Yikes! Over a week has passed since I returned from the wild north that is Algonquin and I haven’t even posted about it. For those who might have thought I was eaten by a bear, I apologize.

No bears this year, but plenty of rain. Fortunately, it came at night while we were in our tent. Unfortunately, it came in such torrents that two of our three sites were transformed into lakes and we became experts at moving the tent to higher ground (a valuable camping skill, if ever there was one.)

Below is that majesty that was our first campsite (we didn’t book early enough to get one spot for the whole week.) Originally, we had the tent where the picnic table was, but moved it at the last minute when I noticed it was standing in a slight depression in the ground. Good thing too, because after the first night of rain that spot was under a foot of water.

After the rains let up we hit the trails to check out the Whiskey Rapids. Named after a pair of greedy loggers who, at the turn of the century, decided to chance the rapids in their canoe with a barrel of fresh whiskey on board. They didn’t make it, their canoe shattered and so did that barrel of delicious whiskey. That’s me below learning about that sad day with the rapids in the background.

As we were relaxing in front of the rapids, we shot some video of a brave canoer running the rapids. Impressive stuff.

It was great to be back in nature, even for just a short time. And since I’ve been back, I’ve been writing about nature for my new survival guide graphic novel, soon to be published by Orca. More on that in the days to come. Honest.