip.
Dividing Lake
We decided to do the loop counter clockwise, heading down to Dividing Lake first, then circling back up by way of the Hollow River and Loader Lakes. This let us start off with some new lakes and get the day’s longest portage out of the way right off the bat.
Little Raccoon to Dividing Lake is 2.5 KM of gradual uphill followed by not as gradual downhill. Fully loaded this would have been a tougher carry for the distance alone. Switching off the canoe with nothing more than a small day pack for half the portage? It was lovely. The portage was easy to follow, mostly dry and took us through some beautiful hardwood forest. At about the 2/3 mark there is a fork in the trail. The lefthand option (coming from Little Raccoon) takes you to the Whatnot Lake and the righthand option gets you down to Dividing. Remembering to go right instead of left was about the toughest part of that carry.
You know what else is lovely? Dividing Lake itself. The portage ends on Dividing’s north shore with a small rock outcrop and a strip of rocky beach. I don’t know if that beach would be accessible earlier in the year with higher water levels, but it made for a good spot to load the boats.
We paddled across Dividing to the Minkey portage. This is a 90 meter carry that leads you to a jumble of sun bleached driftwood logs and a view across Minkey Lake. It’s a pretty spot. It looks like the water levels on Minkey change a fair bit over the year. When we were there the portage ended at a hardened mud flat beneath those driftwood logs. On top of that, there were quite a few skeletal trees around the shoreline, suggesting water levels have been higher than they were that day. Or not. I don’t know. I’m not a lakeologist. What I do know is that this paragraph has taken longer to write than the amount of time we spent on Minkey, so let’s rejoin our heroes who are already back across the portage and halfway down Dividing Lake.
We stopped briefly at Dividing’s small point site in between the Minkey and Hollow River portages. This is an okay site. Not huge, kind of overgrown. There’s room for a small group, but unless I missed a couple of spots I wouldn’t want to come here with more than a couple of tents.
The portage down to the Hollow River was another nice carry. For most of its 1500 meters it follows a small creek, skirting an unnamed lake at about the halfway point (Dear Algonquin Park Lake Naming Committee, Halfway Lake would be a great name for a lake. Just saying.) before ending at a grassy put-in and a placid looking Hollow River.
The Hollow River
I really enjoyed the paddle up the Hollow River. There was little to no current, and the scenery was gorgeous. We’d caught the leaves mid change and the patches of red along the shoreline were beautiful. Like pretty much every river in the Park we did run into a beaver-built speed bump. Apparently the aquarat engineering corps had taken the name Hollow River as a challenge and decided to fill it in where they could. We dragged across one particularly robust dam not long after starting up the river, but otherwise it was an easy paddle.
We didn’t have too much time on the river. There is a p370 a short paddle past the beaver dam and a p720 up to Lower Loader Lake not long after that. In between is a small lake called Hope’s Lake, which is pleasant enough but has no sites on it and is really just a widening of the river. Both portages were fine, if slightly technical in places. There was a grassy meadow in the middle of the p720 that required some focused footwork, and the put-in and take-outs for the p370 are watched over by some guard rocks who take their jobs very seriously. Other than that, the stretch between the Dividing portage and Lower Loader makes for a pleasant hour of work.
The Loader Lakes
Our plan was to stop for lunch on Lower Loader as it is home to a couple of sites and sat at about the halfway point of the loop. Lower Loader is broken into two parts, a smaller southern basin that connects to the larger northern part by way of a short narrows. There is one site in each part of the lake, and it took all of fifteen seconds to realize that the first site we passed, the southern site, was not going to be our lunch spot. This is a pretty underwhelming site. It’s small, enclosed and seems more like a place to hide out after the apocalypse than it does a place to stop for lunch. We moved on to the northern site on the assumption that unless it was actively on fire it would be better than the southern option and were happy to see that we were right.
The site was fronted by a wide, flat beach of hard packed sand. I would guess that earlier in the season the beach wouldn’t be quite so wide as water levels were lower. Late in the season it meant lots of space to pull up the boats and load/unload. The site is a short walk up from the water with a small fire pit area and room for a couple of tents. It’s not spectacular and it’s not terrible. I don’t know that I’d want to make it a multi-day destination unless I was looking for some spring fishing or had plenty of day trips planned. It’s certainly a good spot to stop for a lunch, and would work for a night as well.
With lunch in the books we started the second half of our day. The north end of Lower Loader gets kind of shallow. The p220 portage take out is a mud flat that transitions very slowly to a mud flat covered by a small amount of water. We were able to unload without getting too mucky, which meant I got to live out the no trace camping dream of taking a couple of pictures and leaving a couple of footprints.
The portage between Lower Loader and Loader is short and, judging by the lack of pictures on my phone and gaping blank spot in my memory, not at all memorable. I’ll take that as a good sign. The other option being that I have no memories because the Loader Portage Aliens wiped them after subjecting me to all manner of probings. There is a 14 minute time gap between pictures around that time, so who knows? They are both equally valid options.
McGarvey is pretty, but we were only paddling a small corner of it. The narrows down to Loader comes out just a few hundred meters from the Whatnot portage and it wasn’t long before we were gearing up for our next carry.
The portage in between McGarvey and Whatnot is 430 meters of even terrain. The last time I was across this portage was nine years earlier, coming from the other direction and in the middle of the first day of my first ever solo trip. On that day I was trying to single carry one of the most inefficiently and over stuffed backpacks ever packed. I remember distinctly stumbling as I flipped the canoe up at the Whatnot end and I’m pretty confident that was the exact moment my back decided it was going to make the next ten years kind of miserable for me. Why am I telling you this story? Because that moment remains my only real memory of this portage. This time around I was carrying a daypack and my back was super onboard with the whole thing.
The Double Devil's Staircase
We did a quick side quest down to the Lower Whatnot portage so I could cross that one off the list, then turned around for our final portage of the day, the p930 between Whatnot Lake and Little Raccoon Lake known as the Double Devil’s Staircase because G*d*mn This F*@cking Hill didn’t fit as well on the map.
To be honest, while this one looks unpleasant on the map, it’s not all that bad coming from the Whatnot direction. It’s an up and over portage, so you’re climbing no matter which direction you’re coming from, but the staircase that gives it its name is uphill from Little Raccoon. I can say from experience that when you’re going in that direction the stairs are not fun, but coming down from Whatnot it’s actually kind of nice to have the steps for that final hundred meters into Little Raccoon.
With the Double Devil’s Staircase in the rearview, we were now done for the day. We paddled back to the site and settled in for dinner and some R&R. This was a fun day. It was great to finally make it down to Dividing, and I loved the low impact loop. Turns out portaging without a fully loaded pack > than portaging with one. Who knew?
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Day 3
We woke up to a sky covered in a thin layer of cloud that looked like it could go either way. By the time we were packed up and on the water it was clear that it was going our way, as patches of blue started poking through the gauze. By the time we were back across the portage up to Big Porcupine the blue patches had taken over and it was clear that we were looking at another awesome day for paddling.
Our plan that day was to get from Little Raccoon to Tanamakoon Lake for our final night. For the most part, we were covering ground I’d already visited. I was looking forward to the day regardless because a) I knew it was a nice route and b) if all went according to plan I’d be adding a single new lake to my list, and that lake would be #400 on the list of lakes I’ve visited.
400! That feels like an absurd number. I think my favourite thing about it is that even though it’s a pretty high number of lakes, it only scratches the surface of what Algonquin has to offer. There are over 2400 lakes in the Park. Fortunately for me, only about 530 of those lakes are canoe route accessible. Otherwise I’d be renaming this blog “1/4 of Algonquin, if I’m lucky”.
The Devil's Razor
We paddled about a quarter of the way back up Big Porc towards Ragged before turning east for Bonnechere Lake. The portage over to Bonnechere is a short p190. It’s a nice carry, and it puts you out on Bonnechere quickly. I really like Bonnechere Lake. It’s a long lake, with two main basins separated by a lengthy narrows. I stayed there with my daughter a few years back and we had a fantastic point site on the southern basin. The site sits atop a rock wall and peters out as it gets to the end of the point. It’s got an awesome sunset view and the swimming is great (just ask the leeches).
I nodded hello to the site as we paddled past, a bit disappointed not to be stopping, but it was too early in the day for a break and we had a date with the Devil’s Razor just ahead of us (For the past six months I’ve thought I was going to call this post “Devil’s Staircase In My Mind” but now I’m thinking “A Date with Three Devils” would sound pretty good as well. Feel free to invent a time machine and come back and tell me which one I ended up picking).
The Devil’s Razor is part of the narrows in the middle of Bonnechere. As you get towards the northeast side of the narrows there is a place where things get even narrower and a number of rocks lurk just underneath the surface. One rock in particular is a long, sharp edged paint scraper just waiting for you to get too close. I assume it is this rock that gives the spot its name. I know for a fact that there are at least a couple of scratches on the bottom of my canoe that are there because of it. We managed to get across the Razor without Titanicing our boats, and soon after that were at the start of the p170 to Phipps Lake.
Phipps & Friends
The portage over to Phipps is short and easy. Short and easy, that is, as long as the water levels are cooperating. At the Phipps end of the portage there is about 400 meters of creek grass with a narrow strip of water winding through it to get out to the lake. Under certain conditions (ie. low water), this narrow strip of water becomes a muddy strip of sadness and you end up having to portage out to the lake through the creek grass. I’d come across both scenarios on previous trips. When I went through with my daughter a few years back the water levels were great and we were able to paddle out no problem. When I went through with my brother-in-law in 2016 we ended up having to carry out to Phipps. Weirdly, I was with my daughter in August and my brother-in-law in June. You would have thought the water levels would have been better in June, but you would have also thought that people were never going to get sick of Informer and it turns out we were wrong about that as well. For this trip, we got lucky and we were able to paddle right from the portage.
Phipps is a pretty lake. There are two sites on its north shore, both of which are quite nice. Kirkwood and Pardee, which come after Phipps, are also quite pleasant, making for a lovely stretch of paddling without too much effort on the portage side. Don’t get me wrong, the portage between Kirkwood and Pardee is a p690 that can double as a not quite dried out creek bed no matter how little rain there’s been, but neither it nor the p70 between Phipps and Kirkwood are all that challenging. There’s also a small waterfall between Phipps and Kirkwood that makes a great spot for a quick snack break.
Pardee connects to Harness Lake by a p140 that goes over a short bridge beside an impressive beaver dam. Harness, like the three that had come before it, was a pretty paddle, albeit a bit longer than any of Phipps, Kirkwood or Pardee. Unlike those other lakes, Harness is also home to a number of hike-in campsites. The Highland Backpacking Trail runs along the northeast shore, making it a mixed-use lake. The backpacking sites aren’t all that visible from the shore, but if you’re ever paddling Harness and you think you’ve found yourself a secret campsite, you haven’t. It’s just a spot reserved for people who for some reason love the idea of a never-ending portage.
I have no pictures and no memory of the p1040 between Harness and Head Lake. What I do remember is the creek coming out of the portage that included one dam that looked like it might be runnable. The dam wasn’t all that far from where the creek opened up into the lake. The top looked like it was close enough to the upstream water level that if you got up enough speed you might be able to ram yourself over it. Not having to get out of the boat to drag over a dam is pretty dam(n) appealing, so Mark and Gordon, who were ahead of us, decided to take a run at it.
It did not work.
They made it about halfway across before getting hung up, the stern hanging in the air like a teeter totter. And then both sides of that teeter totter tried to get back into the water at the same time. Here’s the thing about canoes, they’re not supposed to bend in the middle. Gordon and Mark’s did (just a bit). I wasn’t close enough to hear if the canoe swore at them out loud or just gave them a silent middle finger, but I do know that it felt they owed it a massive apology once they made it over to the other side.
Vince and I, not wanting to piss off my boat any more than I already have over the past ten years, got out and dragged across the dam.
Chasing Waterfalls
Head Lake was not our destination for the night, but it was our destination for a break. There is a small campsite tucked away in Head’s southeast corner. It sits directly across a small bay from a gorgeous set of falls (that many years ago my daughter named Vader Falls thanks to the bulbous rock in the middle that does actually look like Darth Vader’s helmet), and I wanted to stop by and check it out before continuing on to the Kenneth portage. Fortunately, the site was open, and we were able to stop for a snack. While we were snacking someone, I can’t remember who, so I’ll take full and unearned credit, noticed that there was a path leading from the site that went around the small bay and over to Vader Falls. So, we followed it.
Turns out that path not only leads to Vader Falls, it goes up them. And from there, we realized, you can wander over to Kenneth Lake, the source of those falls. That was awesome! The thing about Kenneth Lake is that it was going to be my 400th lake. As far as milestone lakes go, Kenneth, which is more usually accessible from Head Lake by a quick p280, didn’t seem all that exciting. But if I got to it by climbing a waterfall? That feels like a 400th lake kind of experience. So we did exactly that. We climbed to the top of the falls, followed a short trail through the woods and came out in Kenneth’s small, northern bay. Sure the view wasn’t all that inspiring, but who cares? We climbed a waterfall to see it!
Once we’d finished congratulating ourselves on our historic achievement we took a group shot in the middle of the falls, then headed back to the canoes.
Cache & Tanamakoon
The paddle across Head was fine, as was the p1670 over to Cache Lake. That carry is a long one, but being this close to an access point, and from a heavily trafficked and leased lake to boot, the portage was in good condition and the put-in/take-outs were fine. There’s actually a nice boardwalk and dock at the Cache end that feels downright civilized when you arrive.
We paddled between the islands on Cache and through the narrows that connects Cache to Tanamakoon Lake. Tanamakoon was our destination for the night. I had hoped to snag the island site just at the mouth of those narrows, but it was taken. We followed the shoreline north and ended up on a site on a small point in the northeast corner of the lake (not to be confused with the site on the big point, just to the west). It was here that tragedy struck.
My tent. My beloved Opeongo Aerial Tent, was aerial no more. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d lost a small but vital … let’s call it a widget because I have no idea what it’s actually called … widget that let the tent stay suspended without ripping through the support straps. If I tried to use the tent without it there was a strong possibility that I’d experience a version of that dream where you think you’re falling, but in this case I actually would be. Fortunately, the tent works as a ground tent as well. Unfortunately, years of cushy aerial living have made me soft. Turns out ground sleeping is no better now than it ever was, and maybe just a bit worse?
That unmitigated disaster aside, it was a pleasant night. Tanamakoon is very close to Highway 60, which meant we had cell reception. That meant we could get a weather update, which was actually pretty miserable. Thunderstorms were expected in the area and there was some discussion over whether we should head out early rather than risk getting stuck. The general consensus was that it was a short enough out day that even if the weather was awful we’d find a window to get out the next day, and no one was in a rush to cut the trip short.
The rest of the night passed quickly and peacefully. We hung out, talked about the trip and swam. It was a good final night and I crawled into my tent (at its depressingly low elevation) content with what had been, so far, a fantastic trip.
Day 4
We woke up to a world that was ready to get wet. The air was heavy and it was the kind of day where it felt like you could scoop the mist and wash your face with it, although it wasn’t raining. Yet. We knew thunderstorms were promised and we also knew we didn’t want to get caught in them. We packed up quickly and were on the water before 8.
Homeward Bound
Tanamakoon to Smoke Lake is a relatively easy stretch. You pass through a couple of small lakes and a pond (which is somehow bigger than one of the lakes) and, apart from a p860 between Kootchie Lake and Smoke Lake, the portages are short and easy. There’s a reason that Little Island is a common overnight canoe trip destination for many of the nearby camps when they’re sending out their youngest cabins. It’s just far enough away from the access points that it feels like you did some work to get there, but it’s an easy out no matter which direction you’re going.
We made good time across Tanamakoon, paddling under a uniformly grey sky and through a diminishing but still present mist. The p120 to Sheriff Pond was short, flat and done by the time you finish this sentence. Sheriff Pond has always been a favourite spot of mine. I have no idea why. It’s a shallow, wide pond dominated by lily pads, grassy humps and mud flats at either end. Shrek would love it, and so do I. There’s something about the view from either portage that gets me every time I pass through. The driftwood logs guarding each portage, the path through the lilies cut by hundreds of canoes before us, the (sometimes) bright blue sky streaked with white. One of my favourite pictures I’ve ever taken was Sheriff Pond the first time I passed through, way back in 2016. The one from this trip … probably not going to crack the top 100, or top 1,000 (not even the top 10,000. I’ve taken soooo many pictures of Algonquin) but I still like it!
Sheriff Pond to Little Island is another short, easy portage. They’re connected by a p300 that makes you climb a tiny bit from the Pond side, but otherwise it’s a great trail. I wish we’d had more time to appreciate Little Island as we paddled through, but the sky was grey and getting greyer and you could smell the rain coming. We paddled quickly through and were just as quickly across the p230 into Kootchie Lake.
I’m going to let 2016 Drew, telling us all about his first visit to Kootchie Lake, explain the name, because honestly, I’m never going to top what he wrote:
Kootchie was named after a dog that fell in the water some time around the turn of the 20th century, If that all it takes to get a lake named after you the Park is going to be renaming at least a dozen lakes for me at the end of the summer.
Solid, 2016 Drew. Solid.
Back in 2025, Mark and Gordon took one look at Kootchie and accepted its challenge. That challenge? Get across the lake in 10 strokes or less. They pushed off from the portage, took a stroke and slid across the water. Then they took another stroke. Vince and I watched from the sidelines while the greatest drama seen on this lake since a dog fell in the water 120 years ago played out. Stroke six brought them past the halfway point. Stroke eight brought them in shouting distance. Stroke 10 … juuuuuuust missed. I’m pretty sure it ended up being an 11 stroke effort to get across. But they’ve set the bar for all future trippers. 10 strokes or less people. 10 strokes or less.
The portage between Kootchie and Little Island is the only tough-ish one on this route. It’s a p860 that gives you some elevation change as you’re coming from Smoke Lake. We were heading into Smoke, which meant we had a pleasant downhill for the back half of the carry.
We arrived at the end of the portage to find a Smoke Lake that was grey and windy. The good news was that it wasn’t grey and rainy. The rain was still holding off and, even better, the wind was going our way. We rode the tailwind back to the access point and were pulling up to the dock about an hour and a half after leaving the site on Tanamakoon.
And that was it. Trip over. Dividing Lake conquered, rain outraced and 400 lakes in the bag.
This was a great trip. The route was awesome, the weather cooperated and the company was, as always, the best. I really enjoyed that day trip down through Dividing Lake and the Hollow River. That’s a beautiful little corner of the Park and one I’d happily check out again. I also really enjoyed the base camp experience. I cannot tell you (although I already have) how much I enjoyed not having to pack up that second morning. I don’t know that I’d enjoy it as much if I didn’t have something to do that day, but the chance to paddle and explore without 40 lbs of gear along for the ride? I’d do that again.
The bad news is that it’s June 9th, 2026 as I write this. It took me nine months to finish this report. That is easily the longest it’s ever taken me to get one of these done. I’m sure I’ve forgotten things, and that sucks. The good news is that my spring 2026 report, a fantastic trip down into the top part of the panhandle with Mark back in May, is already written. Keep your eyes peeled for that one soon.
(Oh June Drew. You were so optimistic. It’s October 9th, and I just finished formatting this post. My fall 2026 trip is already in the bag (it was awesome, in case you don’t want to wait until this time next year for an update on that one). That spring trip 2026 write up is still finished, but I’ve done exactly zero work on it since I typed that last paragraph back in June. Let’s see if we can get that one out before Christmas. 2027.)
Until then, enjoy the summer, enjoy the Park and, for now at least, survive the bugs.
400 Down.
Stats
New Lakes: 7
Total Lakes: 23
Total Portages: 21
Portage Distance: 13.57 KM
Total Distance: 63.73 KM
I wrote a book! Don’t Forget the TP: Lessons Learned the Hard Way in Algonquin Park is out now. If you like my trip reports I promise you are going to love this book. It’s a collection of the mistakes I’ve made, and what I’ve learned from them, in Algonquin’s backcountry. Check it out now!
