Easy Nav
- Background
- Day 1 – The Daunting Task of Documenting the Pog Lake Campground
- Day 2 – A Fox, A Wolf, And More Work at Pog Lake
- Day 3 – Making Progress at Pog Lake Campground
- Day 4 – Finishing at Pog Lake & More Wildlife Sightings
- Day 5 – Fox, Woodpecker, Canada Jay, Pine Marten, and Raccoons
- Day 6 – The Craziest Wildlife Experience (With a Wolf)
- The Aftermath
Background
I started the “Developed Campground” project for my website towards the end of 2023, with the goal of finishing it by the end of 2024. Well, it was almost the end of 2024. The final campground on Highway 60 that I needed to document was Pog Lake. Pog Lake also happens to be the largest campground in Algonquin Park, with more than 280 campsites. It was a daunting task just thinking about documenting it. But I was committed to finishing the project, so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I would need at least 3 or 4 days to document the entire campground. Possibly even 5 days. To be safe, I booked a 6-day trip, Thursday until Tuesday.
The weather was looking fantastic for mid-October, with daytime highs in the high teens (one day even called for 20 degrees) and overnight lows hovering around zero. I booked a campsite at Lake of Two Rivers, which was the only campground—along with Mew Lake—that was open for the duration of the trip.
Before I get into the report, let me address the title “The Most Wildlife I’ve Ever Seen in Algonquin Park”. It had already been an incredible year for me in terms of wildlife, with so many crazy, memorable encounters. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better… this trip happened. This was my last overnight camping trip of the season and I guess the park did me a favour and saved the best wildlife trip for last. Most people want to see a moose when they come to Algonquin Park, but for me, the dream trifecta is seeing a moose, a bear, and a wolf. This was the first time that I had ever seen all three during the same trip. Not to mention the pine martens, foxes, raccoons, birds and more. It was easily the most wildlife I have ever seen during one single trip. Just make sure you stick around until the end of the report, because during my last morning, I had one of the craziest wildlife experiences of my life.
Day 1 — The Daunting Task of Documenting the Pog Lake Campground
As a reward for my 4:00 AM wake up, Mother Nature treated me to a beautiful low-hanging full moon directly in view throughout my drive to Algonquin Park. I arrived to the park shortly after 7:00 AM to sub-zero temperatures and a thick white frost covering the entire landscape. It felt like the middle of winter. I met up with a few wildlife photographer friends and went to the Mew Lake airfield to walk around and look for wildlife.
It was a very cold morning, but constantly moving helped keep me warm. We didn’t have any luck spotting wildlife but I did realize that walking 10k+ steps by 9:00 AM, before I even started documenting Pog Lake, after an already tiring 4:00 AM wake up, might not have been the smartest idea.
Before I could even think about my work at Pog Lake, I went to my campsite at Lake of Two Rivers to get things set up and take a late-morning nap. I was booked at Site 195. It was the first campsite on a short dead-end loop, right after a turning point in the road. This meant that most traffic would turn before reaching my campsite, and I would have very little traffic passing directly in front of my site. The site was spacious and nearby the comfort station too. I didn’t plan on spending too much time at the campsite though, basically just for midday naps, an evening fire, and to sleep overnight. For my intended use, the campsite was more than adequate.
After my nap I finally mustered up the courage to drive towards Pog Lake. To make the already daunting task even more frightful, the gates to the campground were closed. This meant I would need to leave my car outside of the campground. This only added more walking, especially to get to Section C, which was my target for the day.
I started with Section C because it was the largest section. Not in the quantity of campsites, but in terms of physical space. The campsites are mostly large, and spread out in several small loops. I estimated that my overall walking time for this section would be approximately 3 minutes per campsite (1.5x longer than usual), so I wanted to get it out of the way first. I was also carrying a backpack on my back, my Canon hanging on my Cotton Carrier chest harness, and Elo tied around my waist, which only added to the physical exhaustion.
I started at 1:00 PM and was back at my car at 5:00 PM. With the exception of a few short breaks, it was basically four hours of non-stop walking with all my gear. My step count was already over 30k!
After replenishing with lots of food and water, I went for a drive to look for wildlife. I went to one of the nearby campgrounds, but the only thing hanging around was apparently a pine marten hiding in a tree. I say “apparently” because there were 10 people with binoculars and cameras staring at a tree. I jokingly thought “that must be one super interesting tree!” because it wasn’t clear what they were looking at. I did see a very rough outline of something hidden in the tree, but it was impossible to tell exactly what I was looking at. The pine marten was playing hide and seek, and it was winning.
As I was leaving, I got a message from a friend that two moose were spotted nearby. I knew the spot, and knew that there had been a few recent sightings there, so I drove over. There was a decently large crowd at the area, but the moose were far away in the water, so everyone was forced to keep a respectful distance.
I spent close to 45 minutes taking photos and videos before eventually thinking “Hmmm, maybe having 37 photos of her face two inches to the left from the previous photo isn’t really necessary.” Yes, I’m guilty of being trigger-happy with the camera and then needing to sort through hundreds of almost-identical photos when I get home. Joking aside, the two moose did change things up to keep the encounter somewhat exciting. At first they were separated, then they came together. They faced us at one point. They were drinking water and moving through the water. It was just enough action to keep my attention for 45 minutes. The sun was also on its final minutes and I was slowly cranking the ISO on my camera to keep up with the fading light. Even if I did want to stay longer, nature was giving me a hard cutoff.
I was reminded by a friend that it was the Hunter’s Supermoon that evening, and it was going to be rising directly after the sunset. There was also the C/2023 A3 ATLAS comet in the sky, that I was hoping to photograph. The moon would rise in the east, but the comet was showing in the west. My plan was to visit the main campground beach at Lake of Two Rivers to see the rising moon in the east, and then drive to the East Beach at Lake of Two Rivers to face west for the comet.
Before I even made it to Lake of Two Rivers I saw the moon rise above the tree line in the distance. I was on the phone with a friend while driving and when the moon came into view I said out loud “Holy crap. The moon is insane. I have to go, I need to try and get a shot of this.” It was magical. It looked super-sized as it hung directly above the shoreline. I used HDR mode on my camera (which takes three consecutive photos at different exposures and then automatically combines them) to try and capture the detail of the moon while having the landscape in the foreground still visible. It worked surprisingly well.
After photographing the moon for 10 minutes from the side of the highway, I continued with my original plan and went to the East Beach for the comet. Before I set up for the comet, I quickly boiled water to make myself dinner. It was 7:00 PM, I had walked more than 30k steps throughout the day, and I was starving.
There were a few other astrophotographers set up at the beach with the same comet-finding intentions. We spent close to 30 minutes waiting for it to appear, without any luck. As everyone was packing up to leave, I pointed my camera in a slightly different direction. “Aha! I found it!” I quickly proclaimed to the others.
Once the comet was found, we stuck around for another 20 minutes photographing it. The best days to photograph the comet were a week earlier, while it was lower in the sky. By this evening, it was much higher. I was still able to get decent photos of it, but I knew they weren’t going to be as impressive as the photos circulating online. I was happy nonetheless. Not only was it a great day for wildlife, but it was a pretty awesome day for astrophotography as well.
Just like the moose earlier, there was only so many photos I could take of the same thing, so eventually I packed up and headed back to my campsite. I quickly got a fire going for warmth and spent the rest of the evening sitting with Elo beside the fire, under the strong glow from the Hunter’s Supermoon hanging above.
Night 1 was forecasted to be the coldest of the trip, dropping to an overnight low of minus three degrees. I was super exhausted from the start of the Pog Lake documentation, and Day 2 was going to be equally as tiring, so I made sure that I got into the tent at a reasonable time.
Day 2 — A Fox, A Wolf, And More Work at Pog Lake
I decided to change things up. Instead of searching for moose or wolves, I decided to try something more ambitious. Something that I knew there would be a 99.99% chance of failure. But if I was successful, it would be a bucket list item. I went searching for a lynx.
I had a specific road in mind, a place that I had heard mysterious rumours of a past sighting. But here’s the catch, the road is several kilometres long. And there are lots of residential properties, so it’s not exactly remote or off-grid. Where was the lynx previously spotted? I had no idea. I began my search anyways, and quickly realized that I had a better chance of winning the lottery than spotting the lynx.
After one hour of searching, as expected, I didn’t see a lynx. The idea was fun at least. I went to my usual wildlife spots afterwards in hopes of finding a more “realistic” animal sighting, but the rest of my morning didn’t bring any luck either. I did see some familiar wildlife-photographer faces though, so I spent time chatting with them.
After an unsuccessful morning search for wildlife, it was time to start my day job. The daunting task of documenting the Pog Lake campground. I was happy with the progress I made on Day 1, finishing 25% of the campsites and roughly 33% of the physical territory.
Before I even began documenting sites, a park vehicle drove past me. Then it stopped in the middle of the road. I thought maybe they wanted to talk to me, so I turned around. I flatter myself sometimes. They had no interest in talking to me. They were stopped because there was a fox in the middle of the road, slowly approaching me and Elo from behind.
I had seen the resident fox at Pog Lake twice on my last trip, but both encounters were in the evening when it was too dark for photos. I got excited and quickly grabbed my camera from my chest harness. The fox stuck around, curiously, for close to 10 minutes. It would slowly approach me and Elo, then get skittish and run back. Then it would repeat that process. For some reason it was very intrigued by us. Realistically, the fox was not intrigued by “us” but was likely just intrigued by Elo.
I snapped plenty of photos and videos, with lots of keepers that I was very happy with. Finally, I had a good encounter with the Pog Lake fox! Then my phone buzzed and I got a notification about a work meeting in 10 minutes that I had completely forgotten about. I know what you’re thinking “why the heck are you working when you’re in Algonquin Park?” Well, I could either go to the park for a week while accommodating a few work meetings, or I could not go to the park at all… the choice was obvious to me!
So, I stood in the middle of the campground and took the work call for one hour. At some point in the middle of the call, the curious fox came and paid us another visit. It didn’t stick around for too long this time, but it was still nice to say hello again. We were basically besties by that point.
When the work call ended at 12:00 PM I was finally ready to start my work at Pog Lake. I only made it through four campsites before park staff drove by and said they were cutting down some trees in the area, so I should find a different section to walk around. Great. My morning had been wildly unproductive so far, and I was already tired and ready for a nap. I managed to document 23 more campsites before I gave up and went back to my car. A 27 campsite session wasn’t much, but at least it was better than zero.
The sun was high in the cloudless sky and the temperatures were in the low teens. It was a gorgeous day. I went for a short midday nap in the tent and then went back at Pog Lake to continue documenting, before yet another work call at 5:00 PM. If you did a physical face-palm while reading that sentence, don’t worry, I’m with you. But I’d rather take work calls while I’m in Algonquin Park than let work prevent me from coming to Algonquin Park at all. Glass half full, right?
I was much more productive in the afternoon, finishing an additional 40 campsites. That brought my total to roughly 140 of the 286 campsites in the campground. Two days of work, and I was halfway finished. The most time consuming sections and campsites were behind me, so I anticipated the remaining campsites could be done in two days, or one really strenuous day.
On Day 1, I documented Section C, which is my favourite section in the campground. The campsites are large, spaced out, and private. Almost all of them are in secluded loops with only a few other campsites, meaning there will be little vehicle traffic within each secluded loop.
On Day 2, I was documenting Section A. Many of the sites are still large and offer decent privacy, but not quite the same as Section C. There were a handful of mediocre sites too. The ones closest to the highway had audible noise from the passing vehicles. One thing I appreciated about Section A was that most of the campsites along the shoreline had a trail leading to the water. Water access was either private, or shared with one or two of the adjacent sites. While they’re technically not “waterfront” campsites, the water access would definitely be a nice perk.
After some failed wildlife searching, I went back to my campsite at 6:30 PM. The mostly-empty campsites surrounding me at Lake of Two Rivers were now mostly-full, with groups continuing to arrive throughout all hours of the evening. It was a Friday night, and some of my neighbouring campsites were the typical “It’s Friday night so we’re going to have some fun!” super loud type of campers. I know better than to expect peace and quiet while car camping, especially at Lake of Two Rivers, but there was one group behind my campsite that was particularly loud and obnoxious.
At 10:30 PM my obnoxious neighbours were still having a party and I didn’t feel inclined to get into my tent while it sounded like there was a concert happening next-door. I drove to the beach to enjoy the view of the moon hanging in the sky. I parked my car and turned off the headlights. Less than five minutes later, a wolf walked in front of my car, along the beach, and into the bushes!
Side note about the photos above…. yes, they suck. In the less blurry of the two photos above, there’s a smudge of grey in the middle, which is actually the wolf. The reason it looks like this is because it was so dark outside, that I needed to keep my camera’s shutter open for like three full seconds. So the wolf left the frame while the photo was still in the process of being captured. But if you look close enough you can see the rough outline of its figure. In the other photo, the blurrier of the two, despite how terrible the photo is, that is a wolf in the middle of the shot. It’s kind of impossible to photograph a moving subject like a wolf when it’s pitch black outside!
I got out of my car and stood silently, listening for its footsteps in the bushes. I heard it rustling beside me, moving towards the campsites. I got back into my car and saw it cross the road twice, bouncing between the campsites closest to the beach. Then I lost sight of it. Someone stopped me in the road and asked if I was looking for my dog. I pointed to Elo in the backseat and told them it was actually a wolf walking in the campground.
I drove to the front entrance of the campground just as a warden was entering the front gates. I told her about the wolf. She thanked me for the heads up and then quickly went to look for it. I don’t know what she intended to do if she found it, but that’s where the story ends. It’s like a TV show with a great cliff hanger, except the mystery will last forever, you wont be getting the satisfying result in the next episode.
Day 3 — Making Progress at Pog Lake Campground
Remind me to never camp at Lake of Two Rivers when it’s at full capacity. I already mentioned my loud neighbours, but I didn’t realize they’d be loud throughout every hour of the night. I was woken up to a variety of different sounds, like a car door slamming shut at 4:00 AM for some reason. I slept with my headphones in, with quiet music playing, but it still wasn’t enough to drown out the noise.
At 5:30 AM I was getting tired of getting woken up every hour (pun intended) so I decided to start my day. There was still more than an hour until the sun would rise, so I drove to the campground beach and slowly did my morning routine there, before heading out onto the highway.
The morning was minus two degrees with a thick frost covering the ground and an even thicker fog reducing visibility to near-zero. It was a frigid eerie morning, but it made the walk through the Mew Lake airfield unique and picturesque. At around 10:00 AM, the fog was beginning to clear and the temperature rose above zero degrees. That meant I could continue with the daunting task of documenting the Pog Lake campground. I was actually eager to keep documenting, because it would officially push me past the halfway mark.
I made great progress during my morning session, documenting 65 more campsites. I started with the dog-free zone, picking up where I left off the previous day. Almost every campsite sits on steep-sloping ground, and Highway 60 could be seen and heard from many of the sites. Unless you really dislike dogs, I don’t know why anyone would choose this section of the campground.
Sadly, the Pog Lake fox didn’t come to say hello! Although I did see a squirrel. Who cares, it’s just a squirrel, right? But this one was actually really cute. It was perched on a log nibbling away at some food. The sun was casting light in just the right spot, making the squirrel look quite attractive. That’s what Elo told me, at least. I was right beside the squirrel taking photos for a few seconds before it finally noticed me and ran away.
When I started the morning session, it was freezing cold, so I kept my layers on. By the time I finished, I thought to myself “Why the heck am I wearing wool socks and long underwear right now?” The sun was hot and blazing down on me. It was around 15 degrees and with more than 15k steps already accumulated so far today (plus 50k+ steps from the first two days), my feet were sore and I was sweating through my clothes.
With only 80 campsites remaining, I was one step closer to finishing my work at Pog Lake. I stripped out of my layers and went back to my campsite at Lake of Two Rivers for a mid-afternoon nap with Elo. Then I went back at Pog Lake at 3:15 PM and chipped away at another 35 sites. One. Step. Closer. Only 45 campsites remaining.
Elo began slowing down and panting early into the afternoon session, so I stopped after one hour. I went for a drive up and down Highway 60, enjoying the past-peak fall colours and wondering why the hiking trails were still so gosh darn busy. I’ve never seen so much overflow parking on the highway this late in the season. To be fair, the colours were hanging on longer than usual, and leaf fall was lower than typical for this time of year. It was obvious that the colours were past-peak, but the trees still put on a display worth admiring.
The sun had crossed the shoreline and I began thinking to myself that it might be the first day in a long time without any wildlife sightings. Other than the squirrel earlier in the day, but I don’t really count that. Then it happened. I saw about 15 cars pulled over and knew that something exciting was happening. It was the same cow and calf moose that I saw on Day 1. They were in the same spot doing the same thing… feeding. The light was low and my ISO was cranked, but I spent 15 minutes watching the moose in their natural habitat. I took tons of photos that probably looked identical to the photoshoot from Day 1. But is there really such thing as having too many moose photos!?
I felt satisfied after the last-minute moose encounter. I went back to my campsite and followed the same routine as the previous evenings. Fire, dinner, whiskey, banana bread, and admiring the full moon hanging in the sky. There was no wolf at the campground though, unfortunately.
Day 4 — Finishing at Pog Lake & More Wildlife Sightings
Whenever I have a good wildlife day, I think to myself “That’s it. That was amazing. I’ll never have another day like that again”. And then a day like today happens. But let me take a step back. My day began at 5:30 AM after a surprisingly great sleep.
I killed time in my car, doing my morning routine, until there was enough sunlight to go searching for wildlife. My morning wildlife search wasn’t very successful, with the exception of a bald eagle that flew overhead. I was able to get a few photos, but none that turned out great and worth sharing.
While driving I noticed something cross the highway in the far distance. It either had to be a fox or a wolf. It was too big to be anything smaller, and it was too small to be anything bigger. By the time I arrived it was already hidden in the trees. I stuck around for a bit, but it never showed again. I’ll call this one the “mystery wildlife sighting”.
I ended my morning with a walk at the Mew Lake airfield, which was standard routine for this trip. Like every previous day, I didn’t have any luck seeing large wildlife, but I did see a snow bunting (bird) which was a first for me. I’ll take the small wins!
The next part of my day had me all giddy and excited. I was about to finish the daunting task of documenting the Pog Lake campground! I had 45 sites remaining, which I was able to finish in less than two hours. Like most of the previous campsites I had documented, many of the sites from this session were also located on steep-sloping ground. The Pog Lake campground is massive, but there are only certain sections and campsites that I personally find desirable. In particular, I enjoyed the campsites that offer good privacy, as well as the ones with water access. It’s a good thing I now have high-res photos and 360-degree videos of every campsite to reference in the future! (p.s. you can get access to all backcountry + frontcountry campsite reports by becoming a member)
I finished at Pog Lake at 12:30 PM and it felt like a summer day outside. It was the hottest day of the trip so far, with a temperature of 20 degrees and sunny skies. As I drove down Highway 60, I enjoyed seeing the park come alive, with cars on the road and full parking lots at the hiking trails. It was such a different atmosphere than just a few hours earlier.
I went back to my campsite for my routine midday nap with Elo. My loud neighbours had set up a TV at their campsite and had football Sunday blasting at full volume. Some people are so ridiculously inconsiderate, it’s honestly unbelievable.
Even though I finished documenting all of the campsites at Pog Lake, there was still more work I was hoping to finish on this trip. I still wanted to do a walkthrough for general photos of the Pog Lake campground, do a 360-video walkthrough of the Whitefish Lake campground, and do a 360-video walkthrough of the Rock Lake campground. I didn’t feel like any of those were mandatory, but I was hoping to add at least a couple more checkmarks to my to-do list. But for the remainder of Day 4, I decided to rest. Elo and I had already done 90k+ steps in the four days, so far, and we were both feeling it.
I went back to the pine marten location from earlier in the trip and saw someone pointing their camera at the tree. I knew he wasn’t pointing it there for nothing! I quickly parked my car and walked over, just in the knick of time. I was finally able to photograph my first ever pine marten. It only stuck around for 30 seconds before running off into the bush. I was fiddling with my camera settings during that time, so most of my photos turned out blurry, but I did get some great shots that I was really happy about.
So far, during Day 4 I had seen a bald eagle, the mystery animal, a snow bunting, a few more birds at my campsite, and now the pine marten. It was a good day for wildlife. I went for a drive to get some firewood and fill up on gas, and guess what… I saw more wildlife. It was a fox with a bad case of mange that I’m pretty sure was blind in both eyes. It was really sad to see. Its eyes were permanently closed and it kept rolling on the ground to scratch its patchy fur. Despite being blind it still had a strong sense of awareness because it kept going back to the same spots, and was able to cross the highway successfully. I felt terrible because it was in really poor health. There was nothing that I was able to do in that moment, but I know a wildlife photographer that lives in the general area so I told him about the fox and he said he was going to try to get it some help.
While driving through the park I really appreciated the late-fall colours on the trees. In the few days since I had arrived, the golden encore of fall colours had become much more prominent. Many trees were bare, but many were still shining bright golden yellow. Certain landscapes throughout Highway 60 were quite beautiful, especially with the late-afternoon sun poking through the overcast sky to illuminate the golden leaves.
After the sun had set, during the final moments of light, I went back to the pine marten location in hopes of another sighting. On my way, something shocked me. A bear cub walked across the road in front of my car. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought it was a raccoon. I was NOT expecting to see a bear, let alone a cub all on its own.
I obviously didn’t want to get close to the cub, and I also didn’t want to stop driving in the middle of a narrow road to take photos. I found somewhere to pull over and quickly grabbed my camera. I had to crank my ISO to 12,800 just for my camera to focus. I was able to get literally two photos before the cub disappeared. They were both blurry, far away, and butt shots. They were enough to prove the event happened, but not much more than that.
I waited for a few minutes and it came back out and walked across the road again. Then it disappeared for good. I hung around for a while, but it didn’t show again. I saw an Ontario Parks truck, so I flagged it down to let them know about the bear.
It was the same lady that I reported the late-night wolf sighting to, two days earlier. She was accompanied by another man. They asked me to show them specifically where I saw the cub, so I lead them to the spot and showed them the photos on my camera. It was very dark outside so they looked around with a flashlight, but couldn’t find the cub. I didn’t expect that they would. They thanked me for the info though. They said they’ll be keeping an eye out for it, and they’ll be putting up a sign at the campground to notify the other campers that a bear is in the area.
I took that opportunity with the warden to let her know about my obnoxious campsite neighbours. We weren’t at my campground during this bear encounter, but I knew that my campground was also part of the area that she patrolled. When I mentioned the blasting TV she immediately knew the campsite that I was talking about. She said she would speak with them and ask them to keep things quiet. Unfortunately, I don’t think she followed through. I went back to my campsite to make myself dinner and for the entire evening I was listening to the TV at full volume. The whole campground was probably able to hear the game. It was ridiculous. One of my other neighbours did confront them and ask them to be quiet, which helped somewhat.
In the late evening, while sitting beside the fire, and listening to the play-by-play of the Steelers game, I heard Elo growl and lunge. That means one thing. There’s an animal at the campsite. It was a raccoon that quickly ran up the tree beside my tent. I wasn’t phased. Elo was tethered so she wasn’t going anywhere. I grabbed my camera and took a few photos of the raccoon while it looked at me, curious why Elo wasn’t being so friendly to it. Eventually it took the hint that it wasn’t welcomed and walked away.
For the first time all trip, it was a warm evening. The overnight low was forecasted to be eight degrees, which would be the first night that it was going to be above zero. I didn’t need my toque, gloves, or even my jacket. It was a nice change compared to the rest of the trip.
After my bedtime routine and late-night visit to the comfort station, I was still feeling wide awake so I went for a short midnight drive under the moonlight. At 12:30 AM I put in my headphones to drown out my obnoxious neighbours, and went to bed. Day 4 was a huge success. I finished documenting all 286 campsites at Pog Lake, and I had a crazy wildlife day. I saw a bald eagle, the mystery animal, a ton of birds, a grouse, a pine marten, a fox, a bear cub, and a raccoon. It was pretty epic.
Day 5 — Fox, Woodpecker, Canada Jay, Pine Marten, And Raccoons
I awoke a few minutes before 6:00 AM to the sound of leaves rustling nearby my tent. It was probably the raccoon roaming around, but I was kind of hoping the wolf had made another appearance. When I finally got out of my cozy sleeping bag, whatever animal it was, it was long gone.
My day immediately began with a wildlife sighting. As I was leaving the campground, a fox ran across the road beside the garbage dump. My car must have spooked it. It was long before the sunrise, so I didn’t even bother to try and get photos. You can continue to scavenge the garbage in peace, little guy!
I went back to the Mew Lake airfield for my traditional morning walk with Elo. It felt weird actually being comfortably warm while walking. It was almost double digits and I wasn’t freezing cold the entire time. The warm morning did mean that there was no frost or fog in the airfield. The landscape was still pretty though, especially as the sun rose above the shoreline behind the whisking clouds.
I know this trip is all about the daunting task of documenting the Pog Lake campground, but now that I was finished, I still wanted to continue with my work at the other campgrounds. I made my way to the Whitefish Lake campground. I left my car at a nearby parking lot, and walked along the highway to the entrance of the campground.
I walked through each of the individual campsites, as well as the entire campground, to take 360-degree videos. It took me just over one hour. I also had another work call that I needed to take. To be fair, there are definitely worse places to take a work call than an empty campground in Algonquin Park during a hot sunny say… I’m just saying.
Speaking of hot sunny days, it was literally 22 degrees and sunny. On October 21st. That’s global warming for you, folks. Despite the temperature, it was still a Monday, and that meant the park was relatively empty. The fall colours were well past-peak and most of the campgrounds were closed, so there weren’t too many people around. The hiking trails still had some cars in the parking lots, but nowhere near the hoards of people present just one day earlier. Even the golden encore was starting to look a little bit less golden, with more leaves fallen to the ground from the strong winds.
After my late-morning nap, I drove to the Rock Lake campground to do a 360-degree video walkthrough of Campground A. I probably could have finished Campground B as well, but Elo was moving pretty slowly and I didn’t want to overexert her. While in Campground A I was able to get some photos of a pileated woodpecker, my first wildlife sighting of the day. Then I went back to the pine marten location from the previous day. There were two different pine martens hanging around the location, and on this day, I arrived to find the second one (that I hadn’t photographed yet) taking a nap in the tree.
There was a Canada Jay (also known as Grey Jay) flying around the same tree, which I was able to photograph while waiting for the pine marten to wake up. I guess I arrived at a good time! I continued waiting for the pine marten and eventually my patience paid off. It moved from its hiding spot and presented itself for a great photo opportunity. It made its way into the campground’s garbage dump, scavenged some dinner, and then climbed back up the same tree. With a full tummy, I had a feeling it would go right back to sleep, so I didn’t stick around for too long after that.
There was only a couple hours of sunlight left so I went searching for more wildlife. I didn’t see anything else after the pine marten, so I went back to my campsite. My evening routine was the same as every other night, with one big exception. It was quiet. Silent, almost. Some of my neighbouring campsites had new groups occupying the site, and one of the sites directly beside me was vacant. But every group was completely silent. The entire Lake of Two Rivers campground was maybe 25% full, and every single group at the campground was quiet and respectful.
There was no football Sunday blasting from a TV. There was no loud, obnoxious yelling. I was even able to hear the cars go by on Highway 60, which I wasn’t able to hear during any previous night. It was weirdly quiet, but in the most pleasing way. The raccoon paid us another visit too, and brought his raccoon friend along with him. I saw two different sets of eyes staring at me and Elo from two adjacent trees. The raccoon-duo was a nice way to end the evening after already seeing a fox, a woodpecker, a grey jay, and a pine marten earlier in the day.
Day 6 — The Craziest Wildlife Experience (With a Wolf)
Can I tell you a secret? I like to write my Trip Reports “live” at the end of each day, while sitting beside the fire. It helps when everything is still fresh in my head, and makes it so that I don’t need to write the entire trip report when I get home. So, at the beginning of Day 4, when I wrote “That’s it. That was amazing. I’ll never have another day like that again”… I had no idea what I was about to encounter on Day 6.
It was a very warm October morning. I went for a drive to the spot that I had seen wolves during previous trips. I knew that one wolf in particular liked to roam around overnight and then come back home to the rest of the pack in the morning, right around sunrise. I hung around for a while, but eventually gave up. I started driving to my next destination, to search for moose. On my way, I saw one car pulled over. I didn’t think much of it, the person was probably taking a pee or taking a photo of the sunrise or something. And then I saw it. There was a wolf.
I’m going to keep some of the specific details about this encounter vague. The situation with the wolves throughout 2024 was not great. They had become habituated and were no longer fearful of humans, cars, or the highway. So, I don’t want to provide any information that could be abused to potentially make the situation worse (this is a public blog post, after all).
Knowing that the wolf was likely not fearful of me, I pulled over very far away. I did not want to get too close. I pulled over in a parking area rather than on the direct shoulder of the highway. I anticipated the wolf would go into the bush before passing me, but if it did stay on the highway, the place that I parked would create extra distance between myself and the wolf.
I was outside of my vehicle taking photos and the wolf was walking towards me. Keep in mind that I use a telephoto lens on a crop-body camera, so I was able to take photos while remaining very far away. I stopped taking photos when it got close, but then it kept walking directly towards me. Almost like it was wanting something. It got way too close for comfort. It made me think people have been intentionally feeding the wolves, which would be really bad if true. Please, do not ever feed any wild animal, no matter how big or small!
I didn’t want to do anything sudden to make it feel threatened, but once it came directly in front of me, I turned and got into my car. It’s never a good idea to turn your back to a wild animal, but I had no other choice when it was directly in front of me. I should have turned around earlier, but I wasn’t expecting it to directly approach me the way that it did. It was one of those “in the moment” scenarios where everything happened so quickly. Even once I got into my car, the wolf stood beside my vehicle, completely unfazed. It smelled some roadkill on the highway and then peed on it (the photos above).
The wolf travelled several kilometres on the highway, back to its pack’s location, where I started my search earlier. I had lots of encounters with these wolves throughout the 2024 season, but nothing like this. I have never seen them actively approach a human. They have always kept their distance and have run back into the bush when people were around. Just two days earlier I saw this same wolf at my campground, and it was avoiding people. Hindsight is 20/20, but had I known just how fearless this wolf was, I should have honked to scare it off the highway instead of taking photos.
I’m also very lucky that Elo is as well-behaved as she is. I kept her in the car the entire time, and she was completely silent. But her presence alone could have been enough to trigger the wolf’s predatory instincts. This is why I ended up turning around to get back into my vehicle once the wolf was directly in front of me. There was risk involved with that decision, but I decided it was less risk than standing a few feet away from a wild wolf, when at any moment it could have seen Elo and gotten triggered.
Overall, this was hands down one of the craziest wildlife experiences I’ve ever had. I reviewed my photos on my camera’s screen and was still in disbelief from what had just happened. I had an adrenaline rush that lasted the entire rest of the day.
After the wolf experience, I went to finish my 360-video work at the Rock Lake campground. It was the hottest day yet, 23 degrees with sunny skies. On October 22nd. That’s definitely not normal. I finished my work within one hour, and then drove back to my campsite for a quick nap before packing up.
I left my campsite at the 2:00 PM check-out time and drove to the pine marten location. One of the pine martens was back, along with the Canada Jay. I had one final work call to take, but I figured out a way to kill two birds with one stone (no, not literally!) I had my iPhone sandwiched between my ear and my shoulder while I was taking photos. There was another wildlife photographer there, and he was talking to me in my other “free” ear while I was on my work call. Talk about multi-tasking! Whenever it was my turn to contribute to the work call, I would walk backwards (to not disturb the wildlife), unmute myself, say what I needed to say, then mute myself again and walk back to the wildlife. I somehow managed to pull this off for like 30 minutes.
After the pine marten and Canada Jay, I went for one last wildlife search. There was a bull moose in the area that kept evading me all trip, so I went looking for him. After not having any luck, I accepted my fate that he just simply didn’t want to be photographed. I’m sure he heard the news that I had already photographed the cow and the calf moose earlier in the trip (twice!), plus several pine martens, foxes, bear, wolf, and more. The bull moose must have thought “Seriously? And he still wants more pictures? Screw that guy, I’m going to go hide in the bushes. Let me know when he leaves”.
And so I left, at 4:30 PM, while there was still some light in the sky.
The Aftermath
This was my final real trip of the 2024 season and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. The weather was fantastic and the wildlife was the best I’ve ever experienced. It was the first time I’ve ever seen the dream trifecta—moose, wolf, and bear—during the same trip. Here’s the final tally:
– A cow and calf moose together, on two separate evenings
– The bear cub on the road
– Two wolf encounters; at my campground, and then the crazy experience on the highway
– Three separate fox sightings
– The mystery animal on the highway
– Two different pine martens, one of which I got to photograph twice
– A bald eagle, grouse, Canada Jay (twice), pileated woodpecker, snow bunting, and more birds
– A few raccoons
I only had one complaint the entire trip. My obnoxious neighbours. I have nothing against having fun. I have no problem with people bringing city luxuries like a TV with them. Everyone views camping differently, and who am I to decide how someone else should camp? But it crosses the line when your actions impact other people around you. Have a campfire, watch TV, do whatever you want. But be respectful to your neighbours. In my opinion, the park needs to do a better job with enforcement. The wardens were constantly driving around the campgrounds, but I never saw them get out of their vehicle. If they actually assessed each campsite, fines would be handed out to at least 50% of groups for obvious issues like leaving food and coolers out overnight. I would love to see ticketing blitzes at the campgrounds. Right now, people are doing whatever the heck they want, and they’re getting away with it.
I’m going to take a deep breath and calm down, and end this trip report on a positive note. The daunting task of documenting the Pog Lake campground was finally finished. I was also able to get some more work done at Whitefish Lake campground and Rock Lake campground. In terms of work, it was a highly productive trip, and I felt exceptionally accomplished. I walked a total of 135k steps over the 6 days, and my body wasn’t letting me forget that. The wildlife was the best I have ever experienced (especially that final wolf encounter, holy smokes, that memory will last forever), and I couldn’t have asked for better weather for six straight days. This trip was an all-time favourite, that’s for sure.
