We pushed off in our canoe from the sandy beach on a bright day in mid-April. The bay we paddled into was bound on one side by towering cliffs, the other side by cobble beaches and leaning cedars. The clear, green-blue water of Georgian Bay was calm, barely rippled by cool winds out of the northeast. We, your EcoAdventure guides, were on a mission to scout out the big canoe portion of a multi-day adventure called Saugeen Sojourn.

We followed the shoreline against the cobble beaches, keeping close in case the wind picked up. Early on, we surprised a lone merganser. It zipped away, its flight mere inches from the water's surface. 
 
The bay ended as we rounded a bluff, and we found ourselves with a view of a small island known by locals as Rabbit Island. These waters turned from clear turquoise to silty brown as we glided over an ancient clay deposit. The beaches had given way to walls of fractured clay supporting crumbling limestone far above our heads. The clay was dark grey in places, red or purple in others. Underwater, it sometimes revealed patches of copper green within the brown. Shoals of broken stones reached out from the land, and we navigated them with care, sometimes stopping and going back to avoid beaching the canoe.
 
We entered a second, smaller bay. Along this shoreline was our destination, a campsite at Cape Croker Park. The water was still calm, but we were growing tired after our two hour paddle. We stopped at a rocky beach to stretch and drink some water, and checked a map to track our progress. 
 
We returned along the same route, but the change of direction revealed new sights: a gaping cave high in the cliffside, a gentle spring waterfall cascading down the limestone, details in the clay we hadn't noticed on our first pass. Mergansers, a pair this time, watched us for a moment from where they floated, then took flight.

The canoe scraped into the soft sand as we landed, exhausted but exhilarated. The wind started to pick up just as we came in. 

Experience this canoe route with the EcoAdventures Saugeen Sojourn -- a multiday glamping experience with canoeing, biking, hiking, Anishinaabe food and storytelling, stargazing, and more.
Scouting the Georgian Bay Shoreline