While most of us just went to the beach or cottage, Kevin Roberts spent his summer vacation canoeing with his husband and three dogs in the Canadian wilderness. In this series, he journals his adventures.
Taking three dogs on a canoe trip? Some might call you crazy, but it is possible (and fun). This is the story of how I spent my summer vacation.
It all started when my husband and I loaded our three dogs and ourselves into our SUV, strapped a canoe to the top, and headed north for adventure.
We knew we wanted to go to Northern Ontario, but we needed to find a route. Canoe routes can be a little hard to find – the best routes and campsites are often closely guarded secrets. Quite simply, people don’t want to share the location of their favorite spot, because they may show up only to see it has been taken over by a group of rowdy campers.
Marking the Spot
My criteria for a spot was further complicated because I wanted to find a route that offered some islands for overnight camping and was far enough north to avoid contact with Massasuga Rattlesnakes
What? Rattlers? Yep – the province of Ontario (Canada) is home to a number of snake species, but the Massasugua Rattler is the only venomous snake. They are a docile snake that will usually sit still or slither away when people approach. The Massasugua Rattler wants to be left alone and will leave you alone in turn. The only issue, of course, was the dogs. They don’t know about the snake’s boundary issues. Burger has limited exposure to snakes, and we don’t want to put him, or a snake, in a situation where one of them gets hurt. That’s why we opted to make our canoe trip away from snake country.
We chose Marten River provincial campground as the ideal place to launch the canoe and leave for our journey. Our adventure is underway!
A Full Boat
Packing with the dogs in mind is pretty simple (we’re old pros at this):
Once we have all that stuff packed up and sorted, we sort our own gear, and away we go!
Travel Tip
In my next article, find out how the first day of our canoe trip went, as I set out down the river and encounter some Canadian wildlife.
