And this is the day I'd been waiting for for a while, and I didn't even know it. Let me explain...
I discovered Grey Owl a while back (if you don't know about him, it's worth a little research), and I had learned during my planning of the trip that his cabin was still in Prince Albert National Park. However, it was only accessible through 2 days of canoeing or a 20 km one way trail... But, lo and behold, he also had a cabin in Riding Mountain! And it's still there! My dream of a pilgrimage to his cabin was more accessible than ever. So we entered the park through the mythical East Gate, the only original gate still standing in all of Canada's national parks.
After registering and asking the receptionists about the trail, we learned it was a 5-hour trail of medium difficulty, around 18 km to go and come back depending on the path we would take (there was an optional loop). Well, after gearing up like pros with our bear bell (we did see a family of bears on the road to the parking lot...), we hit the trail and made really good time. We stopped at Lake Brûlé on the way there, and after a while finally got to the little cabin. Parks Canada is doing a great job of restoring the place, and there were all kinds of documents for consultation in the cabin. You can see on the pictures below some photographs of Grey Owl with his beavers, Jelly Roll and Rawhide, the view of the pond from inside the cabin, and a book with the documents.
After a little picnic to enjoy our accomplishment, we went back to the trail and decided to take the longer way back just to see the lake again. We lay down on the dock and basked in the sun for a little while. I even dipped my poor feet in the water at that point, and boy did it feel good!
There was a group of retirees hanging around (they were doing the short Brûlé loop), and we eventually got up to meet them. And at that moment, a bear jumped out of the bushes! It got scared of the noise and ran towards the lake, but it stayed relatively close so we were able to get him on video. Even though it was not aggressive, we were quite happy to be with a group of people at that point...
Back at the parking lot, we realized we'd been really fast: 4 hours in total! We were quite proud of ourselves. And that was it for the park! We found a campground in a little town on our list of places to visit, and headed there to spend the night. Stay tuned, folks! 💜
TL;DR: I was finally able to see one of Grey Owl's cabins at Riding Mountain, and boy was it worth the nearly 18-km hike! We also enjoyed a little sunbath on the lake, and we managed to film a black bear.
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