CANADIAN BOUNDARY WATERS

Visitors can follow the routes of the historic French Canadian fur trade of the 1600's across the same sparkling, drinking water lakes, down the same shaded streams and over the same blazed portages that resounded to the boots of the explorers like Pierre Radisson and Alexander MacKenzie.

Quetico Park covers 4,800 square kilometers of untouched wilderness in Northern Ontario's Pre-Cambrian shield rock forest. The primitive area of around 2500 drinking water lakes, numerous sand beaches and towering pine forests has no peer on the North American continent for the adventurer seeking solitude, superb sport fishing, and the opportunity to study rare wildlife in its native habitat. While natives of the Lac La Croix Indian band are allowed restricted motor use on some perimeter lakes, visitors to Quetico Park may not use outboard motors and remote interior areas must be explored by canoe. No hunting, roads, or development of any kind are allowed and firearms are prohibited. Quetico enjoys an international reputation as a canoeing wilderness without equal. While multiple use recreational areas like Alqonquin and the BWCA are easier to reach from large urban centers, Quetico's wilderness classification, it's isolation and limited travel permits help to protect and preserve this wild landscape.

The White Otter Wilderness Area does not enjoy the protection of a wilderness class park though it is an area just north of Quetico that offers travelers a whole new experience. There are many different canoe routes in this area and at times it offers for a level of remoteness that is above that of Quetico. Outfitters can fly you to many different destinations for one way trips or any number of loop trips can be enjoyed without the use of a floatplane. As with Quetico, this area offers large rock cliffs, drinking water lakes, abundant wildlife, as well as great Walleye, Smallmouth Bass, Northern Pike and Lake Trout fishing. The two jewels of this area are the Turtle River Waterway Park and White Otter Lake. The Waterway Park offers beginner level white-water, great fishing, great senery, a moraine, some of the oldest rocks on earth and can be done in 5 or 10 day trips. White Otter Lake offers 250 kilometers of shoreline with amazing rock cliffs, Native American Pictographs, the remains of a WWII POW camp and the White Otter Castle, a 4 storey log castle that is designated a historical site and was built by one man in the early 1900's.

The Western Boundary Waters area of Ontario offers literally thousands of paddling possibilities.

To learn more about paddling in Ontario, and outfitting companies, please visit: www.paddlingontario.com