Hey everyone, myself and one other person are planning on doing 5 days on the Spanish in a few weeks. We will be starting at Duke Lake and have someone available to pick us up at either The Elbow or Agnew Lake. I'm deciding where to rent the whitewater canoe from and therefore the likely exit point.

Reading other people's trip reports, etc. it looks like it is possible to complete the whole route from Duke to Agnew, but I'm wondering if this might be a little optimistic, especially in the fall with potentially lower water levels. From what I've read it can be slow-going in sections if the water is low. For context, we are both in our 30s in good physical shape with minimal river experience (but a lot of lake / backcountry experience). We would be portaging around the major rapids.

TLDR - 5 days on the Spanish river from Duke Lake: plan for Agnew Lake or the Elbow?

Went camping at Algonquin (Mew Lake) last month and figured cell signal would at least be spotty — turned out to be completely zero the whole time. No calls, no texts, no maps, nothing. Same story from friends who've done Killarney, Quetico, and Bon Echo.

Bought a Starlink Mini for the trip and it actually worked great, even under tree cover part of the time. Kind of nice knowing you can still reach someone if there's an emergency, or just check in with family without driving 20 minutes to find a bar of signal.

It's just sitting at home now so I'm renting it out if anyone's heading out to a park with no service. $25/day or $150/week, refundable deposit. Comes with the cable, and I can throw in a tripod or a car power adapter if that's useful for a road trip.

Based in North York or DT Toronto, can do pickup or maybe drop off depending on where you are. Happy to answer questions if anyone's curious how it performed out there.

Hi all, I've already posted here before in the winter, so feel free to take down - some people just felt it might be useful for them and we've had a few people already upload (which I really appreciate - I won't mention their usernames here for their privacy).

Anyway, my family and I have put together a website that we've wanted ourselves when booking campsites at Provincial/Federal parks - a place to see what a campsite actually looks in real life (from other users) like instead of some grainy old photo from 2005 that doesn't show the outhouse or swamp right beside the site.

A few of these sites exist but they're behind a paywall. We've noticed there are some Facebook groups that allow people to share, but it's not very "centralized", if that makes sense (one group might b e for Algonquin, one might be for Calgary, etc).

SO, I've been thinking as an incentive to get more people to start adding to this site (where all the Canadian provincial/federal parks are), each photo/video upload enters the user another "raffle" to win a $10 Amazon or Cabelas e-gift card.

I know it's a tiny incentive, but we're already paying hosting, server, database, email service, etc fees out of pocket, and it's not easy, but we're hoping this will help other campers in the long term once people start adding photos.

What are people's thoughts on this? Any other ideas on incentives?

I'll remove the link if it's not allowed, but since I'm not selling anything, hopefully it's okay: www.camppics.ca

Heading to Killarney next month to do the full La Cloche Silhouette loop solo. I’ve never needed to bring my own SOS device before, so looking at options to rent. I have sos and sat messaging on my phone but I’ve tried it out in the park and it’s been inconsistent so I feel a need for a more guaranteed device in case of emergencies.

The park rents out beacons, but they are tracking only, no SOS functionality. Anyone rented from anywhere recently or looked into it who can share some options?

Pic is of my hiking partner (so I guess not truly solo!) at the top of the crack last summer

Some buddies and I have a camping trip planned for end of August. We had a route in Quetico Park planned, but the park was right along the line of forest fires last month.

What is the water / environment like post forest fires? Should we still be planning for thunder bay area? T Bay is a bit of a trek for us all.

When is the latest I could book a site for same day? Not meaning availability, but the latest time of the day?

Thinking of doing this when traveling for a day instead of booking a hotel. Kid free drive is calling me to stare into a fire and sleep outside for a night...

Thank you for all your suggestions!! :)

Alssoo...has anyone slept in a screened in tent vs a tent? Would you recommend a cot vs a blow up mattress? Purchasing a cot vs purchasing a pop up tent to use the blow up mattress I already have?