First canoe trip of 2019 (early June) and first trip with my friend Amanda. This was a three day trip to Franklin Island. The first night we camped on a little island right by the main island and the second night on a lovely beach! We had some strong winds on the first day so ended up doing a little portage to avoid the south-western tip of Franklin, and got to explore some great places by doing so! It was a great trip - beautiful weather, great sunsets, stars, frogs, loons, birds, the highlight being a mom beaver with two little beaby beavers sitting for hours very close to our campsite! They went swimming and made baby beaver sounds.

Second hiking trip to the trail just north of Franklin Island, along the shore of Georgian Bay. This was a three day mid-November trip. On our first trip we didn't get very far because there was too much snow, this time however the snow just started and there was only about 10cm on the ground, and bit more came down on the second and third day. First day we had beautiful sunny weather but it was unusually cold for this time of the year, hitting -16C at night! Ice started forming in the bays and the trees looked very pretty when it snowed. We saw three eagles, lots of moose and deer tracks, heard one loon and didn't see any other people camping. Coming back we took our time, getting back to the last bay as it was getting dark and walked along the last 500m from the cottages in the dark.

First hiking trip of 2018, just north of Franklin Island along the shore of Georgian Bay. We had a bit more snow than we expected so we didn't get as far as we were hoping to, but this was a great place to be during mid-April as we didn't see any people! Beautiful sunset over the icy Georgian Bay, great fire, coffee and soup made from snow and stars at night. The loons were also already coming back and were out on the open water couple kilometers from the shore. Very relaxing time and we'll have to go back!

Our third trip to Franklin Island, late summer 2013. It was a short trip. We stayed on the west side of the island and explored a couple of new campsites. Waves got a bit large on the second day when coming back and we had to take some evasive maneuvers!

Our second trip to Franklin Island. This time we paddled north by the east shore of the island and around it to the north. We camped on one of the many islands to the NW of Franklin after exploring many of them to have a wonderful view of Georgian Bay and Mink Islands. Bit of rain on the second day but no real waves.

Our first trip to Franklin Island, in mid-Sept 2012. It was a short two-day trip to scout out the area, starting at Snug Harbour. We paddled west by Walton Islands to the SE tip of Franklin and then along the southern shore. We camped on the SW part of the island, just west of Henrietta Point, as the winds were picking up around mid-day and the waves were getting larger! Most of the campsites on this island are not marked or even visible, however, walking on the rocks you'll find many flat spots to camp on, and some have a fire pit ready and even a bench to sit on. On the second day the winds were calm in the morning so we set out to Deadhead Bay and portaged inland to Big Little Lake. We tried to get to Lily Lake but it was too swampy in the narrow bay. We paddled to Little Lakes and from there it looked like we could do a short carry beyond a small, shallow lake with a nice island on it to get to Lily. We did not explore the passage to Phoebe Bay, but went back and portaged to a bay east of Windsor Island. When we got back to Georgian Bay we found that the wind and waves have picked up significantly, so we decided not to paddle around the south part of the island, but went back and scouted out another inland route that took us out just west of Phoebe Point. We then paddled north to get to the narrow passage north of Snug Island to avoid the big waves that were on the more open water near Walton Islands. It was a GREAT trip, beautiful weather and an AMAZING night sky. I've seen six meteors in less than an hour, the Milky Way went all the way down to the water, I could see Andromeda Galaxy through my tent while inside and in the middle of the night when I got out I saw Orion and and very bright Jupiter.