Massasauga Provincial Park - Day 1

Northern Lights over Moon Island at Massasauga Provincial Park.

Cynara's friend, Eric, organized a camping trip to Massasauga Provincial Park over the Labour Day long weekend. Along with three of his friends - Chris, Jess and Lily; Jonathan, Peter and I went.

Eric, Chris and Jess went first on Thursday. Cynara and Jonathan and Peter and I drove up Friday. Eric and his group had to come back early on Friday evening because he forgot he had to shoot a wedding the next day (Saturday). They would all return with Lily on Sunday.

Peter and I met Cynara and Jonathan at Swift Canoe and Kayak rentals at their Georgian Bay location off Highway 400, north of Barrie Friday afternoon. Eric had arranged canoes for us up there. After affixing them to the roofs of our cars we drove an hour further north to the park.

For our particular campsite (#406) you'd normally launch your boat out of Pete's Place after registering. But they only allow parking for one car per campsite there. So the girl there told us to go down the road to one of the marinas and find private parking there. We found a place near Moon River Marine that charged $8 a day and launched our canoes from there.

Eric's group tried to wait for us before returning to Toronto, but we arrived at the campsite a little late. Even with Peter's GPS we made a few wrong turns and ended up in dead end bays at one point. Ideally we would have come counter-clockwise around Marion Island and bump into them on their way paddling out, but we came in on Captain Allan Strait from the east side.

It was around 8:00 p.m. by the time we got to the campsite. My tent (which I had lent Eric) was still there along with all their other gear. But they were long gone. Peter and I and Cynara and Jonathan set our stuff up and prepared dinner. We had bought three bags of wood from the camp store (at Pete's Place). As well, Peter brought his portable stove.

After eating we went out onto the rocks by our site (which overlooks Captain Allan Strait looking northward to Moon Island and Woods Bay) and started taking night pics. The skies were pretty dark when we began shooting. That's great for seeing the stars. I did notice what I thought was light pollution on the horizon at one point. Then Peter figured out it was the Northern Lights as it got brighter.

I was surprised to see them at this time of the year and so far south. Nevertheless we got some pretty decent shots of it as well as the Milky Way. They started to dim by 1:00 a.m. which is when we turned in for the night.