Carden Cove, Marathon, Ontario

Carden Cove is a fantastic inlet in which rounded forms of multi-billion year old volcanic rock of the Canadian Shield meet the lake. The eroded organic forms play host to ancient lichens and lush mosses, ring standing pools of water in which frogs breed, and provide smoothed surfaces on which you can walk the perimeter of the large cove – provided you don’t hit a slick spot. We originally headed to Carden Cove to hike westward along the shore but because the trail turned inland into the ankle-deep mud of the boreal forest we decided to just hike around the shore instead. And I’m glad we did because we had the opportunity to see some amazing rocks, sweeping vistas across the bay, hyper-green mosses, and neat pools. It was truly beautiful.

The day began cloudy and remained overcast for the couple hours we were exploring the first side of the cove, but by the time we were backtracking to cross to the other side the sun came out and the skies shifted from gray to blue. Unfortunately, this was about the same time by camera decided to (temporarily) stop working so the latter half of the photos below were taken with my far-inferior phone camera.