Walk Right On In And Enjoy

We try to get at least one backpacking trip in each year and we like to try a new place each time. This year we decided upon the backcountry of Mississagi Provincial Park. It was supposed to be a trio of us going, but when my sister had to back out, it became a duo of just my brother, Carsten and I. 

We arrived at Mississagi at about 5 pm where we would be staying one night in the campground before heading out to the back country the next day. 

The office was tiny but very cute. It had a bunch of wood carvings on display both inside and out. 

It looked like someone had put a lot of work into these carvings. I don't know anything about the artist but it made the place memorable and unique. I really liked them.

When you pull up to the stop sign beside the office you get a bit of a chuckle as you are greeted by a large yellow sign that shows a giant mosquito flying away with a human in its grasp. 

The other thing you notice is a couple of different signs warning about bears in the area. 
The laminated one warned about keeping your dogs on leash and these were posted in many places throughout the park.

Above the door to the office was a beautiful stain glass bird light. Everything about this office made me like it more and more. 

Below the light was a self serve center where you could register yourself into the park if the park office was closed. 

Even inside the office there were more interesting things to look at like a wood carving of giant mosquitoes. They also had all sorts of T-shirts and stickers and other things for sale. I wanted to buy a sticker for my passport book but they only had giant stickers or tiny sticker, not the ones that fit in the book. So, I guess I am going to have to buy it online this time. I bought a tiny one anyways just because it was cute and I liked it.

The girl at the desk was super friendly, welcoming and helpful. We told her that we were here to register for a site that we had reserved and that we were going to be in the back country for the next 6 nights after that. 

She explained that we had to choose our back country sites ahead of time. Apparently we were supposed to have phoned in to book them before we came, but the website did not mention this anywhere and we did not know this until just now. She explained that they are currently working on improving the website so that you can do it from home in the future, however, it is not ready or implemented yet. 

No worries though, we were still able to choose our sites and she provided a book with pictures of the sites. I was glad that they had us choose sites because before arriving I had actually worried that it might be a first come first serve basis and that we would have to be racing to get to sites or fighting with people once we got there or something. At least now we would know that we could take our time and that we should have no issues. 

We had wanted Semiwite site #1 but someone had already booked it. So instead we booked Semiwite #2 for the first night which didn't seem too much further away. From there we continued to choose sites that went in a circle around the McKenzie trail with a 2 night stay at Upper Brush Lake. 

We bought a waterproof map of the trails for $13 as well as picked up a free paper copy of the trail map. 

She gave us a park booklet with a copy of the park map with all the campsites on it so that we could find our way to our site. 

I also grabbed a copy of a treasure hunt page that they had for kids. I thought it might be fun to play it if I had some time. But I never did have the time to attempt it. It was nice to know that they provided this sort of thing for the kids though. 

I was very interested in the photo contest that they had going on though. I am really hoping that this trip will yield some photos that might be worthy to enter into this contest. 

I decided to try something new this year. This is the first time we have ever camped at a walk-in site. We would be staying at walk-in site number 3 tonight and walk-in site # 2 on our last night in the park.  

The parking lot for the walk-in sites is very large. The path to the site is situated between the parking spots for sites 2 and 3. 

You walk down a single path and then it divides into two directions with the path for site 3 on the left and the path for site 2 on the right. 

Walk-in site # 3 is lovely and spacious. It's also pretty quiet. I had chosen the site based on the pictures I saw of it online. It didn't disappoint. 

It had its own little private waterfront . I wouldn't really say it was a great spot for swimming. You would be better off going to one of the beaches than swimming here, but it is definitely a lovely view and a great place to launch a canoe or kayak.. 

The only real down fall to these sites is that there is a fairly wide trail along the shore line that connects all the walk-in sites together. This means that if you look down the trail you can see your neighbour clear as day.  Seems that the neighbours weren't impressed with this either so they put up a tent right in the middle of the trail in order to give themselves some more privacy. We thought this was a great idea so we did the same thing with our tent. 

There wasn't anyone camping to the other side of us right away (although they did come later in the evening). So, we could see all the way clear down to site number one in the distance.  These paths from site to site would be great for multi-family groups or groups of friends camping together. 

After setting up camp, Carsten and I decided to go and explore the park a little. At the far end of the parking lot is the trail head for the Semiwite Creek Trail (not to be confused with the Semiwite Lake Trail). This trail is 1.5 km and goes all the way back to the park office. We saw the entrance for it at the park office when we were registering for our site earlier on. 

As I mentioned, the parking lot where the walk-in sites are is huge. This is possibly because it is also the parking lot for the amphitheatre which is on the opposite side of the parking lot. 

The amphitheatre seemed quiet and lonely with no one in it but us.  There was a big white screen at one end but there didn't seem to be any benches or chairs to sit on like in other parks. I guess you bring your own chair to sit on when there is an event going on here. 

Across from the screen was the projector house. 

Stapled to the side of it was a little cartoon bat. Perhaps this is part of the treasure hunt being put on for the kids? 

The door to the projector house was unlocked . Carsten and I decided to take a peek and see what is inside. Yes, we are a bit nosy that way. 

I was a bit surprised to see that it was more empty than I thought. the building was nothing more than a frame with a roof on it really. I would have thought that there would have been a shelf for a projector to sit on or a bench for a human to sit on while running the projector. However, there was nothing more than a pile of dead leaves inside. It made me wonder how often the place even got used. And when was it used last? Months ago? Years ago? Who knows.

There was a little path behind the projector house that led to a broken down structure. Again... nosy.  So, we had to go see what that was all about. 

It appeared to be the remains of an old storage shelter for some electrical cables or something. They seemed to have long ago been disconnected. Perhaps this used to be the old projector house? Or maybe just the generator for the power to it? We were left to wonder. 

Next we decided to head to the beach and the boat launch. Between those places were the bathrooms so we made a quick pit stop there first. I realized that another down fall of the walk-in sites is that the bathrooms are really quite far away from the sites. This could be problematic for anyone with bathroom problems. Also, the gravel underfoot makes very loud crunching noises as you walk to them. This means that if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night you will have a long dark walk ahead of you and you will most likely wake everyone up when you go because it is next to impossible to do it quietly. Sorry neighbours! 

On the bathrooms as well as other places throughout the park there were signs written in other languages (looks to be French and one of the First Nations languages, although I don't know which one) done to look like it was written on a piece of cut rough hewn lumber. I thought that this was a nice touch. 

The bathrooms themselves were nothing to write home about. The toilets are not flush toilets (but that is not unusual) and you have to keep the lid down to keep the smell down.  The bathrooms could definitely use an upgrade though. They were tiny and old looking. 

The sink area was ok however, the faucet was not tight to the sink. This meant that in order to turn the water on, you had to hold the faucet with one hand and then turn on the water with the other hand. If you didn't do that then the whole thing would turn towards the back wall, faucet and all, and the water wouldn't come on. 

Outside the bathrooms was a large box with a faucet coming out one end. There were a few of these around the park. These structures are where you get your potable water. There are other water faucets around the park too but you can't drink from them. They are all very clearly marked which ones you can drink from and which ones you can't. Apparently they test the drinking water daily here. 

Along the side of the road between the bathrooms and the boat launch is a big pile of asphalt. It looks as though this is a supply pile that they have been taking from and using to repair pot holes in the roads. The roads seem to be in pretty good shape here.

As we walked down towards the beach and the boat launch we noticed a long driveway off to the right. This is the driveway to walk -in site number 4. Apparently number 4 is a seasonal site so you can't just rent it for a few nights. I completely disagree with sites being seasonal sites so I am less than impressed by this. 

Carsten also pointed out that since this site has a driveway that leads right up to the site, it is not really a "walk-in site" even though they call it one.  You can easily drive your car right into the site. 

Not far from the driveway of site 4 is the boat launch. The dock here is crooked and not level in even the slightest. It looks like something from out of that nursery rhyme "There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile, He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile; He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse, And they all lived together in a little crooked house." 

Despite the crookedness, we walked to the end of the dock anyways.  It was a really nice view from the end of the dock. 

​One of the 2 beaches is right beside the boat launch. 

 It also had one of those cute signs with the different languages.

There is a long sandy beach with picnic tables. The water is shallow though and there are no buoy lines. 

At one end of the beach there were some old sign posts with nothing on them. One looked like a chalkboard from an old classroom (it wasn't one, it just looked like one).  They seemed to serve no purpose anymore and there is no telling what they once said. 

As we headed back to our campsite we saw a group of about 6 or seven young Merganser ducks swim by.

The rest of the evening we spent re-arranging our backpacks and weighing them for our big day the next day. We did this until it started to rain. It didn't rain much. It was one of those start and then stop, start and then stop sort of things and it was only a few drops at a time. But it was enough to make us not trust it. 

So just in case it decided to rain harder we figured we would just get everything into the tent and into the car to make sure it all stayed dry. We ate a late supper outside at the picnic table and were lucky enough to not get rained on while we ate. It was about 9:15 by then. 

After supper we went into the tent and took a look at the new pedometer that I bought for the trip. I lost mine last year so I replaced it with another one this year. I like this one better. I hope I don't lose it this time.
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We also took this time to look at our maps. It was at this point that we realized that there may have been a mistake made when booking our back country sites. According to the park maps we were scheduled to stay 2 nights on Upper Bush Lake. However, looking at the official waterproof map the Upper Brush Lake is labeled as Lower Brush Lake and Lower as Upper.  So which map was right?  We were thinking that the waterproof one was the correct one since it was an official in-print and published one. This means that we would have to check with the office and most likely make changes before we left in the morning. 

But for now, it was time to get some sleep. We have a backpacking adventure to start tomorrow and we need our rest.

As I drifted off to sleep I took note of how quiet the park was. It is so peaceful here and an enjoyable place to camp.