Hartley Bay to The French River Delta

June /12/2011 we departed Hartley Bay Marina at 7:30am planning to travel to bad river turns area, expecting to have a head wind to contend with off Georgian Bay. Much to our surprise there was a cool but very useful north wind pushing us towards the bay. We were able to have a nice easy paddle making it to Dalles Rapids portage by noon. We did the portage and set up camp at site #711 an island just below the rapids. Fishing was good site was ok ( no thunder box) we turned in early 6hr drive and 6hr canoeing with180m portage 8pm seemed late.
Waking early with the sun we cooked breakfast then broke camp packing it all back in the canoe. With north winds still blowing we headed south for Obstacle Island with one left instead of a right we went all the way around Obstacle Island adding a hour to our trip . That was ok we still hit site #718 the best site we have yet to come across. We held up here for 3 days, already being one day ahead of schedule gave us an extra day for side trips. Fishing was good here caught bass and pike.The weather turned warm and the winds died off making for a beautiful paddle around Georgian Bay. Thursday morning we broke camp early making the Bass Lake portage at 7:30am after a short paddle up a beautiful channel. The cabin owner leaves a wheel barrel we tie all our gear on one load. As we started down the board walk we came across bear scat on the board walk we continued on making a lot more noise. After returning the wheel barrel and grabbing our canoe we finished the portage trouble free (no bear). We then loaded our canoe headed for the elbows planning to stay in this area overnight we had lunch at #622 . With prevailing winds now blowing of the Bay and the weather when we left on sunday was calling for rain on Friday. Heather and I had a short discussion on ending a good trip on a high note, we decided to let the wind push us up to Hartley Bay arriving around 2:30pm.

Taking this trip in early spring is a gamble with bugs and weather but it sure gave us a remote feeling seeing only a few motorboats and no other campers we had the place to ourselves after all thats why we don't just drive to a camp ground.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• French River
• Hartley Bay
• Georgian Bay
• water
• canoeing
• provincial park
• canoe camping
• interior camping