Wolf Lake to Crab Lake

I have done several of the canoe routes through the Kawartha Highlands Park. This is mostly crown lands and a beautiful place to canoe through. For this camping there was no cost but some of the parking areas within the Kawartha Highlands require a small parking fee. Like many things, popularity is growing in the sport of canoeing and camping, so there are many people interested. I guess that at times it does get overpopulated. Back to our trip though... We headed out first thing on Saturday, July 1st 2006. Used our GPS's so I am posting that info here for all to see. The parking and portage routes also as GPS coordinates. Took my teen crew and and a wonderful guy whom I have dated a year now out for his first time canoe camping trip. We are into the sport of geocaching, which you can join for free at www.geocaching.com and this will tell you all about it. In a nutshell though, it is a sport where other cachers have hidden treasures in waterproof containers and have enterred the locations by the GPS coordinates onto the website. Then you pick and choose which caches you want to find and download them into your GPS and away you go hiking/treasure hunting. When you find the cleavor hiding spot you remove the container take a treasure out of it and place a treasure back in (to replace the one you took.. for the next person to find)then you write about it in the logbook that is also in the container. Then when you get home you post your find on the website andothers can read about it. Anyway that is what brought us to Crab Lake and what a nice lake. Once was known as Star lake and for good reason I might add. Backpackers mapbook of eastern Ontario and available at Walmart, Zellers, Canadian Tire and many other stores is a great take along as it has the portages and generally a pretty good showing of the canoe routes. Here are the coordinates as promised..... Public boat launch: N44 44.908 W78 09.691 Portage trail from Wolf Lake to Crab Lake: N44 43.730 W78 11.885 Portage trail from Crab Lake to Wolf Lake: N44 43.656 W78 11.877 It was Canada Day weekend and a few campsites around the lake had fireworks being let off or else it was the cottagers on Wolf Lake but who knows it was far away and the sites are very far apart. Privacy is all yours once on Crab Lake. We found that there are two cottages right at the portage on the Crab Lake side for your info. There are, I believe, when we paddled around the entire circumference of Crab Lake, about 11 or 12 sites. All sites are clearly marked with the Orange tent signs and of note the Portage is clearly marked with a yellow portage sign. The portage is easy between Wolf Lake and Crab Lake and rather short, if you want to take your gear in one trip you can or you can make a second trip. (Easy portaging though) We even made a camp table between two trees that we left for others to enjoy. The great thing about interior camping is that for the most part it is maintained by users. So what you pack in, please pack out. This includes your unburnable garbage. Always leave the campsite cleaner then what you found it and take it easy on the ecology around the site. We swam across the lake and had a blast as the temperature finally warmed up enough to enjoy it. Monday morning came and we unset camp and loaded up the two canoes and packed out. Get out and enjoy all the canoe camping has to offer, you won't be disappointed!!!