Paddling the canoe when it's empty of cargo is something else altogether. There's room to be comfortable, to enable you to switch positions as the mood takes you. And to allow you the leisure required to fully appreciate your surroundings. Anxiety to settle on a site to camp on is gone, the rush to get everything done before dusk descends has passed, and the full realization of where you are and the sights to be seen can be fully appreciated.

The expanse of the lake, and its sightlines in every direction. The sight of an osprey gracefully winging across the lake, to settle on a far shore and begin preening itself. The loons surfacing here and there, sometimes a family of loons. You sight them and suddenly they submerge, to pop up again a surprising distance from their first sighting. And when they call their high-pitched lunatic sound like someone in an asylum maniacally chortling, unlike their more mournful night-time cry, it's attention grabbing.

The water lapping against the canoe when you decide to pull in paddles and just drift along the shoreline, to look at closer range at what lies beyond, within the forest circling the lake, to enjoy the beauty of the white-flowered water lilies, the purple-spiked pickerel weed plants and others whose name you don't know, but whose delicate floral blooms are as exquisite as any of your favourite garden plants at home in your own garden.

The water is warm, much, much warmer than the ambient atmosphere, and as you paddle along, the wind brings with it the warmth of the lake, washing over you, presenting a temporarily brief challenge to the cold air of the day's outing. It's an environment unlike any other, and one to be relished for its effect on your sensibilities, an elevation of awareness of your natural surroundings.

The trees, though of species you're familiar with, particularly the softwoods of pine, hemlock, spruce and fir take on a different appearance here in the wilderness. They seem more robust, greener, more assured of their place in the natural world. The mosses are more luxuriant, brighter green, thicker. The impudence of the little furred animals, the mice, chipmunks, squirrels, more engaging as they inquisitively scurry about their environment that we happen at this moment to blunder into.

Mist rises from the lake, part of the temperature inversion from the cool of the air to the tepid warmth of the lake. It seems all-embracing and it is, with more than a touch of the mystical about it, reflecting our fascination with and ignorance of, the natural world around us.

On some of our many past Algonquin Park canoe-camping expeditions, particularly those further into the interior of that great swath of wilderness area, at night we would hear the approach of nocturnal animals prowling around the campsite, mostly raccoons needless to say, curious about our presence and what they might possibly discover of an edible nature. Mice often came about to indulge themselves, dipping into our cooking utensils before they were cleaned up from the evening meal.

Gray jays seemed to prefer strands of pasta that had fallen out of the pot onto nearby rocks and they'd fly off with pasta dangling from their beaks. Once, when we were camped out at an interior site for a week, the tiny red squirrel whose residence was in a pine directly overhead our tent, kept tossing down pine cones at us.

On this occasion, all was still, although a white-footed mouse, unafraid and curious, had presented itself to us scurrying about on the cleared-away shelf elevated between two large evergreens where we had erected a rain-protective barrier and where our cooking took place, this time around. And there were ample red and black squirrels about, sighted constantly, dashing from tree to tree occasionally scolding us.

We slept the slumber of the exhausted that first night, on Thursday. The tent nicely accommodates three sleeping bags. Our son's single, and ours, zipped together to make up one wide sleeping bag, a 'double', into which Riley inserted himself beside me. My two men were up early the next morning, as is usual, whispering to my drowsy head to just stay there, and so I did, hearing them bustling about, hauling down the food bag, starting a fire, boiling water. And Riley was content to remain asleep beside me.

Loons called through the night, a sound that had become familiar to us over the years. And we also heard, confoundingly, the clearly identifiable sound of passenger jets flying overhead; obviously a major flight route, one we would have preferred not to hear since it is so contraindicated in nature to what it represents in contrast to where we were. The wind was relentless; we could hear it soughing through the trees, inciting the lake to lap in waves over the sandy beach below the slight rise our tent was raised upon.

When I finally emerged from the tent the campfire was on full blaze, and there was a hot cup of tea awaiting me. The wind persisted, emphasizing the chill of a day more like fall than late summer. And there was a light drizzle. While my husband made a breakfast of eggs and toast, our son and I were satisfied with toast, cheese, peanut butter, honey and tea to my husband's coffee. We had two clementines each, the peeling of which were my only contribution to breakfast preparations. And then we sat around the campfire, itself protected from the wind by yet another windbreak erected by my men.

After clean-up and a short hike through the woods to the group camp site beyond on the island next to us, we canoed back to the launch site to retrieve from our car beyond in the parking lot firewood that we had left behind when we loaded up the canoe for departure to our camp site the day before. And from there we paddled across the lake to an outtake where the map showed there was a trail we could take for a nice leisurely hike. It was, of course, a portage, but also serves as a trail leading to another lake.

Although the sky was densely overcast and a light rain prevailed, we were not the only hopefuls to pull up at the launch site at Mallard Lake on Thursday afternoon. A sturdily-built couple (actually, the male half of the pair was quite overweight, and despite the prevailing cold temperature at ten degrees Celsius, wretched wind and lightly falling rain, he was wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt and shorts) moved up alongside us to unload their camping gear.

With them was a young, sweet-tempered, inquisitive hound-beagle-mix. They proceeded to load up their rented canoe, and the interior of the small kayak they had with them, as well. The amount of gear they brought was far more than we had taken along, though we thought our baggage was excessive. But they were experienced canoe-campers and brought along as well two smart folding stools, as well as numerous bundles of firewood, intending to remain on the lake until Monday.

When they completed stacking their gear, both the canoe and the kayak were well stuffed, but they managed to get the dog secured in a limited open area, and got themselves both into the canoe as well, trailing the loaded-up kayak behind them. We watched as they rounded the mainland to the left, and realized they were headed for one of the closest camping sites, one we had ourselves taken many years before.

When we set off soon afterward, the lake was fairly ridged with small waves; choppy but no real swells or whitecaps. We soon re-discovered our paddling rhythm and moved swiftly across the water, our paddles digging deep and raising jewels of lakewater. The lake, we soon discovered, was far warmer than the air about us, so warm that waves of warm air kept washing over us as we rode the lake to our destination, somewhere where a camp site would appeal to us as haven for the next three days.

When we turned left at the head of an island to paddle around its length and width to scope out the camp sites on it, we rode into the wind and it pushed and shoved, but was no match for our three paddles vigorously moving us across the water, the effort warming us against the cold air. We had put on our two-piece rainsuits before departing the launch site, and Riley wore his waterproof winter coat so we were well enough geared against the cold, wind and rain.

At several sites we all got out of the canoe to inspect the amenities, then set off again to compare other sites most of which our energetic son went off on his own to evaluate while we awaited his verdict, sitting in the canoe. By this time we were good and tired after the long drive, the physical effort of packing up and moving on, so we were urging him to come to a decision; to balance the pros and cons and select the most appropriate-for-us under the circumstances camp site.

Considering the protective element; where the wind wouldn't be as intrusive, where previous generations of campers had erected useful amenities like 'tables' and 'log benches', the location and type of loo assigned to the site, the sight-lines to the lake, the picturesqueness or lack of, at the site itself, and the protective canopy of the surrounding forest as well as ease of accessibility. The site we all finally selected scored high on most of our requirements but low on wind-protection.

Which meant that once we had decided and finally made off straight for the site, and beached the canoe on its lovely little sand beach, then hauled out all of our gear, the first order of business was to put up a large windbreak. Our son and my husband never go anywhere like this without tarps and ropes, so we were prepared; the first tarp was 20' by 15', so it offered us some protection from the wind that provoked our ire for two of the three days we were camped there. The next nearest site on the island wasn't too distant from our own; easily accessible in a several-minute walk through a narrow forest trail and it was a group camp site, but unused for the length of our stay and equipped surprisingly only with an open 'box' for a loo, whereas at our single campsite we had a fully roofed and walled loo. Go figure.

It took hours to fully set up camp and begin dinner. Too wet and rainy for a campfire, and too late, as well, by the time we cleaned up the cooking utensils and plates, and hauled the food bag up to hang beyond the reach of raccoons or bears, between two large, sturdy pines. At midnight, we were glad enough to haul ourselves off to the dry warmth of the tent interior, lit by a candle-lantern, our sleeping bags cozily awaiting our wearied bodies, our minds triumphant with the satisfaction of being back once again at Algonquin Park. Where the spectacular environment, the views, our ecstatic awareness of being fully alive within nature's embrace thrilled our very marrow.

Our son was chief bottle-washer-and-cook on this little expedition, a seasoned and inveterate camper since the time when he was a young teen and he and his camping-green father set out for the first time on an Algonquin canoe-camping trip almost forty years earlier. He treated us to tortillas, crisply fried on the outside, the interiors brimming with tomato paste, ground sirloin, cheese, olives and red peppers. Tea washed it all down very nicely.

The camping spot we finally chose was fairly easy to access from the canoe, since it was on a point, on the largest of the two islands on Mallard Lake, with its own very private sandy beach. Which meant we wouldn't have to clamber up and down a rise that mounts toward the camping spot which identified many of the camp sites. All of them have some kind of rock-encircled spot to make camp fires within. And some of them are clearly meant as group camp sites with ample space for two or three tents to be erected. Ours was spacious, surrounded with pines, hemlock and spruce. All of the camp sites have been used for decades before they're closed and new ones in suitable spots are created.

On Mallard Lake (also called Sec Lake) there are about twenty camping spots, marked by those bright orange markers to alert weary canoeists anxiously looking to settle down for the night. It takes time to unload a canoe and set up camp. Most of the camp sites have what our son calls "toy boxes", just wooden boxes with a lift lid where one perches to conduct business; private business to be sure, but not all that private since the activity is open to the air and even scrutiny if anyone else is around, even though they're generally set back from the actual tent site.

We were lucky; ours was only the fourth car in the parking lot, about a seven-minute walk from the launch site, which meant that there would be at least sixteen camp sites unoccupied and we could have our pick. The one we eventually selected, after paddling about the lake in our gear-loaded canoe for what seemed like hours had a loo with a roof and enclosed walls, and that was a bonus.

We were pretty tired after the three-and-a-half hours' drive to get to Algonquin Park. From the registration office located at the perimeter it's another twenty to twenty-five miles into the park to get to Sec Lake, one of the closest lakes to the periphery, and one we'd camped at with Button, as a puppy, about twenty years earlier. She loved the lake, relished the opportunity to dive into it to retrieve sticks and stones and run madly about to dry off. At that time we'd had excellent weather.

Our son, visiting for a week because he was attending a conference in Quebec City, thought it would be neat to go back to the park for a short stay. He's become accustomed to camping, canoeing, kayaking and hiking and skiing in the mountains of British Columbia, completely different terrain. This would be revisiting old times when we frequently went canoe-camping in Algonquin Park, sometimes for a week at a time. Then, if there was lousy weather, there'd also be good weather to make up for it. We/he chose that lake because we wouldn't have to struggle with portages, long trails linking lake-to-lake for the more adventurous, requiring that all one's camping gear and the canoe have to be hauled along the portage to the lake of choice.

The allure of getting out into a wilderness area once again convinced us that we'd give it a try, though at our age we knew it would be more difficult. The weather was abysmal. We'd originally made reservations for Tuesday through to Thursday, but the weather report warned of 24-cm of rain for Tuesday and more the following days. So we re-scheduled for Thursday through to Saturday. And guess what? The weather was still inclement. Worse, it was incredibly cold. With highs in the park of 9C, incessant rain events, and winds at about 12kmhr gusting to 40. And on the point that we had selected the wind was persistent.

So our expert camping enthusiast set up wind breaks and rain shelters, along with our three-man tent. And a small dog; the tent accommodated the four of us very nicely; snug, warm and dry throughout the night. And then we'd awaken to dark clouds and rain events. Still, nature cooperated sufficiently to give us a few breaks, and they were nicely timed with breakfasts, and we warmed ourselves around a fire, and drank in the views, and enjoyed the presence of loons and ravens. So many loons, in fact, including families, that one wondered at the choice of naming the lake Mallard instead of Loon Lake.

Mulvihill Lake is a small and exceedingly lovely body of water located in Gatineau Park, in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec, a large nature preserve that is administered by the National Capital Commission, and it is located about a 30-minute drive from the nation's capital, just across the border between Ontario and Quebec. It has wonderful sight-lines, and in autumn the brilliant colours of the fall leaves in the surrounding forest are symmetrically echoed in the placid waters of the lake.

When we were there a few days ago, it was a windy day, for which we were grateful, since it was also an exceedingly hot day. The wind rippled the water from time to time, giving it an additional aspect to admire, and we did that, in abundance. After our hiking circuit, we couldn't have asked for a more peaceful place to rest and admire the surroundings that embraced us.

There is a dock with an extended platform edging a few hundred feet into the lake, with seating along the exterior edges for people to rest and inhale the wonderful fragrance of the lake, and the surrounding forest. There are schools of minnows always swimming about in the lake, and there are frogs, and fat tadpoles galore, and there are also small turtles to be seen.

And we saw them all, as we poked our heads above the railing and encouraged the fish and the turtles to mill frantically about and even surface, tossing small bits of twigs to entice them to frenzied response.

We watched as a Great Blue Heron winged its way from one end of the lake to the other. It settled in a small lagoon, and began preening, remaining where it had landed, busy with its grooming for the extent of our stay there. We watched as the lake responded to the sky; bright and reflective when the sun was out, dimming and translucent when the puffed white clouds obscured the sun.

Restful, relaxing, beautiful beyond peer.

The tranquility of the small but perfect forest lake invited us to linger on this most perfect of summer days. And so, we did.

We'd enjoyed seeing the brilliance of the bright red berries of honeysuckle, at the outset of our hike, at the promontory overlooking the farmland below Gatineau Park snuggling at its edges, and the long, rambling trek through the forest that followed, enclosed in the twilight ambiance of its interior. And the sparks of bright purple thistle flowers.

Tiny bright sparks of pink popped up now and again among the undergrowth geraniums interspersed between tree seedlings, wild ginger root, and the varied specimens of woodland plants that so intrigue us. The many and varied types of ferns ornamenting the bottom story of the forest floor. The proliferation of columbine foliage made me wish we'd come along earlier in the season when they would all have been in splendid floral bloom.

We made do with the peace and solitude of the forest trail, leading us over rocky outcroppings, the occasional glimpse of the forest marching down the hillside, and once in a while the sounds of woodpeckers searching out underbark insects of infected trees. We took our time, since there is always so much to see, from chipmunks hurrying about the forest floor, to the braille messages that nature and her creatures leave distinct upon the smooth, grey trunks of beech.

Here, a giant pine has fallen and is slowly crumbling into decay to further enrich the thickness of the moss-and-fungi, lichen-and-detritus-rich floor of the forest. It's curious to think that earthworms are alien to our forests, brought in centuries ago with settlers from Europe bringing with them their native plant specimens to plant their kitchen gardens. Now they are everywhere in urban areas across the continent, gradually and slowly moving into forest interiors and ultimately altering the composition of native soil.

In the process also displacing some native species; oven birds which make their homes on leafy nests on the ground find their nests being eaten by worms, and threatening their continued existence. Natural processes whereby fungi and insects once consumed fallen foliage transforming them into a different kind of forest compost have been challenged by the slow and steady incursion of earthworms originally native to Europe.

We've been in a brief dry spell, after copious rainfalls this summer. We were surprised still, at the low level of natural waterways spiralling through the portion of the forest we were trekking through, yesterday. Streams and ponds that we were accustomed to seeing well hydrated were almost dry. There were no minnows or other small fry to be seen other than lonely singles here and there.

It was an utterly delightful way to spend the afternoon which in the city was hot and humid, but where we were, in the forest with a fair breeze prevailing, the temperature was perfectly comfortable, aided by the growing cloud cover obscuring the heat of the sun and even more by by the effect of the protective leafy-green canopy above.

And our leisurely stroll through the forest, ending with an extended relaxed rest at the shore of Mulvihill Lake, put the finishing touches on a perfect summer's day.

We hadn't been back in ages. To the very place that was of such huge importance in our outdoor recreational life for so many years. There just seemed no reason to go there. It would mean having to drive over, though we could choose to visit one of the many trails we had become familiar with over the years, that wasn't quite as distant to drive to. A mere half-hour drive could take us reasonably close to a trail. But then, on the other hand, any time we wished it, all we had to do was amble up the street our house sits on, to access a long, rambling forested trail.

Of course it's far different in Gatineau Park. The sheer scope of the geography, the variety of the trails and the landscape they cover, the geology, the types of wildflowers that faithfully make their presence throughout the growing the seasons. The last time we went over there was, in fact, the last time our youngest son had visited with us. And since he was here again with us, we decided why not? He decided for us, in essence, trying to shake us out of our predictable habits.

And we happily agreed. As it happens it was also a very hot, sunny day, this very day. But we know that in the embrace of a forest we wouldn't be too uncomfortable, and we weren't. There was a nice, stiff breeze, and in a forest interior the canopy of the trees do a wonderful job of providing ample shade. So much so that at times, when the sun goes behind banks of clouds as it did from time to time today, the ambient light becomes very like twilight, lending an air of mystery to it all.

We came across a pair of rooks, saw and heard plenty of woodpeckers and crows, and while on the circuit of the trial we took, saw few people. The number of others on the trail, however, picked up as we neared the MacKenzie King Estate, heading down to the 'falls' which at this time of year are simply non-existent. Particularly now, when the water level in the stream that feeds it is the lowest we've ever seen. Despite which, the corrugated metal 'tunnel' one traverses approaching the trail reaching up to the Estate was full of water seeping through its floorboards; another of life's little mysteries.

We took our time, in no great hurry, delighted over the ubiquitous presence of tiny pink wild geraniums and ample evidence of other wildflowers, trilliums and columbine withered and gone but for the presence of fleabane and goldenrod. And fragrant carpets of sublimely lovely mauve-coloured thyme that we passed as we approached the site. A perfectly lovely way to spend a summer afternoon, far from the heat of the city, revelling in nature supreme.