Canoe Trip Around Phillip Edward Island in August

Last August, eight days after I com­plet­ed my first solo overnight canoe trip to Franklin Island, Lily, Porthos, and I drove up to Kil­lar­ney for a canoe trip around Philip Edward Island. I had only heard about the island a month before head­ing out. There was a brief peri­od last sum­mer when I binged on YouTube’s selec­tion of solo camp­ing and adven­ture con­tent. One evening, the algo­rithm rec­om­mend­ed a video by Xan­der Bud­nick, “Solo Island Camp­ing.”

The land­scape in the video thumb­nail caught my eye because of its sim­i­lar­i­ty to the region around Franklin Island. Except it wasn’t. Philip Edward Island is larg­er in scale, at about 47 kilo­me­tres around instead of 15 kilo­me­tres. Almost half of that dis­tance is through a rel­a­tive­ly nar­row chan­nel called Collins Inlet, which runs along the north side of the island and faces Kil­lar­ney Provin­cial Park, adja­cent gen­er­al-use Crown land, and the First Nations-owned Point Gron­dine Park.

Our plan was to cir­cum­nav­i­gate the island in three nights and four days. How­ev­er, due to our own crazi­ness, we fin­ished the trip in two nights and three days.

Day 1: Chikanishing River to Centre Fox island

As always, we depart­ed our home far lat­er than planned, which put some pres­sure on our tim­ing. Since the area is Crown land, camping’s per­mit­ted any­where, but there’s a lim­it­ed num­ber of spots actu­al­ly suit­able for it. These are marked on most pad­dling maps of the island. My point is that, although we had a group of islands in mind, whether we’d find an ade­quate spot before night­fall was a mild con­cern.

We had some con­fu­sion at the Chikan­ish­ing park­ing lot. I’d bought four days of park­ing in advance (at $15 per day), but the instruc­tions were sparse about whether any spe­cial check-in or dis­play was nec­es­sary. Anoth­er park user even­tu­al­ly told me I could just park any­where, since my pur­chase was already in the park’s sys­tem.

While unload­ing our car and mov­ing our canoe and equip­ment to the float­ing dock on the riv­er, we ran into an old­er cou­ple who were also prepar­ing their canoe. We had a brief chat and dis­cov­ered they both work in the film indus­try and live with­in a 10-minute walk of our place in Toron­to. Small world.

As we talked, an elder­ly group of kayak­ers pulled up to the dock and warned us that it was windy beyond the riv­er mouth. We’d been mind­ful of wind con­di­tions lead­ing up to the trip. In fact, I’d been fever­ish­ly check­ing marine fore­casts to pick the least windy days with­in our trip win­dow.

Lily and I must’ve giv­en off some ama­teur canoeist vibes, because the oth­er cou­ple kept insist­ing that our intend­ed destination—a group of islands called the Foxes—was too far giv­en the cur­rent con­di­tions and remain­ing day­light. They rec­om­mend­ed pad­dling west toward Dave’s Bay or Georges Bay instead.

We chose to play it by ear and make our final deci­sion after see­ing the con­di­tions in the West­ern Entrance to Collins Inlet. The short pad­dle along the Chikan­ish­ing Riv­er was calm, pleas­ant, and brief—a stark con­trast to the con­di­tions we encoun­tered after push­ing into more open water. We donned our PFDs, assessed the sit­u­a­tion, and con­clud­ed it was safe to push ahead.

I’d bought a paper ver­sion of Jeff’s Map of Kil­lar­ney, which includ­ed a high-res­o­lu­tion dig­i­tal ver­sion that became our pri­ma­ry nav­i­ga­tion tool. With the map on my phone in hand, we pad­dled along the shore and between scat­tered rocks and islets before turn­ing toward the Fox­es. Along the way, every marked camp­site we passed was occu­pied by oth­er pad­dlers.

The Fox­es are a trio of islands: Sly Fox, Big Fox, and Cen­tre Fox. The first two were vis­i­bly occu­pied, but the marked camp­site on the third was out of sight.

By this point, sun­set was fast approach­ing, and con­di­tions on the water were get­ting hairy. We decid­ed to risk giv­ing it a look, despite spot­ting a wel­com­ing rocky beach on the island’s north­ern face. The waves had grown to an unset­tling 0.5 to 1 m tall—thankfully slow and well spaced. It was an incon­ve­nient time to dis­cov­er a small error on Jeff’s map: as we round­ed toward the south side of Cen­tre Fox Island, no viable camp­site was vis­i­ble. Even if there had been one, mak­ing land­fall with waves crash­ing against the boul­ders would’ve risked cap­siz­ing the canoe or dam­ag­ing its hull.

Then we remem­bered that, on our approach, the north side of the island had a rocky beach shel­tered from the south­ern wind. We cir­cled back to take a clos­er look. It turned out the north side was the cor­rect access point. The rocks on the beach were quite large, but with a plush-enough sleep­ing pad, it’s pos­si­ble to camp right there. That’s what we did.

I lat­er dis­cov­ered that the “true” campsite—the kind with lev­el ground, tree cov­er, and an absence of pokey rocks—is fur­ther inland, just a short but rel­a­tive­ly steep climb above the beach.

Day 2: Centre Fox island to Moose Bay

Sleep­ing on lumpy rocks wasn’t the most pleas­ant expe­ri­ence. Nei­ther was being so close to shore on a windy night, since I’d peri­od­i­cal­ly hear the loud crash of waves. By the time we woke, the wind had either died down or shift­ed direc­tion. We took turns explor­ing the island after break­fast, part­ly because we didn’t want to risk Porthos run­ning and jump­ing around the steep rocks in excite­ment, and part­ly because we each required some, ugh, pri­va­cy.

A notable dif­fer­ence between the Crown land camp­sites around Franklin Island and Philip Edward Island is the absence of vol­un­teer-run thun­der­box­es. The Out­er Islands Project stew­ards camp­sites along the east­ern shore of Geor­gian Bay. I’m not aware of any such orga­ni­za­tion or char­i­ta­ble endeav­our around Philip Edward Island. So if you plan to poo, bring a small shov­el or trow­el, and bury that shit.

As the morn­ing pro­gressed, we bathed and packed up. Toward the end, the wind had once again picked up or shift­ed direc­tion, putting sig­nif­i­cant strain on the now-emp­ty tent and flex­ing its frame alarm­ing­ly. Lily helped me pack it up as neat­ly as pos­si­ble under the con­di­tions, and then we set off.

Although we didn’t have a con­crete des­ti­na­tion in mind, the cou­ple from the pre­vi­ous day had sug­gest­ed West Des­jardin Bay. It’s scenic and dot­ted with dozens of tiny islands, but upon arrival, every camp­site was occu­pied. We took a short snack break in the bay of an unnamed island, watch­ing a fresh­wa­ter snake slink into the water while Porthos rolled around in sap­py pine nee­dles.

We con­tin­ued pad­dling east with a light wind off our star­board that threat­ened to spin us around when­ev­er I eased my strokes. Thank­ful­ly, we weren’t exposed to strong waves, and when­ev­er we noticed chop ahead, we knew it was caused by sub­merged boul­ders and steered clear.

Sil­ver Island Chan­nel was unusu­al­ly dif­fi­cult to locate despite hav­ing a dig­i­tal map with our live coor­di­nates. We avoid­ed the Big Rock Portage by canoe­ing around the promon­to­ry with its five camp­sites, all occu­pied, and pushed on toward Moose Bay. The map showed sev­er­al camp­sites scat­tered through­out the bay, and we were eager to pull in for the evening.

Once in the shel­tered waters of Moose Bay, we explored a few options. Six of the sev­en marked camp­sites were free, and we set­tled on the first one we saw, on anoth­er unnamed island. We pitched the tent on the flat­test sec­tion of a large bald boul­der slop­ing toward a nar­row chan­nel between islands, where we parked the canoe. Pre­vi­ous campers seemed to pre­fer a dif­fer­ent area, judg­ing by the tie-down rocks scat­tered fur­ther inland.

Day 3: Moose Bay to Chikanishing River

The sun woke us on day three. I’d had a mar­vel­lous sleep: no wind, no creepy or dis­tract­ing sounds, and a clear, star-filled sky. It was the first time I’d real­ly paid atten­tion to the flur­ry of satel­lite activ­i­ty over­head. The steady march of rows of $tar­Link satel­lites was espe­cial­ly eye-open­ing.

While pack­ing up after break­fast, Lily decid­ed to pre­pare some snacks for the day ahead. We’d brought choco­late-cov­ered almonds, and they’d par­tial­ly melt­ed in yesterday’s heat. Lily’s idea was to reso­lid­i­fy them in the com­par­a­tive­ly cool lake water. Smart in the­o­ry, except they weren’t in a water­proof bag. By the time we were ready to go, our snack had become a sog­gy pouch of water­logged chocolate—utterly ined­i­ble.

Our plan for the third day was even more neb­u­lous than before. There weren’t many camp­sites left on the south-fac­ing side of Philip Edward Island: a hand­ful on Deer and Hincks islands, a sin­gle spot near Burnt Island, and then noth­ing until Mill Lake, almost halfway through Collins Inlet.

We wished for the best and unknow­ing­ly set off on the most unhinged pad­dle of our lives.

Trou­ble found us just over a kilo­me­tre from camp. It was windy, and although the waves were slow and well spaced, they were large enough to keep us in our PFDs for a third straight day. In areas with hid­den under­wa­ter rocks, the water turned chaot­ic.

For a brief and fright­en­ing moment, we ground­ed the canoe on a nar­row sub­merged rock ridge. A wave car­ried us for­ward, and as we dropped into its trough, we stalled. I stepped out knee-deep onto the ridge to free us just as anoth­er wave slammed into the side of the canoe. It knocked us loose but dumped sev­er­al buck­ets of water into the boat, which sloshed around my feet until we reached calmer water.

North of Hincks Island, we entered a shal­low, sandy stretch and had to walk the canoe through it. Once clear, I took advan­tage of the calm water to bail out what remained inside.

When we reached Beaver­stone Bay, we had one known camp­site left before com­mit­ting to pad­dling all the way to Mill Lake. By then, the shore­line had turned heav­i­ly forest­ed and not espe­cial­ly appealing—teeming with bugs, prob­a­bly.

So we made a dras­tic call: we’d skip camp­ing a third night alto­geth­er and pad­dle back to the car that day. There were six or sev­en hours of day­light left, and accord­ing to Jeff’s Map, that was rough­ly how long the return would take.

I’d assumed Collins Inlet would shield us from the wind. Instead, it fun­nelled a steady head­wind straight into us. We bounced between the north and south sides of the chan­nel, chas­ing brief pock­ets of relief.

By the time we were halfway to Mill Lake, Porthos was vis­i­bly exhaust­ed from sit­ting in the same spot, and Lily and I were deep into shoul­der cramps. The sun sank low­er as we entered the nar­row­er west­ern stretch of the inlet. Camp­sites began appear­ing again, and every sin­gle one of them tempt­ing me to stop.

Lat­er, Lily told me she’d coped with the fatigue by slip­ping into a med­i­ta­tive rhythm with each pad­dle stroke. I man­aged by alter­nat­ing sides obses­sive­ly, focus­ing on tech­nique, and watch­ing the trees slide past instead of star­ing into the dis­tance ahead.

As the sun dipped below the hori­zon, we passed a man step­ping out onto his cot­tage bal­cony in a loose robe. We exchanged a few quick words, and he told us we weren’t far from the Chikan­ish­ing Riv­er mouth. Moments lat­er, we emerged into the West­ern Entrance under ear­ly twi­light.

It was full twi­light when we pulled into the float­ing dock at the park­ing lot, end­ing a bru­tal slog. In just over eight hours, with­out breaks, we’d pad­dled at least 31.5 km from Moose Bay, up Beaver­stone Bay, and west along the entire length of Collins Inlet. A large fish star­tled me near shit­less as we approached the dock where we unloaded the boat and packed the car by head­lamp, feed­ing a dozen mos­qui­toes in the process. And then we were off.

The dri­ve home took four hours. We were wrecked and rav­en­ous, hav­ing not eat­en since break­fast. Lily ordered two large piz­zas from a Domino’s in Par­ry Sound—one for each of us. I fin­ished mine dur­ing the dri­ve. It was the best piz­za I’ve ever had, which is almost cer­tain­ly just hunger talk­ing.