DW has wanted to paddle the Bonnechere River for almost as long as we've had kayaks. She has read up on various parts of this 145-kilometre-long waterway, from where it originates, out of McKaskill Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park, to where it end up, in the Ottawa River, about 20 kms upstream from Arnprior.
She's never said that she'd want to paddle the entirety of the river—indeed, I don't think the entire length is navigable for our kayaks, with boggy sections and some portages up to 1.5 kms long—but she's wanted to travel some sections of the river.
A couple of years ago, we planned to take a one-way journey down the Bonnechere, starting around Stevenson Lake and ending up at Round Lake, in Bonnechere Provincial Park. Our Paddlefolk were in, and we arranged so that we'd have one car at either end, but I awoke on the morning of that paddle with a migraine, and we decided to postpone that paddle for another time.
We never organized another time, though I'm sure we'd still like to do it. However, DW and I did go to Bonnechere Provincial Park this summer, and we paddled from the campsite, near Round Lake, upstream to the base of Jack's Chute. It was a great paddle—despite the fact that I was in a lot of pain and on a ton of meds—that I captured in a YouTube video.
As nice as that paddle was, DW still wants to do more exploring of the Bonnechere River. She'd like to put our kayaks in at the river in Renfrew and see how far downstream we can go. Perhaps next year and after some thorough investigation because I think that can be a treacherous stretch.
But a couple of weekends ago, we met up with our Paddlefolk and put our kayaks in to this river a short distance away from where it ends at the Ottawa River. There's a boat launch near Fergusons Beach (Horton's Boat Launch) that has a dock that can service anything from a kayak to a motorboat. It costs $9 to park for the day, so bring some cash with you.
We paddled about a kilometre and a half, upstream, until we came to Bonnechere Falls, a lovely waterfall. We were able to get out of our kayaks and stretch, and I also flew my drone to get better views of the falls.
Unfortunately, while getting back into my kayak, I slipped on the sloped, rocky shore and fell over in my kayak, getting completely soaked. It wasn't until we got back to our car that I realized I had taken a chunk of skin off of an elbow, but the worst part was that I hadn't packed any spare clothes (I was getting in and out on a dock so felt the chances of falling in the water to be nil—I guess I should have stayed in my boat at the falls).
We planned to paddle back to the put-in point and wanted to continue to the mouth of the Ottawa River, because the paddle would have ended up to be short, otherwise. What we didn't plan for was to cross the river to the Québec side and explore that area.
That was a bonus.
You can see our whole trip (minus my accident) in the latest YouTube video. Have a watch:
We're approaching the end of kayaking season for 2025 but there's still one more video to come, and hopefully we'll be able to find another nice weekend to get our kayaks in the water. This weekend would have been perfect but I was very sick and spent the days in bed.
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Happy Monday!
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