Algonquin - Kiosk - Day 1

Right on the heels of my sister's wedding I decided to squeeze in one last camping trip for the season. Camping in October can be hit or miss with the weather. Just so happens that this year the temperature was pretty warm for October and although it was cloudy most of the time I was able to enjoy my stay at Algonquin Park's Kiosk campground. 

I chose Kiosk for a couple reasons. The first was that at this time of year it was one of the few parks that were still open. The second was that it was fairly close to where I lived and after driving for over 2 hours from Elk Lake earlier in the day I didn't want to have to travel too far to go camping. The third reason was because although I live not too far away I had never been there. My family members had been there and all of them couldn't say enough about how wonderful the place was. So I had to check it out for myself. 
    I originally wasn't going to take my dog with me but since I heard that there were no hiking trails (he is too old to walk hiking trails these days) and since the last camping trip I took him on was a bit of a disaster I figured I owed him one so I took him along at the last minute. 
    After a bit of highway driving and then a lot of back roads driving we arrived at the Kiosk Campground which is located on Kioshkokwi Lake.

I pulled up to the gatehouse and went inside to register. The gate house looked like it doubled as both a rangers cabin and a registration office. The office section was only a very small part of the entire building. A friendly ranger greeted me and helped me to choose a site that was not near a whole bunch of people. 

Considering the campground was not very full at this time of year it was not too difficult to find one.  I chose the section of camp away from the main area. There were only 2 other campsites ( # 25 and #21) occupied on that side and my site would be close to the water.  

It was about 6 pm by the time I got to the Park and the sun sets at about 7 pm at this time of year so I only had about an hour of daylight to set up camp. So I jumped back in my car and hurried on over to site # 26. As I drove past site 25 (my closest neighbours) the older couple that were there waved to me and I waved back. "Oh good" I thought. "These people don't look like noisy teenagers."  I bet they were hoping for the same thing from me. At this time of year you rarely see the party people out camping. It's usually the people looking for quiet and solitude that nature has to offer that you see out in the crisp autumn air. 

With a peaceful campground comes a higher rating of wildlife sightings. I was very hopeful to see an abundance of wildlife while I was here. Algonquin is well known for a variety of wildlife sightings of things such as moose and wolves and bears. 
   I had just pulled up to my site and hadn't even gotten out of the car yet when I was already rewarded with my first wildlife sighting. My site directly overlooks the lake and out in the distance on a pile of rocks I could see a bird that at first I thought was a heron. I left the dog in the car and went closer to the lake to get a better look. 

As I got closer I realized that it wasn't a heron at all but only a large Cormorant. And it wasn't actually sitting on the rocks, but instead it was sitting on one of the many, many logs that were jutting up out of the water. Apparently Kiosk was once the site of a mill and even of a small community that no longer exists. All the logs that were littered everywhere in the lake were old memories of a time gone by. 

I couldn't have been standing there for much more than a minute when along came 2 merganser ducks. 

There were plenty of plants and bushes between where I was standing and the edge of the shore so the ducks didn't notice me and swam pretty close by as they fished for their dinner. I was already very happy with the site I had chosen and I hadn't even started to set up camp yet. 

I turned around to head back to the car and was met with a flock of sparrows covering the ground looking for food. The whirring sound of their wings was quite loud as they took off when I startled them. I had not been here even 5 minutes yet and already I had seen 3 different types of birds. 

The sites here were quite large with plenty of open space and grassy areas. It was extremely clean and very inviting. I let Balto out of the car and got to work setting up camp. 

It took about an hour to get most of the site set up. I still hadn't set up the screen tent yet but I figured that I had better get water first before it got too dark. The down fall with choosing the site that I did was that it was in the newer section of the park (I overheard a ranger saying that this section was only about 6 years old) and this section did not have any water taps. There are water taps on the other side of the park but none where I was so I had to draw water directly from the lake. 

​But since I had my mother's platypus water filter system with me this was not a problem. There was a beautiful, big, pine tree in the middle of the site that I could hang the platypus in and have water readily available. 

The sun was going down and the moon was coming up by the time I started putting up the screen tent. 

By the time everything was set up it was dark out and I hadn't eaten supper yet. I built a fire and had a can of Zoodles and some fruit for supper. I hadn't had time to check out the area around my site before it got dark but I figured I would do some exploring tomorrow. Behind my campsite and nestled in the pines across the road, I could see the light of the campfire of my other closest neighbours (site # 21). They had a dog with them too, but like my dog it rarely made any noise at all. My dog is almost completely deaf now so I am pretty sure Balto didn't even know the other dog was there. 

The night sky was clear and the temperature dropped to the point where I could see my breath. But the stars and the moon were so bright and so beautiful. In the distance I could hear a single loon calling out across the lake. It was a perfect night and I was looking forward to another great day tomorrow.