Quite A View

Another shot from Barron Canyon today. A canoe can be spotted far below, and having another hiker in the shot gives perspective and scale. The canyon was formed as a fault line, part of the massive slab of granite that is the Canadian Shield. It has more recent geological history- in the wake of the last ice age, the water that ran through here drained a glacial lake to the west. Its flow at that time has been estimated by geologists to be the equal of a thousand Niagaras. It is considerably calmer now. The Barron River flows out from Algonquin, joining the Petawawa River and emptying into the Ottawa River at Petawawa, up the valley from the capital.

Barron Canyon

I have these shots from the archives as well, pics I took on a visit in the early fall of 2012 and saved in my email, as the camera belonged to friends. The Barron River flows through this canyon on the east side of Algonquin Park. A hiking trail follows the canyon rim. Canoes can often be seen down on the river below. It's a hundred metres up from the river here, so a fall would result in a very bad day. Well, for your family and friends, anyway. Odds are you'd be dead.

It is a magnificent canyon, and far from the Highway 60 corridor, which is what most visitors think of when they think of Algonquin. For those of us in Eastern Ontario, this part of the park is more quickly reached.