Road allowance (extension of Barrett’s Road) and County Rd. 27, east to Dry Lake, then south to Centreville Road.

Section total: 4.3 kilometres
Running Total: 57.1 kilometres

Don’t fool yourself with this one: the 4.3 km. is no indication of how much energy this walk might be. Partly because I got turned around, I put in a lot more kilometres than I have noted. Around the marshes and the lake, there are steep ravines, so while it’s not too hard to bushwhack, you are up and down a lot. Still, this was a great walk through mostly hardwood at first, and cedar near the end of the walk. The lake, as explained below, is an extraordinary little body of water.

 I did this section over two days. For the first time since February 3 (2005), when I started this Vishwawalk, I couldn’t connect two parts of a walk. Foiled! I walked from the road allowance and County Road 27 and followed a winding trail north-east along the south edge of an old field and up toward a marsh. The trial peters out at the crest of a hill, and you can see the open marsh spread out to the northeast. Trouble is, I didn’t pay enough attention: when I saw the marsh, I assumed it was Dry Lake, despite confusing geography that didn’t line up with the topo (duh!). I wandered around the southern part of the marsh, up and down ravines, got turned around, didn’t find the hut I was searching for (because it wasn’t there), then decided I’d approach Dry Lake from the south and connect the two walks. Of course, after I’d walked out again, and came in from the trail to the south, Dry Lake wasn’t anything like the marsh I’d been wandering around. A quick look at the topo explained all.  The hill I was on is clearly demarcated, as is the steep ravine to the south that I clambered up and down.

Therefore, on the first day, after getting turned around on the first part of this section, I walked the second part to Dry Lake before calling it quits. I went back and linked up the sections a couple of days later.

So, on March 13, 2005 I made a second attempt to get to Dry Lake from County Road 27. As the crow flies, it’s about 1.5 kilometres to Dry Lake from County Road 27 and the road allowance. However, I once more got turned around and inadvertently ended up exploring a large part of the area south of the lake. By the map, I rambled bout for roughly 4 kilometres before I got to the dilapidated Quonset hut at Dry Lake, but with the ravines, the occasional thick brush, and my lack of a compass I walked considerably more than that, trying to orient myself. I somehow turned south and ended up a few hundred yards from the intersection of Centreville Road and County Road 27. I came out near a house on Centreville Road thinking I was on County Road 4 (the one that goes to Centreville) at Basswood Hill. The owner of the house put me right and I walked west down Centreville Rd. and turned up County Rd. 27, ready to try again. I cut eastward off the road at the point where the field end and cedar bush began, heading in a northeasterly direction. Again, I wound about, found a pretty classy hunting cabin (with a sign, J.L. Hunt, 2001) and tried to use some trails which ATVs had used recently. Lesson: don’t let comfortable trails pull you away from the direction you want to go in.

There are quite a few ATV trails running through these woods. Indeed, on my way driving to this walk and back, I was reminded that this is ATV country, with lots of 4-wheel trucks towing trailers containing one or two ATVs. Despite this, I didn’t run into any machines at all in my rambles in the bush today. In some areas there are signs of activity: heavy machinery and logs lying about. In another area, the ATV crowd have left out a salt lick for the deer and from the tracks and beaten snow, it looks like the deer have had a few good parties. There are deer tracks everywhere here and a few hunting towers; it must be pretty easy to pop off deer in this area.

My roundabout route aside, with me mumbling “Where the hell am I?” to various various trees, this is an excellent area to explore. There are lots of ravines, marshy areas and other delights — and if you find Dry Lake it’s worth the effort. I saw lots of partridge and at least six deer.

Now you're thoroughly confused, to continue logically geographically, but to back up a couple of days, to March 11, I walked in to Dry Lake from Centreville Road in the south, then back out.

When I got to Dry Lake, I put on quite a few kilometres (not indicated in the totals) exploring the lake and its surroundings, so if you want to do this walk justice, add much more than the distances shown. The west side of the lake, after you’ve climbed the cliff, comes out on some flat and relatively open bush. In summer, I imagine it could be wet in this area.

The lake itself is quite extraordinary. The ice seems to have collapsed as much as 20 feet, and sections of the lake are mushy. I walked around the perimeter mostly, although I did venture to the island and across to the opposite shore, where there is a dock (at least I presume the wooden structure was a dock) with metal wheels, to wheel into the water in summer months. Around the edge of the lake, there are mini crevasses, and I had to walk carefully so as to avoid stepping into a couple of them. There’s a kind of land spit between the two sections of the little lake. It’s hard to imagine it with all the snow. There’s a ridge around most of the lake, which sits in an enclosed valley.

There’s a falling-apart quonset hut above the cliff on the southeast shore of Dry Lake. It has an exquisite little stone entrance at one side and a grand fireplace. The hut itself seems to be made of concrete with metal webbing of some kind holding it together. Unfortunately, it’s falling apart. Near the edge of the cliff going down to the water, at the back of the hut, there’s a brick cooking area. It looks like a well from a distance. It's solid, and looks like it was built relatively recently. Inside there’s a fine hearth, loads of rubbish and an animal living in one of the cupboards under what was once a sink. Too bad it’s in such a falling-apart state; it was/has the potential to be a great little cottage.

A trail leads away from the hut and winds a bit through bush and some relatively open bits until you get closer to the road. I saw a small deer cut across the trail at this point.

There are two houses sharing a driveway which makes up the last part of the trail; I moved off to the right (west) under some power lines to avoid walking too close to the homes. Eventually, however, you have to move back to the road, somewhere near the house closest to the road. (Dry Lake to Centreville Road is 2 km.)

Once on Centreville Road, I walked (on March 13) 1.6 km. east to Centreville. This is a straight paved section with a few interesting sights, including a horse farm, some century-old houses, and a recently-built house that has a square castle-style turret. Check out the Centreville Agricultural Society Plaque, which reads: “Addington Agricultural Society, 1853-1953. presented by the Ontario Department of Agriculture in recognition of one hundred years of service. September 2^nd, 1953." Centreville also has a United Church (just before the intersection on Centreville Rd.): Centreville Memorial United Church, built in 1946. An old wooden Loyal Orange Lodge (at least that’s what I take LOL 756 to be) is just east and south of the intersection. The township hall just south of the intersection, on County Rd. 4., (with inscription reading: “Camden, 1905”), is nondescript. There are some nice homes here, and some interesting paint jobs.

Rating:  (But you have to like bushwhacking!)  Moderate

Walked: March 11, 13, 2005

Centreville (County Rd. 4 and Lake Rd.), down Lake Rd. across Camden Lake to the boat launch at Camden Lake Provincial Wildlife Management Area.

Total: 6.3
Running total: 63.4

Lake Road is paved, with lots of domestic animals to commune with. There are mostly horses on the right, and barns for beef cattle on the left. Two cemeteries are situated on the right (south) side of the road with some stones dating back to the mid-1800s. Most of the older stones are hard to read, being made of a relatively soft white stone. Too bad; it might have been interesting to read some of the epitaphs, which were in smaller print. Some were totally worn away and unreadable. I got a photo of a stone which read “In memory of David Wees, who died July 1, 1851, aged 83 years.

The second cemetery has a classy fence around it and a plaque. Apparently some surveyors died here. The plaque has some good information on the early days of Centreville.

The road takes a little squiggle at the 3.6 km. mark. After this you can cut over to the lake wherever you see a good spot. I cut in and around a barn shortly after the squiggle, but I had planned to cut through at the 4.5 km. point, where there is an old foundation. It seems about the shortest distance from the road to the lake at this point. It’s about 1.8 km. as the crow flies from the road to the landing at the Camden Lake Provincial Wildlife Management Area. However further down, there’s an “ice road” that snowmobiles and ATVs use that cuts across the lake from just northeast of the road where it takes a sharp left turn. It’s a bit more of a walk up the road and you have to cut across a field to get to the trail. This also puts you slightly north of the boat ramp on the opposite shore. I had parked my truck at the boat ramp and I used the ice road on my outward journey. If you travel it westward, it disappears somewhere north in the direction Enterprise. When I cut back to the road near the turn, I had to get over a fence by the road. I found a good spot where I could step over the fence without climbing it, but I was literally sent on my backside when I touched an electric fencewire I hadn’t noticed just below it.

If you find the ice road, just follow it east. There are markers stuck into the ice to show the path, so it’s very clear. If you come up from farther south, aim for just below the red barn on the opposite shore.

At the boat ramp, there is a numbered parking lot and a map on a board showing blinds out on the lake. There are numbered blinds which hunters (maximum two per blind) can use. Hunters park their car by a number that corresponds to the blind they will use. There’s quite a few blinds out there; they pepper the lake, with a safe spot for birds down at the south end. It must be a pretty shallow lake, judging from the reeds. (Note to any ducks reading this: avoid Camden Lake like the plague during hunting season: you don’t stand a chance, and I wouldn’t feel safe even in the safe spot. Geese: according to the sign, you are also fair game.) There’s a viewing stand at the boat ramp; I presume people can come and get a good view as the hunters pop off the ducks and geese.

The snowmobile/ATV trail continues, and beyond the ramp, there’s a sign pointing to the “nature trails”: 6.3 km in. total.

Rating:  Moderate

Walked: March 15, 2005

Walked: March 28, April 3, 2005

Bridge over Varty Creek .4 km. east of Cty. Rd. 6 (the road that runs through Moscow) on McCoy St., to Harrowsmith (Hwy #38).

Country living is pretty civilized on McCoy St., with Lane Veterinary Services complete with a fenced-in area containing sheep coming up on the left (south) side and several suburban-style homes dotted along the way. McCoy is billed as a street at its west end. The east end, at German Road, it is signposted as a road. It's about two kilometres to German Road from the bridge.

Turn right at German Rd. (also called Kerr Road on some maps), which takes you through swamp, followed by hardwood and open fields.The swamp is part of Varty Creek (the same creek I started at on McCoy). Varty Creek parallels McCoy Rd., running just south of it after the bridge.

Shortly after turning onto German Rd., I passed over culverts carrying Varty Creek, which as I mentioned eventually moves into the Napanee River. The swamp is a part of a large swamp area, which is part of the Napanee River watershed.

German Rd. gets you to Petworth, a little hamlet featuring the Community Church of God, overseen by Pastor R.A. Paul, Sunday school at 10 a.m. and services on at 11 a.m. on Sunday (Tel.: 358-2824).

At Petworth Rd. turn left for a short stretch to a fine steel bridge crossing the Napanee River. A collapsed mill sits on the northwest side of the riverbank immediately by the bridge. The remains of the foundations are interesting, with little arches to allow the water to pass through. 

At the 3.6 km. point, Petworth Rd. makes a right onto the Camden-Portland Boundary Rd. (names on road signs and maps are confusing here, so take care) before I cut east at Bradford Rd., which is just over 4 kilometres from our starting point.

Bradford Rd. runs 4.5 kilometres, is paved and very straight, but a pleasant walk nevertheless with farms and houses along the way between mostly hardwood and fields and cedar trees lining the road at spots. A few goats were doing their thing on the north side of the road. One house on the north side sported six fine spruce trees, three of them impressively tall (unless, of course, you come from B.C.).

Eventually Bradford road reaches Wolf Swamp Road.  (My topo lists "Wolfes Swamp" to the southwest; you can see how names mutate around here.) I stayed with Bradford past Wolf Swamp Rd., until it came to a "T" intersection, with a road allowance running off south. (2009 update: the Garmin MapSource topo notes this allowance as "Ellerbeck" Road.)

The road allowance, which is a double-track lane, climbs a hill then slowly descends. After about five minutes of walking south, I headed off east through the fields, climbing a couple of fences to keep a southeasterly direction. The weather had turned, so I was glad of a shed in the middle of a stand of hardwood.

The rain was an on-again-off-again affair, so I kept southward, mostly through fields, until I reached a marshy area that is part of Wilton Creek. This gave me second thought, and I almost retraced some of my footsteps. I could have easily headed more southward before heading east (or stuck to the road allowance) and missed the whole swamp thing, but after clambering through various marshy bushes and doing a dance on the clumps of grass spattered throughout the early parts of the marsh, I was committed. I had to invent ways to cross two creeks. The first was about six feet wide and I used branches, an old bucket and a bit of moxy to get through. Price: two soakers. The second creek was wider (probably the main one) but beavers had obligingly built a dam at one spot to make my life easier. After a bit of scratching and ducking, I returned to open field. (Prickly ash: definitely not my favourite plant.)

Shortly after surviving the swamp, the high banks of the Cataraqui Trail, which runs along an old rail bed, came in sight and it was an easy matter once on the trail to head into Harrowsmith.

The Cataraqui trail has snowmobiles in the winter, but is free of vehicles the rest of the year. The rail bed takes a curve as it comes into town and so makes for a good walk.

There are a number of old vehicles sunk into a swamp as you get closer to Harrowsmith. Still, I felt Harrowsmith had an upscale feel (once past the abandoned cars and trucks and the ATV destruction on hills near the trail as you come into town), but maybe I’m just associating Harrowsmith the town with the magazine of the same name. It was drizzling in earnest by the time I hit the main drag (Highway #38), so I left the exploration of Harrowsmith for another time, and walked back to my bicycle which I had stashed a couple of kilometres out of town, on the trail at Colebrook Rd. By the time I reached my bike, the sun was out and the ride back to my truck gave me a good workout.

Rating: (Straight Roads = )  Easy (roads) to moderate (swamps).

Walked: May 1, 2005