Killarney, Part Three (Parts 1 & 2 below)

My camp-to-be is still occupied when I arrive in the park so I go for an amble to untie my legs. I return later to the now vacated yurt, ready and waiting for me to move in. By the time I settle in it’s mid-afternoon, too late to go for any kind of an ambitious hike (dark comes early this time of year) so, instead, I wander along the lake’s edge, admiring the ancient rocks that define Killarney.

Accented by the late afternoon light, the near shoreline of George Lake glows an improbable pink. From a distance, the rock appears rounded and smooth – this from eons of erosion and numerous glacial bulldozings. A closer up inspection however, reveals deep grooves, fractures, fissures and scour marks – this rock has truly been ‘etched by the ages’. In addition to its unique coloration, in places you’ll find rich veins of smooth, marbley-white quartzite running through it, quite striking in contrast to the pink. These quartzite veins remind me of a much larger version of the delicate inlays you’ll sometimes find in high-end wood furniture. Mother Nature’s inlays.

Now I gaze further out into the distance upon the impressive ridges of gleaming white quartzite, remnants of a once towering mountain range, that plunge precipitously into the lake. Hiking up on those ridges in bright sunshine can be literally blinding – sunglasses de rigueur.

I then try to imagine these diminutive mountains once soaring higher than the Rockies but I fail miserably; I just can’t envision these ancient, rounded ridges as the spiky towers they undoubtedly once were.

The rocks here are among the oldest on the planet; depending on where you are in the park, they range from about 2.2 to 3.5 billion years old. I think about how long these mountains have been crumbling and dissolving to reach their current state and I realize just how little of that time we have been around – modern man doesn’t even qualify as a blip on the radar.

Meandering now away from the lake, I enter the woods and the piney/earthy scent immediately hijacks me, as some smells are wont to do. I slip into a reverie; a highlight reel of past visits dances through my mind. I remember as if it were yesterday the first time I climbed to the top of Killarney Ridge and was completely dumbstruck by the view. I recall the sudden and enthusiastic chorus of a wolf pack howling together on some distant ridge; until that moment I had never heard a wolf howl or even been in a place where wolves still roamed. I’ll never forget watching the setting sun light the red rocks of the Georgian Bay shoreline on fire and marveling about how I’d never seen bare rock look so beautiful.

And then there was the night that, while admiring a perfect reflection of the Big Dipper on the still surface of Lake George, a shooting star streaked across the scene, how I wished I’d been able to capture that on film! Once I ran into (well, not literally) the same moose twice on a trail at two different elevations, as if he was a friend, meeting up with me. Another time I was privileged enough to watch a family of otters play at waters edge like kittens as I silently drifted by in my canoe. I remember spotting a beautiful flower I’d never seen before along a trail and wondered what it was; when I looked it up later imagine my surprise when I found it was a wild orchid - I had always thought orchids were too exotic to be found along hiking trails!

I thought I’d died and gone to heaven the first time ever I woke to eerie warbling of loons reverberating across the lake in the complete stillness of dawn – how I thrill to that haunting sound, even today. And I’ll never forget seeing that black bear family I mentioned earlier, sitting placidly and contentedly by the side of the road, munching on berries. This place holds so many wonderful memories for me I could go on forever... as these scenes flashed through my head I realize just how much I love this place and why I am drawn back again and again, like nowhere else...

Part Four soon!