It was my wife's idea. Planning a five day canoe trip in Killarney Provincial Park is something that I can do with my hands tied behind my back. It was what we were doing afterwards that was the sensational addition to the trip: a two-night stay in town at Killarney Mountain Lodge.

But, let's start at the beginning. It's a long drive to Killarney from Peterborough, followed by lots of paddling to our planned campsites. The decision was made ahead of time to leave after work on Thursday and stay at George Lake Campground so that we could get an early start to our put-in on Bell Lake the next morning. Also my wife's idea, and it was a great one. Getting to George Lake around 8:30 pm, we had just enough time to set up our tent, start a fire and have a drink before bed. Perfect.

Day one of the actual canoe trip started off without a hitch. We had a quick cold breakfast and drove the 30 km to the put in on Bell Lake. Easy. A twisting gravel road took us to the parking lot once we were off of Highway 637.

Our first campsite on Bell Lake was terrific. It was the kind of campsite that has a great view, some tree cover for shade but also an open area out front where the wind can blow away the bugs. As always, a decent swimming area is a must and this site had one. So far, the only portage was the one from the car to the water. Sweet.

Day two. This day we paddled from Bell Lake to Three Mile Lake and a short 40 metre portage into Balsam Lake. At this portage we saw the remains of the Marine Railway. Just a short 30 metre section of it that seemed rather surreal and gave us a glimpse of what must have been once upon a time.

Balsam Lake was also beautiful and our campsite only a 25 minute paddle. We camped at a narrow section of the lake. A bit of a scramble to get to get up to where we would set up our tent and bug shelter, but once again we had a low lying area close to the water where we could swim and have some (mostly) insect-free time. It was also a good place to watch passersby as they paddled from the portage from Three Mile Lake to Balsam and vice versa. A busier thoroughfare than we had expected really, but entertaining to see some people’s idea of lightweight back country camping.

For day three, we’d saved the best for last. We had a slightly longer portage into David Lake. At 620 metres it gave us enough time to realize we hadn't actually had much time to become accustomed to carrying any of our load. Luckily, the portage was just long enough to challenge us but not so long that we were hating having brought some of our extra gear.