Hi! I'm Grace Evans and this is Dry Spell, my weekly letter of off-season reflections on canoeing.
Last September, an otter swam around the point of our campsite on Tom Thompson Lake for an entire afternoon. He had dark glossy brown fur and he’d pop through the water’s surface and bob, watching us watch him. My dog Dash remained oblivious so we got to enjoy his company all afternoon.
We didn’t know he was an otter at the time. We quickly ruled him out as a beaver.
Me: A muskrat?
Emily: Maybe an otter?
Me: I don’t think there are otters in Ontario.
Emily: Isn’t there a place here called Otterslide lake?
Me: Great point.
I must have been thinking of the sea otters I’d seen off Vancouver Island. Ontario is home to the North American River Otter. Emily confirmed her ID once we were back home, but we still weren’t sure what exactly our swimming friend was while we were still in Algonquin. The next day the lake-creature returned with two companions, as pictured above. Female otters are a third of the size of males, so I now suspect he’d brought two females back with him, but who knows? Maybe they were just tiny guys. What happened next was like a beautiful otter ballet. The three otters swam in formation, flipping, diving, twirling, turning and popping up through the water’s surface like synchronized swimmers. Maybe they were fishing or accomplishing some official otter business, but it felt like they were just showing off and watching us. That truly sounds so self absorbed but it’s exactly how I felt. It was mesmerizing. While Emily did yoga and Sam collected firewood and Dash sunbathed, I spent a lot of time just staring back at the otters. One might even call it otter ogling.
Otterslide Lake is 14 kilometres away as the crow flies, but much more by paddling. I’d love to know how Otterslide Lake, Little Otterslide Lake and Otterslide Creek got their names, but maybe it’s more fun to imagine dozens of otters sliding down chutes of rock than to learn the truth of it. I’ve planned a trip this year traveling up through the Otterslide lakes and creek to Big Trout Lake. In his book Canoeing Algonquin Park, Donald Lloyd says: “the ‘Otterslides’ are frequently the first significant challenge that novice canoe trippers meet in breaking out of the Canoe Lake/Smoke Lake paddle-in-and-sit type of trip. A very good time down Otterslide Creek to Big Trout Lake would be two hours. Even with doubling it, it should be a very short half day’s work. The trick is to do it efficiently: have all your gear in packs, have nothing loose, and keep moving.” Good to know! Drew, a prolific trip chronicler, wrote that his “only complaint about the Otterslides as a whole is that there was a noticeable lack of both otters and otter appropriate playground equipment on either of the lakes or the creek in between.” So much for my fantasy of otters joyfully sliding down chutes.
Links:
Northern river otter: “A couple of years ago, on a heavy winter day, I saw a river otter leap out of a frozen pond.” An otter focused issue of the excellent newsletter by Amy, an artist based in Connecticut. [Wild Life]
North American river otter: “Female otters prepare dens that they keep scrupulously clean. The den is usually dug into the bank of a stream but can be an old beaver's lodge, muskrat house or hollow tree.” A hollow tree. Too cute. [Smithsonian’s National Zoo]
River otter “pupdate:” A little blog about three chicly named otter pups at the Smithsonian’s zoo. I’m impressed by how many different things they eat in captivity. One of their treats is a meatball. [Smithsonian’s National Zoo]
River Otters on the Run: This video is incredible. Two otters use their bodies to toboggan down a snow covered mountain, then flaunt their safety what looks like inches from a coyote’s face. Thrilling. [National Geographic via Youtube]
Otter cam: This is a delightful live view of otters swimming and snoozing in their tank. [Vancouver Aquarium]
Thanks for reading Dry Spell!