Back on the road to adventure
A day trip to Muskoka reminds us of everything we’ve been missing over the past year
For the first time in nearly two years, my kitchen contains chaotic piles of sleeping bags, campfire cookware, life-jackets and a snack selection that could only be matched by a 10-yearold on a convenience store shopping spree.
My kid and I are getting ready for a road trip, with five consecutive days of swimming and s’mores and checking out cool locations, and what was once routine is now exhilarating. I’ve lived here all my life, but I’ve never been more excited to travel within Ontario.
Just about everyone, it seems, has a set of COVID-19 realizations. We’ve learned about ourselves after being housebound for nearly 500 days and having entirely too much time to think.
One of my most important ones is that having something to look forward to is critical to my mental health. Getting up, getting through work and virtual school, going to sleep, and doing it repeatedly like in the movie “Groundhog Day” was exhausting and draining, especially when there was no way of knowing when it would be possible to plan for the future again. On the day “someday” turned back into “that day,” and “if” became “when,” my mental state changed overnight.
This first overnight trip will span six days, but we’ve been careful not to jump back in with both feet in case it gets overwhelming. Instead, we worked our way back into it with some day trips close to home, which helped get us back into the swing of increasingly long stretches in the car and away from screens.
Most recently, one such adventure saw us with a 2021 Nissan Rogue in our driveway, two inflatable stand-up paddleboards in the back, and nowhere in particular to go. This recalls another COVID realization: my life revolves around cars, but they lose a lot of their purpose when we don’t have a destination to point them toward.
Fortunately, over the past few weeks, it no longer feels irresponsible to consider visiting somewhere new. Buoyed by reports of beautiful scenery and excellent paddling, we headed for Highway 400 and set off northbound to visit Arrowhead Provincial Park, roughly two and a half hours north of Toronto near Huntsville.
If you’ve heard of this park before and can’t place why, it’s probably because of its winter activities: the park’s 1.3-kilometre skating trail through thick Muskoka woods has long been a popular draw. But Arrowhead is just as stunning in the summer, with its calm waterways and rolling, tree-crested hills. Ontario Parks are offering free day-use access on weekdays all summer in 2021, which helped to make this park an easy choice.
We checked in with the Rogue mid-afternoon and then headed to the beach access to set up the paddleboards. As we descended the path and the lake came into view, my daughter gasped: this park looks just like her Muskoka-based summer camp, she declared, which to her deep disappointment has been cancelled for two summers in a row. It was as though
her brain had suddenly unlocked some distant memory.
Eventually, we strapped onto our boards and pointed ourselves toward the Little East River, which offers paddlers an easy 20-minute trip to Stubbs Falls. It’s a somewhat precarious walk downhill to view the falls from the bottom when approaching from this side, but we parked our boards and observed from the pedestrian bridge that spans the river.
This leads me to one more COVID realization: living life at a frenetic pace is overrated. As I plan this summer’s road trips, my itineraries are far less focused on quantity of experiences than they are on quality. Many of Canada’s greatest joys are the simplest ones, so I’ve deliberately made more time for swimming, hiking, roasting marshmallows, listening to loon calls, and gazing up at the stars.
We’re getting back on the road and back to everything that matters most. We finally have something to look forward to, and it’s made all the difference in the world.
A VEHICLE TO EXPLORE WITH
Compact SUVs like the Nissan Rogue are popular with Canadians for good reason: they offer a balance between everyday driveability and the rugged capability we need for outdoor adventuring. There’s a wide variety of features and functionality in this segment, so it’s a good idea to know how you’ll use your new vehicle before you start to shop. Here are a few things to look for in a vehicle to help you explore the great outdoors:
Adjustable all-wheel drive
If you’ll be going down potholed or muddy gravel roads regularly, it’s wise to look for a compact SUV with at least one off-road drive mode. In most cases, this mode tells the vehicle to keep all-wheel drive engaged and adjusts factors like transmission and throttle response to get through more challenging situations. A few vehicles in this class also offer hill descent control, which may be worth considering if you have a hilly cottage driveway with poor visibility.
Ground clearance
This is the space between the lowest point on a vehicle’s underside and the road surface. If you’ll regularly be driving on roads with exposed rocks or tree roots, it may be worth looking for a vehicle with more clearance. The 22 cm in the Subaru Forester and Outback is on the higher end; somewhere in the 20 to 21 cm range is more common. The Nissan Rogue has a very respectable 20.8 cm of ground clearance.
Storage space
The Rogue has 1,033 litres of cargo space behind its second row, which is plenty of room for these two inflatable paddleboards and extra gear. In compact SUVs, rearward cargo space can vary from just over 800 litres to more than 1,100 litres. But this figure itself doesn’t tell the whole story: the width between the rear wheel wells and the lift height to get objects into the vehicle can differ dramatically. If you have bulky gear you’ll use often, bring it with you to the test drive and try putting it into the vehicle yourself. Don’t forget to look for roof rails if you’ll need them: this feature is often not equipped by default on lower-cost trims.