I completed my first camping trip ever recently. I say it’s my first, but really it isn’t — I did camp once when I was very little, but aside from catching a dog-leash with a fishing pole, I don’t remember very much from it. Arrowhead Provincial Park is a beautiful campground just outside of Huntsville Ontario. Me being a city-boy, I was at first very nervous about leaving the comforts of civilization, but the sheer beauty of Arrowhead quickly made my worries melt away.
Chelsey and I drove together on the Thursday to meet with her family who had already been at the campground for a few days. The reason we had to go up later than everybody else was because Chelsey could not get the time off work. My current job is more flexible with hours — so long as I get about 20 hours of work done a week, I’m fine for making my own hours; I simply worked more hours from Monday to Wednesday to compensate for taking a vacation. The drive up was fairly uneventful: we took the highways all the way up, bypassing Toronto (thank goodness, Toronto is a very busy city). We split the driving job amongst ourselves, each driving approximately three hours; I took the first shift, and she took over afterward.
Chelsey and I arrived at the campground at around 1:00pm and we promptly settled in. Chelsey’s family brought up a trailer, while her uncle chose to sleep in a tent. The trailer was modest, but cozy. It had running water and electricity, and I was able to charge my phone (at the relief of my mom, hehe), and thus it didn’t really feel much different from a small house. The backyard of that small house, however, was nothing short of breathtaking. There were huge trees as far as you could see, in fact the entire campground seemed as though it were embedded in a cave of green. It was gorgeous.
On the first day we mostly relaxed and got ourselves settled into the trailer. We had an early night, which was good, since we decided to take a nice 4km hike on the second day. Arrowhead contains many trails, both walking and biking, of varying lengths. On our second day at the park Chelsey and I walked one of the larger trails: Beaver Meadow. It was amazing how quiet it was! The only sound we could hear was the calling of birds, and the skittering of the occasional chipmunk. We didn’t run into any black bears, thank goodness. The entire trail took us just over 1.5 hours to complete, and by the end we were very hot and sweaty. Luckily there was a beach for us to cool down! And when I say cool, I mean cool. The water was a bit chilly.
Later that evening (this being Friday) Chelsey took me canoing. This was my first time in a canoe, and some may have questioned my Canadian citizenship before that, but I can now proudly say that I am an expert canoer (canoeist, canoe-pilot, canoe-dude?). I was taught how to properly rudder a canoe for steering, as well as how to properly J-stroke (which, by the way, is really the only way to stroke on a canoe). I even saw a beaver! As we were heading back from the falls, I stated to Chelsey “That piece of land is floating away!”. It turns out that I was actually witnessing a beaver carrying away some wood to add to a dam further up. It was very neat!
On the third day, Chelsey and I went on another hike, this time down the Homesteader’s Trail, which is another one of the longer trails. The Homesteader was really hilly, our legs got quite a workout that day! The Homesteader gets its name from the fact that it winds past some very old stone structures that must have been made from early settlers. There is even a broken-down buggy along the side of the path. The evening of the third day was fairly calm. Chelsey’s dad cooked a roast over the fire pit, and it was delicious! Everyone was going to bed fairly early in order to get ready for the long drive home the next day, but we did wait up long enough to see the stars come out. It’s amazing what you can see in the night sky when you get away from the light pollution of the city. I was moved enough to purchase a book on amateur astronomy and some day I plan to build (or buy, maybe) a telescope for use on clear nights.
Sunday morning we packed up camp, and we began the homeward journey around noon. I, lacking in highway driving experience, opted to drive the whole 6 hours back home, just to prove to myself that I could. Aside from the occasional stops for gas and food, I drove non-stop.
And that describes my first trip to Arrowhead Provincial Park. Hopefully it will not be my last. I look forward to more camping trips with Chelsey in the future. Just as I got her hooked on reddit and her macbook, she got me hooked on nature.
Glad you liked it honey