North western Ontario

[hugh]

Ok, I am in a local Jeep club based in Winnipeg Manitoba up in Canada. To give some of you perspective Winnipeg is about 30 miles from the geographical center of North America, or also 90 miles north of Grand Forks North Dakota.
Any way once a year for the last 3 years we go on a 4 day camping off road trip and this year we went to 2 locations, one south and east of Kenora Ontario and one north of Kenora. Kenora is located on the Lake of the woods. I have a 98 Cherokee running a 3 link Iron Rock long arm kit and 35" BFG's and was towing my homebuilt off road trailer. I will let the pictures do the talking. First picture Ethelma Lake, we got in after dark and in the rain 4 Jeeps with 2 more showing up around 10 pm. Next morning

Next a couple shots of the road in. It was about 25 km,s from the Hwy to the first campsite at Eththelma, and since other's were already there we pushed on the next day another 20 or so km's to a lake called Hillock. Hillock it turns out is a crystal clear lake, really beautiful and popular with scuba divers. The next couple pictures show the road in, it was very rocky and slow and now I wish I had taken a few more pictures. There were lakes every couple km's on both side's of the road.

The rest of our party had joined up with us, now we had 12 Jeeps and this is where we camped and had our group BBQ

The next day we played around the area a bit, I apologize many of the pictures of of just my Jeep, next time more photo's of the group. Anyway here's a couple shots of the nearby area

After 2 days we packed up and went to the 2nd area north of Kenora.

 

[hugh]

Unfortunately when we left Hillock I was foolish in a sand pit near the HWY where we stopped to air up our tires and bent my rear bumper down a bit when I took a sand hill way to fast with a seriously overloaded trailer so I did not go to the 2nd area, opting instead to spend the next 2 nights in a provincial campground, what a mistake. I have a couple pictures of the area from a scouting trip 2 weeks previous though which I will repost. First is the road in, it is along a pipeline and in every valley along the road there is either a stream crossing the road or a small pond or bog.

This muddy trail lead to a set of falls with a lake to the right and the trail continued across the top of the falls, Since this was a scouting trip and there were 2 of us in my XJ I decided not to drive across. The guys did cross on the weekend though and said the swimming while cold was pretty nice after wheeling for 3 days.

Anyway that's about it, we had a total of 12 Jeeps from mild to wild on the trip and everyone had a great time. The camping was all remote, no facilities of any kind, no fees, all you would find would be a fire ring. My wife has I think agreed to go back to the first location with me this week so hopefully a few more pictures better showing area will be forthcoming.

 

[The Adam Blaster]

Great pics, thanks for posting!

 

[sinbad]

looks like you had a blast!

 

[lowenbrau]

Nice trip. That second lake with the rapids looks like one that's East of Jones Rd maybe twenty km north of the bypass. I've been there but couldn't find it when I went looking his summer. Beautiful country that.

Thanks for the report.

 

[Vency]

Very nice and muddy trip :wings:

 

[hugh]

Nice trip. That second lake with the rapids looks like one that's East of Jones Rd maybe twenty km north of the bypass. I've been there but couldn't find it when I went looking his summer. Beautiful country that.

Thanks for the report.

You nailed it, it is off the jones road and yes the country is real nice around there. The club guys followed the pipeline road east until they reached a swamp they couldn,t get across.

 

[VE2WHZ]

very nice

do you have the gps track ???

on next summer is possible make trip with you

few truck from Quebec ...

Pascal

 

[BirfMark]

Very cool. I was born & grew up in Winnipeg. My parents had land on Shoal Lake, just off Lake of the Woods when I was young. I had no idea there was four wheeling in the area...

Thanks for the pics!

-Mark

 

[hugh]

very nice

do you have the gps track ???

on next summer is possible make trip with you

few truck from Quebec ...

Pascal

While I do use a Magellan crossover GPS I did not think to mark down the co-ordinates, however with a road map I would be happy to show you the location. Also if you and some of your friends ever head out this way I am sure members of our club would be happy to spend a little time and show you around. I have a quick question about your trailer, how wide is the axle? The reason I ask is there was a 2000lb 4' wide under my trailer in the beginning and it was way to high and unstable, I bought a 3500 lb 6' wide with electric brakes from a local place called Princess Auto and it works great and having brakes on the trailer is fantastic.

 

[hugh]

Very cool. I was born & grew up in Winnipeg. My parents had land on Shoal Lake, just off Lake of the Woods when I was young. I had no idea there was four wheeling in the area...

Thanks for the pics!

-Mark

Our club has a trail we use off a side road not far from Shoal lake, It takes about 2 hours to reach a small lake called Moss Lake. There are a couple of swampy spots and if you don,t have 35" tires and a winch you won,t make it in summer, winter is a good time though, we usually camp there at least once every winter. Here,s a couple of pictures of Moss Lake and it's trail, first a couple in the winter about 2008 I think.

The little trailer is my first attempt, it runs on a set of old 35 bfg's and I sold it to a friend with a YJ on scout dana 44's.
The next couple pictures show the same trail in the summer of 2010 on the May long weekend.

The weather was real nice and even though the ice had prob been gone for maybe 3 or 4 weeks we still got a swim or 3 in:snorkel:

 

[VE2WHZ]

While I do use a Magellan crossover GPS I did not think to mark down the co-ordinates, however with a road map I would be happy to show you the location. Also if you and some of your friends ever head out this way I am sure members of our club would be happy to spend a little time and show you around. I have a quick question about your trailer, how wide is the axle? The reason I ask is there was a 2000lb 4' wide under my trailer in the beginning and it was way to high and unstable, I bought a 3500 lb 6' wide with electric brakes from a local place called Princess Auto and it works great and having brakes on the trailer is fantastic.

i will put update on my camper page

is 48'' wide
first is 2000lbs hmmm is not tuff for off road

i have chage for 3500lbs

and for the stabiliti
just put Shock !!!
i make the difference !!!

i will send pm also

Pascal


sorry for out of topic

 

[hugh]

When I first building my trailer, Martyn and others told me that a 2000 lb axle was not strong enough, it's seems many have had similar problems. The 3500 lb axle has a larger tube, and bigger bearings. The addition of a shock absorber is also good and weigh your trailer and then buy springs rated for the load. Say for example your trailer weighs 900lbs then find springs rated for something around 1200 lbs. Don't make the mistake of using 3500lb trailer springs. It seems in North America a lot of trailer springs are short and stiff. One good suggestion was to use the springs from a YJ minus a leaf or 2. My little trailer weighs in just over 2000lbs, so I bought springs rated for 2300lbs.