I never would have guessed the northwest corner of Algonquin Park could be so crowded. A line-up of 36 canoes cluttered the take-out for the portage into North Tea Lake.
Thinking back, the route wasn’t as busy when I first paddled it 12 years ago. Of course, that was before I wrote a guidebook that praised the scenic splendour of North Tea. Was it immodest to wonder if this mob was in some way my fault for having exposed and exploited the area? Had I truly become, as my friends have labelled it, a wilderness pornographer?
Writing guidebooks can be emotionally challenging. What starts as a way to promote and ultimately protect a wild area can lead to too many paddlers loving a place to death.
I’ve had fellow canoeists shun me after writing up one of their secret spots; I’ve had cottage owners threaten to shoot me between the eyes if I ever write about their lake again; I’ve even witnessed a group of anglers burning one of my books which dared to wonder about the fishing on a particular lake.
While I waited impatiently to use the portage into North Tea, I thought maybe a good old-fashioned book burning might not be such a bad idea.
However, as I was sinking into despair, the page turned. As I moved forward in the queue, I noticed that in the canoe ahead of us a mom and dad with two children had a copy of my guidebook on Algonquin Park. The youngest girl had it open to the chapter on North Tea Lake.
I started to chat with the family and learned it was their first interior trip, a trip they had decided on after purchasing “some guy’s guidebook.”
I was ecstatic. This family was all the justification I needed to continue promoting wilderness areas to anyone that was even semi-literate. Heck, the daughter even allowed me to go first on the portage because I was loaded down with a heavy pack and an 18-foot canoe.
I skipped off, barely noticing the weight of the canoe, until a paddle blade to my crotch stopped me dead in my tracks.
A woman coming from the other direction in a T-shirt that read “Damn the Dieticians” barged through, swinging her paddle— the only thing she was carrying—and swearing as she warned me to get out of her way. I wasn’t quick enough.
I gasped in pain, shuffled off the trail, and made a silent prayer that she had never so much as picked up one of my books.
Kevin Callan’s new guidebook about Quetico Provincial Park, available to righteous trippers only, will be released this spring.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
