Some places can only be discovered from the water. Nowhere is this truer than Algonquin Park. It sits in the heart of Ontario, the Canadian province with the most lakes and home to one-fifth of the world’s freshwater.
Though this nugget of information couldn’t be further from my mind as I paddle my canoe on the indigo waters of Canoe Lake. The only movement breaking the lake’s stillness comes from the trees swaying in the breeze and a curious loon popping his black head out of the water to inspect me with his red, beady eyes before diving back in.
Though it’s my first time in Algonquin Park – and my first time on a canoe, escorted by an Algonquin Outfitters expert guide – I feel I’ve seen this before: the orange, teal, and emerald trees, their summer and autumnal palette mixing in the elements, and the lake glittering around me.
The landscapes were familiar to me from art books, and from seeing them hanging in all their glory in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa – from the iconic The Jack Pine,
