Misty Algonquin Morning

I hadn’t camped in Algonquin for years until I spent a couple of nights there in the fall of 2023. I spent 3 weeks in Australia with my daughter that summer and my partner Nicola wasn’t able to join me on a longer northern adventure. But I still craved Ontario wilderness. So I looked closer to home at the park that sparked my love of canoe tripping and booked a site on Canisbay Lake. It turned out to be a quiet adventure spent mostly at the campsite with loons calling and sparkling sunlight on water. Lying in my sleeping bag before first light on the last morning, I read the news that Wab Kinew had been voted in as Canada’s first Indigenous Premier in Manitoba the day before. Felt like it was going to be a good day no matter what else happened. Arising at dawn, I entered one of those beautiful early autumn mornings when cold air and warm water join forces to produce waves of mist that begin to move and spread as the sun’s first rays greet them. Sigurd Olson, an author and conservationist from the Quetico - Boundary Waters area, once wrote about “white horses of the mists galloping out of the bays” when describing this phenomenon. His mist horses were on my mind as I paddled out on this spectacular October morning.