Eastern Ontario’s water flows into the Atlantic Ocean via the Great Lakes Basin and the St. Lawrence River Watershed. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River hold 20 percent of the earth’s fresh surface water or 6 quadrillion gallons, or almost half of the North American continent. The watershed is one of the world’s most diverse with 3,500 species of plants and wildlife and more than 250 species of fish. The St. Lawrence is Canada’s third-longest river, at 3,058 kilometers, but has the most volume, discharging some 9850 cubic meters of water per second, flowing through both Ontario and Quebec. The watershed is one of the most populated, home to some 15 million Canadians.
Ontario is well known as a paddler’s paradise. In addition to its 250,000 lakes, it offers some of the best wilderness river canoe trips in the world. Packrafters are just beginning to explore many classic canoe routes.
Ontario is home to designated Canadian Heritage Rivers — the Boundary Waters/Voyageur Waterway, the Detroit River, the French River, the Grand River, the Missinaibi River.
For more information on paddling in Ontario, check out Northern Ontario Travel.
Here are packrafting trip reports from throughout the province. Contact us @ packraftcanada@gmail.com if you have any trip reports to add; we’d love to add them to our growing list!
Trip Reports
Aire Bakraft trip Petawawa River Algonquin Park
Fat Biking and Packrafting on the Black River
The Pumphouse Whitewater Course
Packrafting The Grand River, Eric Thompson put-in to Paris, Ontario
The Wildlands Traverse (Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Park)