In the vast woodlands one may encounter many happy couples strolling, not invariably side by side, for there is no surplus space beyond the width required for the single pedestrian. As they fare forth in true Indian file, He calls to Her, "Come on"; or occasionally, by way of special conversational brilliancy, he exclaims in a friendly tone, "Are you there?" They are possibly making their way over a portage. The guide has the canoe, reversed, on his head. As they wind along intricate paths, He goes in advance, and She faithfully follows. There is all the charm of conversational entertainment when He looks sideways over his shoulder and exclaims, "Getting on all right?" She would be ashamed to confess she was not! When their canoe-trip was projected that morning She, who did not know a canoe from a constellation, was quite in rapture. As a tenderfoot, as yet unprofited by the proximity of the wilderness, She descended from her bower equipped with a parasol for the sun, an umbrella for possible rain, a handbag duly supplied with pencil, notebook, violet water, and various feminine conveniences; a volume of her favourite poet in her hand that He may read aloud to her, and a novel for her own private delectation, in case He should be oblivious of poetic ecstasies and like a mere man prefer to smoke and ... dream. But He, who has seen the wilderness before in the course of his august career, and to whom canoeing is no mystery, regards Her with unaccustomed severities and austerities. "You can't take those things," he laconically observes, with one finger designating her numerous impedimenta; "upset the canoe." Poet and novelist, to say nothing of lace-trimmed parasol, are banished; and She receives the first intimation of an idea that there is some necessity of equilibrium connected with canoeing.
Between the two extremes of the campers in the open and the guests of the Highland Inn, Algonquin Park offers another mode of living that has caught the fancy of the public. This is the provision made by two log cabin camps which the Grand Trunk System has built in picturesque places in the Park. Nominigan Camp ("camp amid the balsams") is seven miles from the Highland Inn, and is reached either by the stage, which makes the trip every day, or by the more romantic way of canoeing over the lakes, and walking over the connecting portages. The site of Nominigan Camp is one worth going far to see. On the shore of one of the most beautiful lakes it was ever the happiness of man to behold, with a vista of hills and woodlands, the spot is wildly beautiful. And the camp itself; imagine a large central log house with abundance of rooms, and great fireplaces in which to burn logs and sit and wonder; with radiator heating also, and electric light, and bathrooms with running water; with a large dining-room and admirable food; with a great salon where every one may gather; and with several log cottages adjacent where families or parties, or the single traveller, can have sleeping rooms, coming to the central house for meals; the high standards of comfortable and refined life maintained and yet offering this idyllic freedom—could there be a more inviting combination? It is no wonder that an eminent guest who had passed some time at Nominigan wrote:
"To put a camp of this kind deep in the heart of the wilderness, and touch the wild life of the forest and lake with a most acceptable bit of civilisation in the form of grate fires, running water, bath-tubs, and inside toilet arrangements is decidedly a feat worthy to be spoken of when summer resorts are mentioned. To likewise supply a crowd of seventy-five guests with such an excellent table as we found provided for us, and to serve it so acceptably as to make one for a moment forget that he was beyond the bounds of civilisation, was likewise a feat of which the management should be proud."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lady Conan Doyle were guests at Nominigan in the summer of 1914, and the creator of "Sherlock Holmes" proved to be as ingenious in entering into the diversions of the locality as he is in the field of romance he has made so especially his own. Lady Conan Doyle, who developed a genuine gift for fishing, caught an eight pound salmon trout. Equal in beauty is Camp Minnesing ("Island Camp") on the shore of Island Lake.
Between the Highland Inn and the Nominigan and Minnesing camps there is daily stage connection, and it is thus easy to unite both the comfortable living in a well-ordered hotel, in touch with daily papers and several daily mails, with constant excursions into the wild territory, with canoeing, fishing, or walks and tramps through the interminable forests. Of all the Canadian parks, Algonquin Park is the most accessible from the United States and Eastern Canada. At the Algonquin Park station one may take a train in the morning for Rock Lake, a distance of twelve miles, where there is a famous fishing region for black bass, and where boats and canoes and all necessary outfit may be obtained. In Cache Lake the black bass also abound. At White Lake are salmon trout, and a canoe trip over one or two other of the smaller lakes brings the angler to Little Island Lake, noted for its speckled trout. But there are some two thousand lakes in the Park, so your choice of fishing grounds is unlimited.
Not the least among the interests of a sojourn in Algonquin Park is a visit to the home of Mr. G. W. Bartlett, the Superintendent of the Park, whose house is within a stone's throw of the Highland Inn. Among his treasures is a remarkably fine collection of wild animals and birds, prepared by the art of the taxidermist, and the government of Ontario has also inaugurated a "Zoo," which has already a small collection and which will be constantly increased.
The amateur photographer finds great interest in this Park as the animals, accustomed only to kindness, are easily approached, and the "bits" of forest scenes, of silver-shining waters, of giant rocks jutting out from the hillside, offer unlimited material for the artist to compose. Landscapes for the asking surprise the eye; and if Algonquin Park is the more obviously and more familiarly known as the sportsman's paradise, it is none the less the happy hunting-ground of the artist. The colour effects are something with which to conjure. The scarlet glow of the sunsets suddenly make a towering rock seem to leap into the air to a height undreamed of; while over the still, solemn pine trees the sky turns to flame; rocks and jutting hillsides take on the effect of colossal sculptures; the clouds resolve themselves into spectral angels watching over the world, and the forests take on a grace of line that holds the gazer with its wonderful spell of beauty.
From June until into September the days are long in the Algonquin Park country; they dawn in rose and wane in gold. The air is all vitality with its filtering through millions of acres of pine and balsam and spruce; the sunshine of the days is radiant; the moonlit nights are cool. Wandering through Algonquin woodlands one seems to hear borne on the air the poet's haunting lines:
"Along the sky, in wavy lines,
O'er isle and reach and bay.
Green-belted with eternal pines,
The mountains stretch away.