Bicycling the Long Sault parkway

The Long Sault parkway is located roughly 125 KM East of Montreal, just past Cornwall, Ontario. When The Saunders hydro electric dam was built in the mid 20th century, many of the smaller towns and villages upstream were evacuated, and eventually flooded. The highest points in the area are all that remain above water, and form a chain of 11 small island in the St Lawrence river.

Operated by the Parks of the St Lawrence, the Long Sault parkway offers a variety of outdoor activities, including, camping, beaches, fishing, boating, scuba diving, cycling, and migratory bird watching, to name a few. The a scenic roadway through the park runs about 10 KM from end to end, with  many picnic areas, restrooms, etc along the way. While the park has camping and parking fees, drive through traffic is permitted at no charge.

As the Long Sault area is Canada's self proclaimed carp fishing capital, I visit the area quite often throughout my fishing season. On a recent trip to fish one of the sites with a friend, I decided to come back and bike the trail along with my wife for my next visit.

After parking at the Long Sault entrance, we pedaled along the pleasant route. One of the first island in the park is Mille Roches Island. This place is nostalgic for me, as it's where I started fishing with my dad at the age of 3, nearly 40 years ago. My dad had a boat at the Long Sault marina for years before getting married, and knew the area well. When sold his boat before getting married, the parkway offered miles of shore access to many of his spots. As kids, we fished the inflow an outflow pipe dozens of times, catching a variety of predatory species, and I have many fond memories of the spot.

I stopped to snap a picture of the spot, the current high water is a couple feet above normal level, so the "famous" pipe is covered, but still very visible.

A few Islands further into our trek, we cam across a flock of Canada geese. Those newly hatched chicks (in background) sure do grow quickly, nearly the size of small ducks after only 2 months or so.

Near many of the bridges, we encountered people fishing for carp. Funny how things can change. When I was a kid, no one targeted carp with rod an reel, bow fishing was the main method used for those that didn't care about killing them for no good reason. I never even saw a carper until I fished the area a good 25 years later. Today, all I saw were carpers, save for a coupe that was perch fishing.

Stopping near the last bridge at McLaren Island before the Ingleside end of the park, we had one of the carpers take some pictures of Ronit and I. No better way than to enjoy the great outdoors with the ones you love most.