The Massassauga trip log/review

Pamela and Tim really enjoyed a quick, 3 day trip into the Massassauga backcountry recently.
Good weather, great site, no loud neighbours (except for squirrels).
And a great visit with one of our favourite pals.

https://www.instagram.com/ontarioparks/
https://www.instagram.com/friendsofmassasauga/
https://www.instagram.com/camperchristina/

Transcript

00:00 - 00:04
Hello, and good day. Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.

00:04 - 00:04
I'm Tim.

00:05 - 00:06
And we are from SuperGoodCamping.com.

00:07 - 00:11
We are here because we're on a mission to inspire other people to get outside and enjoy camping

00:11 - 00:13
adventures such as we have as a family.

00:14 - 00:19
Today, we just got back freshly, newly minted back from the Massassauga Provincial Park.

00:20 - 00:23
You're just gonna tell how that went.

00:23 - 00:28
Yeah. Kind of a kind of a think of it as a trip blog slash review or it's info, I suppose. 2

00:28 - 00:36
nights, 3 days, was supposed to be 3 nights, 4 days, but the weather report for today was looking pretty ugly.

00:36 - 00:40
Looked like we were gonna get a decent sized storm this morning.

00:40 - 00:47
So, as I we've been chatting with camper Christina, I said, you know, be being lazy and not

00:47 - 00:53
wanting to have to dry out gears has its advantages because it apparently, it is it is, it was

00:53 - 00:56
fairly boomy, pretty dark, lots of wind this morning.

00:56 - 01:02
So and the rain is probably as we're recording this, the rain is probably just about to hit. So

01:02 - 01:06
Yeah. She confirmed that pulling out yesterday was the correct decision.

01:07 - 01:14
It's lazy wind. Yay. Also, it it would have been in in hindsight, it would have been a pretty

01:14 - 01:17
pretty rough go for our, our fur baby.

01:17 - 01:22
We took him with us, and, he gets rather anxious with storms.

01:22 - 01:26
He's nervous about thunder. Didn't used to be, but now suddenly he is.

01:26 - 01:32
And it's funny because yesterday, he was he was panting a lot yesterday, and it was like, I

01:32 - 01:38
think he knows that bad weather's coming in, because he's anxious about the fact that the bad weather's coming in.

01:38 - 01:42
So He's better at at at forecasting that stuff than my knees are.

01:42 - 01:43
And the weather network.

01:45 - 01:46
Everybody's better than my knees.

01:46 - 01:47
There's always a toss-up.

01:49 - 01:50
So, yeah. What,

01:50 - 01:52
The drive up was pretty uneventful on Thursday.

01:53 - 01:56
We because we went Thursday, it was decent as far as traffic was concerned.

01:57 - 01:58
Got there, got set up.

01:58 - 02:03
It was it was sunset by the time we finally got everything kinda set up and had dinner.

02:03 - 02:05
Yeah. We got out got out the door late.

02:05 - 02:11
I basically packed in the morning and couldn't find half the stuff, so that was a bit of a deal.

02:11 - 02:16
Did have a nice stop for lunch along the way, the Dam Grill in Port Severn.

02:16 - 02:18
Yeah. Shout out. That was awesome.

02:18 - 02:23
That was They were really accommodating as far as our dog being with us and him being sick,

02:23 - 02:26
and, and lunch was delicious.

02:26 - 02:27
It was. It was fabulous.

02:27 - 02:29
It was a huge for me, I have fish and chips.

02:29 - 02:31
It was huge, huge chunk of fish.

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It's very very well cooked. It was perfect.

02:34 - 02:34
Service is good.

02:34 - 02:36
Yep. Yep. They're awesome. Go check them out.

02:36 - 02:38
So, yeah, we got we got in there.

02:38 - 02:44
It was about a between paddling and and a multi carry portage, it was about 2 hours to get in

02:44 - 02:51
for us and but no other other than running out of light, there was no no issues and very nice sight.

02:51 - 02:57
Yeah. Awesome. Huge. And, I mean, I'm not familiar with backcountry sites, but to me, it was

02:57 - 03:00
we had the realm of all the woods behind us.

03:01 - 03:03
Yeah. There was nothing. There was nobody close to us.

03:04 - 03:11
A handful of, tent pad options, places places to plunk your tents, very heavily treed, so good

03:11 - 03:14
for protection in case we did get any any weather or anything.

03:15 - 03:21
Had a nice nice rock outcropping facing facing south into, our own little sort of sheltered bay.

03:21 - 03:25
So we caught, cut sun all day long when it when there was sun.

03:25 - 03:30
It was a little little overcast the first day, but yesterday was sun all day long. It was awesome.

03:31 - 03:35
Spectacular sunsets, which we had a good view of from a different rock outcropping.

03:35 - 03:38
A sandy place to to park the canoe on the way in.

03:38 - 03:40
To scratch the canoe on the way in.

03:41 - 03:50
The, lots lots of of downed trees and and whatnot to, to to steal for, for firewood. Yeah. No.

03:50 - 03:51
I it was it was good.

03:51 - 03:58
It was surprisingly it's so we stayed on-site 3 on Spider Lake. Right?

03:58 - 04:10
Normally, the the easier access, the the the first handful of sites that you you come upon, they're usually treated poorly.

04:10 - 04:16
They're easy peasy to get to, so people who don't aren't sorta hardcore backcountry campers,

04:17 - 04:23
that that's the type of people that tend to stay on those sites and they're less they seem to be less.

04:23 - 04:27
Just my my 2¢ of of what I've seen over the years.

04:27 - 04:34
They seem to be less mindful of not trashing the place or taking the stuff that you brought in out.

04:34 - 04:37
You know, that kind of a deal. This was spotless.

04:37 - 04:39
There was we literally found I found a tent bag.

04:39 - 04:41
That was it when we brought it out with us.

04:41 - 04:43
I now have a bonus tent bag.

04:45 - 04:51
Contrasting that though on the way in, there was at either end of the portage, there was various

04:51 - 05:00
garbage like beer cans and, vodka cans and Jack Daniel's bottles and, and it's just I'm like,

05:00 - 05:03
why would you just throw that stuff there?

05:03 - 05:04
Yeah. I don't get it.

05:04 - 05:05
I mean, I was young and stupid.

05:06 - 05:09
I was gonna say once. No. Many times.

05:10 - 05:11
But I I don't know.

05:11 - 05:14
Each their own I I wish it wouldn't happen, but it did happen.

05:15 - 05:17
Yeah. So we had some nice campfires.

05:17 - 05:21
It so it was nice on this rock out outcropping was where our fire pit was, so we just could

05:21 - 05:26
sit around there, look out onto the water, and, watch sunset and have a campfire.

05:26 - 05:33
We didn't no dehydrated foods, because we're only there for a few days, so we took everything frozen in the barrel. What did we do?

05:33 - 05:35
We did we had sausages. We had

05:35 - 05:36
Bacon and fruit

05:37 - 05:40
and Did we do the chicken? Chops. No.

05:40 - 05:43
We did the chops instead, but we didn't stay that last night.

05:43 - 05:44
We did skewers with the chicken.

05:44 - 05:46
Oh, there you go. I forgot about that. Wow.

05:46 - 05:49
That was a great idea, Tim. Yeah.

05:49 - 05:51
Kebabs were, were pretty tasty.

05:51 - 05:56
Bacon, for the for the record, when you're doing bacon, if it over your micro stove, it takes

05:56 - 06:01
about 3 days because it's got a hot pattern that's about the size of a coffee cup and and then

06:01 - 06:02
it and then it just Yeah.

06:02 - 06:04
So you have to take all the makeup in

06:04 - 06:05
one little spot.

06:05 - 06:08
Or else you burn the center of it and it's still raw on the ends.

06:08 - 06:12
So there there's their trick for the day. Yeah.

06:12 - 06:14
No no real wild life to to speak of.

06:14 - 06:21
I mean, squirrels throwing acorns down on us and being very loud early in the morning.

06:21 - 06:24
Lots of scurrying chipmunks, holy ducks.

06:24 - 06:26
We saw we had we had a family of ducks.

06:26 - 06:31
Yeah. Lots of birds and woodpeckers. Yeah.

06:31 - 06:35
We didn't see we heard geese and saw I saw some fly over.

06:36 - 06:39
We didn't see any like, there was no bears. There was no raccoons.

06:39 - 06:40
There was there were no

06:40 - 06:41
No deer?

06:41 - 06:43
I thought I heard wolves at night, but that may have been my imagination.

06:43 - 06:50
Yeah. But I think I heard one wolf call, but it was pretty far away. Nothing, nothing terribly close. But you know what?

06:51 - 06:57
Wind in the trees, you know, it usually takes me a while to sort of catch my breath when I when

06:57 - 07:01
I get out there because you're so busy to do all the things, get everything set up, all that sort of jazz.

07:01 - 07:07
And I would say I was probably I probably caught it within 24 hours, which is that's pretty fast for me.

07:07 - 07:09
So I got what I needed out of it.

07:09 - 07:15
I got the young lady out for another trip that wasn't a disaster this time.

07:15 - 07:17
She may have a different opinion.

07:18 - 07:21
It was good. It was lovely. And it

07:21 - 07:22
was nice. We didn't, yeah.

07:22 - 07:23
We didn't have any weather.

07:23 - 07:24
We didn't we didn't have anything.

07:24 - 07:26
I we didn't I didn't put up tarps.

07:26 - 07:31
We had we did have a little bit of rain the first was that the first night or the next morning?

07:31 - 07:32
Next morning. Yeah.

07:32 - 07:33
But fairly early in the

07:33 - 07:35
morning, it was gone. Yeah. Dry.

07:35 - 07:36
We didn't need a tarp.

07:36 - 07:40
Yep. Not really good. Made made the next fire starting a little bit more difficult just with,

07:40 - 07:46
you know, damp wood and and then I obviously went and harvested some more from the, from the

07:46 - 07:48
back forty that was a little bit damp.

07:48 - 07:49
But, yeah, it was good.

07:49 - 07:50
That was a good weekend.

07:50 - 07:52
It's a you know what? It's a nice park.

07:52 - 07:58
There's so a lot of Ontario parks, especially the backcountry style, usually you're not usually.

07:59 - 08:04
Often you are put in, the the lake you enter into the park on is shared.

08:04 - 08:06
There's cottages, So powerboats, that sort of jazz.

08:06 - 08:15
It's usually it's not until you get that one portage in that then powerboats are banned except by Ontario Parks staff.

08:15 - 08:17
They're, like the park wardens and stuff.

08:17 - 08:21
They they have often have, you know, one with, like, a tent horse or something plunked on the

08:21 - 08:26
far side of the portage, but then it gets, like, it's just so peaceful.

08:26 - 08:28
Busy and then it's not.

08:28 - 08:36
And this wasn't a this was like a 3 and 80 380, 3 185 meter portage, and it wasn't, I mean,

08:36 - 08:41
it's not like, you know, the the paved one out of the north end of Canoe Lake where it's just it's a super highway. It's flat and stuff.

08:41 - 08:44
This had a little bit up and down, but not terrible at all.

08:44 - 08:46
That's, I I can do that one anytime.

08:47 - 08:51
Yeah. So we stopped on the way back and had lunch with campers Christina.

08:51 - 08:55
Yeah. She she came came out came out and, and hung with us as well. That was nice.

08:55 - 09:00
Her suggestion was a really was I I thought it was good food. I really enjoyed.

09:00 - 09:03
We haven't we used to do schnitzel a lot.

09:03 - 09:04
It was a German restaurant.

09:04 - 09:10
So I had I had pork schnitzel and potato wedges, I think was mine and it was that was it was excellent.

09:10 - 09:14
Yep. I had Montreal smoked meat sandwich. It was delicious too.

09:14 - 09:16
And Charlie Barley was happy to share with me.

09:16 - 09:17
Yes. The Montreal for me.

09:17 - 09:22
The fur baby the fur baby is getting all the spoilings. Yeah.

09:22 - 09:29
I it's that's my first go round in in the Massassauga and, I'm gonna try it again. It's it's quite close.

09:29 - 09:36
If if I had anything, so there's there are 2 I wanna say it's Algonquin and the Massassauga.

09:36 - 09:43
They're on a a pilot program trying a a different rating system where it doesn't matter, you

09:43 - 09:47
can have up to 9 people on your site, which is for for the record, that's insane.

09:47 - 09:49
If you're doing backcountry, that's a party.

09:49 - 09:51
That's not I don't know.

09:51 - 09:54
That's certainly not my jam, but it's it's one price.

09:54 - 09:58
It's about $40 a day, something like that. I wanna say $40.40.85,

10:01 - 10:05
something like that. So so for one person or 2 people, that's pretty expensive.

10:05 - 10:09
For backcountry, like, you're normally, you're looking at I wanna say most of the time, Thomas

10:09 - 10:13
and I, it's like we're south of $20 for the 2 of us.

10:13 - 10:23
So it's a it's a pricey option, but here we are in early October, so early fall, we got to see some colors.

10:23 - 10:29
That's generally once you pass certainly once you pass Labor Day, things start to slow down a bit.

10:29 - 10:34
And we're coming up on, the proper Thanksgiving, which would be the Canadian Thanksgiving.

10:36 - 10:38
You're gonna have less less traffic out there.

10:38 - 10:41
So and it and it's nice. It's crisp. You're not all sweaty. There's no bugs.

10:42 - 10:43
No bugs was awesome.

10:44 - 10:47
Yes. It's the the mosquito magnet says.

10:47 - 10:54
And, we saw that on the way in, there was another group, with 2 canoes, I think, that were coming

10:54 - 10:55
in at the same time we were coming in.

10:55 - 11:00
And then on the way out, we saw another group coming in as we were going out.

11:00 - 11:06
And that was yeah. We I mean, we did see some people paddling by, but that was it. Yeah. No complaints at all.

11:06 - 11:09
So recommended, go go check out the the Massasauga if you're in the area.

11:09 - 11:12
It's, I wouldn't say it was less than 3 hours.

11:12 - 11:17
It's about I wanna say 2 and a half hours total driving, on the way up, not so much on the way back.

11:17 - 11:26
We ran into some some accidents and some traffic, but welcome to living near Toronto. Alright. That's it.

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That's it for us for today.

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Thank you so much for listening, and please do listen again soon.

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11:34 - 11:38
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11:39 - 11:42
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That's hi@supergoodcamping.com, and we will talk to you again soon.

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Bye. Bye.