“A leisurely winter camping weekend with some friends”

SW Temagami Region, Ontario, Canada

Duration: 3 days

Distance Traveled: 11.5 km

Ah, winter in Ontario—the perfect time to drag your friends out into the snowy wilderness and convince them that sleeping in a tent when it’s -20°C is actually a fantastic idea! For this three day trip, we wanted a familiar and easy route that provided a short trek to a great hot tent winter camping spot. Kukagami Lake is a typically-beautiful lake nestled within the boreal forest, with lots of bays and inlets nicely tucked away from the cottages and snow machine routes. Just on the southwestern edge of the broader Temagami waterway system, between Lake Wanapitei and Sturgeon River Provincial Park, it is only an hour drive from Sudbury and has a few easy access points. It is mostly surrounded by a thin band of Forest Reserve land with private property sprinkled in around the southwest arm, with Crown land in the near distance beyond the shoreline. 

After loading up our toboggans and strapping on our snowshoes at the Sportsman's Lodge parking lot, we headed down to the lake, where we were greeted by thick ice and a patchy snowpack. This was not a pack light, minimalist trip by any means, with gear list including large Wannigan, folding chairs, dogs beds, and box of wine among other luxuries; however hauling our two HDPE trail toboggans and extra Pelican pulk required little effort, and the sunny morning provided an ideal day to travel to our campsite.

We have been out on Kukagami Lake many times before, both in canoes in the summer and snowshoes or skis in the winter, so we had an ideal spot picked out in advance. A well sheltered cedar swamp tucked up in the north end of one of the bays on the southeast arm of the lake. Our ~two hour trek intersected a few snow machine routes, but otherwise was very scenic and easy, only crossing one set of narrows where thinner ice had to be navigated. 

We got to our site in the early afternoon and started setting up camp, splitting up jobs among the group. Our back-bay locale was loaded with good-sized dead standing cedars, so we started right in to felling a few and hauling them back to camp for bucking and splitting. After a few hours of processing firewood, we were all set for a warm night of stovetop cooking and festivities, despite the -20 C temperatures outside. With four adults and two Labradors our 10x13 Snowtrekker Shortwall was cozy but didn’t feel cramped at all.

The next morning we had a few pots of coffee and another hot, delicious meal, then headed out for a long ski around the lake and a snack-food picnic on an island with lots of cushy shrubs to sit on. The cold, sunny conditions were ideal for a day out on the lake, and we explored some distant bays across the southeast arm and took in some great scenery.

On returning to camp, we processed another tree while the rest of the crew had an unsuccessful - but quite merry - go at ice fishing. After another cozy and fun night in the tent, we packed up camp in the late morning and started the journey back to the lodge, taking a different route through the forest to the main trail that cut our travel time down even more.

All in all this was a really fun weekend with some good friends on their first hot tent winter camping adventure. They loved the tranquility and beautiful scenery out on the frozen lake with no-one else around, although the amount of work involved in building camp and processing firewood was an eye opener!