Treacherous Milk Swamps on Hardy Lake

Most Canadian cottagers dread the arrival of the Labour Day long weekend - the first weekend in September marks the end of summer. There's a great conversation on Wondercafe.ca about how religious service providers improve the tone of their messages this weekend. Everyone with a cottage in Canada feels the sadness autumn brings, and my friends are no exception. On Sunday Sept 2^nd 2007 six companions hiked the 3km trail at Hardy Lake, in the heart of the Muskokas, on a desperate attempt to capture the last warm days of summer. Little did we know how easily summer could capture us...

Hardy Lake is a provincial park with no facilities. Mountain bikes are not allowed, and there is no camping permitted on the 81 hectare park. Canoeing is tolerated, but we didn't have enough watercraft at our cottage to accommodate all of the participants, so we decided on a short hike with the dogs instead.

The Hardy Lake trails begin at the parking lot on Highway 169 about 12 kilometers west of Gravenhurst. Each relaxing route is well shaded and full of beautiful scenery. Most footpaths circumnavigate the lake, although two trails lead almost directly toward Lake Muskoka. There are three trailheads in the parking lot, but only one, at the west end, is obvious. This is the main loop, which has an awful start down an old stretch of blacktop that I understand to be the 'old road to Torrance'. Our crew happily paraded down this broken asphalt concourse which eventually fed into a dirt path and then gave us a beautiful view of the lake through many different varieties of trees and vegetation. Early in the hike we had a taste of the misadventure when our dogs leaped into a muddy drainage ditch for a quick drink of water. They emerged black with an unhealthy, oil grim dripping from their bellies...

Fortunately Hardy Lake is excellent for swimming and there's a fine peninsula further down the trail with flat rocks under a brown carpet of pine needles that invites hikers to become swimmers and then sun bathers for a spell... Some of the more prominent slabs of the black granite that compose 'the beach' come complete with pink and yellow quartz veins and ribbons of potash that would delight any geologist. Our posse encountered two other couples relaxing on the rocks here and I marveled at a Labrador retriever that was swimming alone twenty feet from shore.

This provincial park boasts a rich community of Atlantic coastal plain species. There is a unique mixture of trees and grasses and forest creatures here today, because when the ancient Lake Algonquin receded it left some Atlantic Ocean shoreline plants behind. The park also contains an inland section of displaced Georgian Bay shoreline.

Just after our crew crossed the three quarters mark, disaster struck. Our two dogs, which had continually been running ahead and scouting the trail, stumbled into a treacherous swampy 'barrens' that contained dangerous sink holes. These bogs are very dangerous actually - the holes in the rock are deep enough to drown a dog or a man and the mud is a black soup that defeats all attempts to float or tread water, or even pull yourself free... such was the plight of both dogs. One was close to the rocks and easily dragged free of the marsh, the other was six feet away and sinking fast.

A dog stuck in the mud is a dismal sight, a heart break - a sinking dog that will soon drown is a tragedy. But alas the sight of a sinking human in the same situation would be by far the greatest calamity. This was something we were all anxious to avoid. With fear and apprehension many heated warnings were shouted toward my brave companions who dared rescue their reckless dog. But what to do? Their dilemma was obvious - one couldn't simply throw the animal a line, or extend a tree branch. There was in fact no way to help the creature except to risk oneself to the same hazards. Upon forming this realization my friends formed a human chain - by grasping each other's wrists we extended our bodies out into the swamp to save our beloved pet.

Thirty seconds later the deed was done. A very muddy dog was soon beached on solid ground. And it was so heavy with mud it could barely walk - Although the animal tried to shake the sludge from its fur, it soon collapsed in failure. So now myself and my companions had to hike back to Lake Hardy again to wash the canine and our shoes and, I suppose, the whole experience from our consciousness.

Eventually our hike continued past the swamp and for another thirty minutes while we marched through a large grove of hemlock and cedar and white pine growing from the decomposed stumps of an earlier forest - this natural reforestation was complete with such typical bog vegetation as Virginia chainfern. At the top of the hill there were sumac trees growing from the rocks amidst the bone white skeletons of their ancestors. It was a very pretty sight. Ten minutes later we emerged back in the same gravel parking lot from which we had departed two hours earlier. It had been a good robust walk with more than a little excitement on a beautiful lake in the middle of the Muskokas - not one man or beast had been lost to the treacherous milk swamp on Hardy Lake... this time.