Every year, we try to paddle somewhere in Algonquin Park at least once.

Unfortunately, 2026 is not looking too promising on that front. Our calendar is already packed. But last year we managed to fit in a few paddling trips to the Park, and one of them has become an all-time favourite.

This was not just a pretty paddle through Algonquin.

It was a paddle to the remains of an abandoned sawmill, tucked away in the woods near the old community of Mowat.

For Me, Every Paddle Needs a Purpose

With my background in photography, pretty much every place we go or paddle we take has to have some kind of purpose and a photography angle to it. I just can't help it.

Before we go anywhere, I'm scouring the internet for cool stuff to see. Shipwrecks, abandoned buildings, wildlife, beautiful scenery, forgotten ruins, honestly anything a little different and a little cool.

That's how I came across a 2016 blog post about an abandoned bridge and sawmill down a creek just off Canoe Lake. Huge thank you to Wendy for writing it, because I never would have known this spot existed otherwise!

The photos showed massive concrete walls standing in the middle of the trees, crumbling foundations right at the water's edge and old timbers from a bridge stretched across the creek. It looked eerie and beautiful and completely out of place, all at once.

A photo from Wendy's blog

As soon as I saw it, it shot straight to the top of my paddling bucket list.

I knew we had to see it.

Where We Stayed

We had a lovely stay at the Muskoka Waterfront Retreat on Lake of Bays in Dwight. We picked it because it's nice and close to both Muskoka and Algonquin, two of our favourite areas in Ontario.

We explored a few other great spots while we were up there, but this story is all about the day we headed to Canoe Lake, where I (okay, mostly me) wanted to go hunt down these old mill ruins.

Or really, it started with me trying to find a shortcut to Canoe Lake.

First, a Little History

Before I get into how we actually got there, let's talk a bit about what used to be here.

The story is really made up of two parts: the community of Mowat, and the later sawmill beside Potter Creek.

Mowat grew up on the northwestern shore of Canoe Lake back in the late 1800s, built around the Gilmour Lumber Company, who were logging the white and red pine that used to dominate this part of Ontario.

By 1897, Mowat had grown to roughly 500 people, making it the biggest settlement in Algonquin Park at the time. This wasn't just a logging camp either. There were homes, boarding houses, stores, a school, a hospital, even railway infrastructure connecting it to the outside world. When the school opened in 1898, it had 30 pupils.

It's honestly hard to picture that when you look at Algonquin today. We think of it as untouched wilderness, but the land here used to be full of logging camps, railways, mills, hotels, farms and little communities.

Paddling along Potter Creek

White pine was hugely valuable back then, so logging kept pushing deeper into the forest as the easy trees got cut. Waterways were essential for moving timber. Rivers, lakes, dams, and eventually railway lines carried logs and lumber out of the forest and to market.

Towns like Mowat existed because logging needs people. Lumbermen needed somewhere to sleep and eat, but a permanent operation also brings families, shopkeepers, railway workers, teachers, doctors and everything else that comes with it.

The Canoe Lake sawmill, back when it was still standing tall

Of course, Mowat's good times didn't last.

A downturn in the lumber industry took the population from around 500 down to just over 200, and by 1914 it was down to about 150. The school stayed open until 1946, by which point only six kids were attending. As the mills closed and the railway disappeared, the whole community slowly faded out.

Interestingly, Mowat later became a bit of a tourist spot too. Mowat Lodge welcomed visitors to Canoe Lake, including Tom Thomson, whose life (and mysterious death) is still tied to this area.

Maime (Mary E.) and Carmel Galna, standing in front of the Gilmour and Company boarding houses, circa 1906. Behind them is one of the rotting chip yards and the large chip burner where sawdust was burned. Photograph courtesy of Donald Galna.

The Mill Hidden Beside Potter Creek

The ruins we paddled to tie into Mowat's bigger lumbering story, but they aren't actually the old village centre itself.

Those concrete walls beside Potter Creek are believed to belong to a later sawmill, built around 1923 by the Canoe Lake Lumber Company and later run by the Barry's Bay Lumber Company. It sat right on the edge of the creek, with rail infrastructure hooking it up to the main line.

The old bridge in its prime

There's a circular concrete structure near the water that was the base of a sawdust burner. Mills produced a ton of sawdust, bark and scrap, so burners were used to get rid of all that combustible waste. Old photos show the burner standing right by the mill, with the whole shoreline pretty much bare around it.

Today, it couldn't look more different.

The whole industrial site has disappeared under mature forest. Trees are literally growing up inside the old building. Moss covers the concrete, pine needles blanket the ground where machinery used to run, and roots are pushing through cracks in foundations that must have once felt permanent.

Nature is winning here, just very, very slowly.

A century later, the forest has taken most of it back

How We Got There, and What Not to Do 😅

Okay, now for the part where I save you from making our mistake.

I always scope out a destination on Google Maps before we go anywhere. I could see Camp Arowhon sitting at the end of Arowhon Road, with what looked like two bridges along the way.

So my plan was simple: drive down the road, find a spot near one of the bridges, and launch from somewhere closer to Potter Creek.

Near the first bridge, we found what looked like the perfect little put-in. A parking area right beside a small dam, and even a nice little dock.

It all seemed way too convenient.

Because it was.

So please, learn from our mistake here. Even though there's a parking lot and dock near the dam on Arowhon Road, don't treat it like a public Canoe Lake access point.

The proper (and legal!) place to launch, near the Portage Store

Yes, launching from here means a longer paddle.

Is it still worth it? Keep reading and you can decide for yourself.

Paddling Across Canoe Lake

From the access point, plan on about 4.5 kilometres of paddling each way to reach the Potter Creek area, give or take depending on your route.

Give yourself enough time to paddle out, explore the ruins, maybe do a little hike, and paddle back before dark. Once you factor in time on shore, this easily turns into a half-day adventure.

You'll want a kayak with some decent length to cover the distance, or an efficient canoe. A smaller recreational kayak can still make it in good conditions, but it'll be slower and more tiring. Beginners with solid skills could handle it on a calm day, but this really isn't the spot for your first time in a kayak.

Part of what makes Canoe Lake so cool is how many stories overlap here. It's one of the most iconic entry points into Algonquin, carrying paddlers toward campsites and portages deep into the interior. It's also tied up in the story of Tom Thomson, the logging era, and the early days of tourism in the park.

Thousands of people paddle Canoe Lake every year, and yet barely anyone stops to look for these particular ruins.

Most people just paddle right on by, no idea what's hiding just inside the trees.

How to Find the Ruins

Okay, this is the part you actually came for.

You'll pass Gilmour and Wapomeo Islands, then keep going for another couple of kilometres until you reach the mouth of Potter Creek, on the northwest side of the lake. That's where the old bridge ruins first come into view, and you'll know you're in the right spot. The exact coordinates are 45.57128226723278, -78.72470281095711.

There's a very small beach to the left of the creek where you can hop out and pull your canoe or kayak completely onto shore. Conditions can change here, so use your best judgment and try not to trample the shoreline vegetation while you're landing.

You won't see the ruins from the water.

Honestly, that's part of what makes finding them so memorable.

There's an old path leading into the trees, and within a few minutes those massive concrete walls start appearing through the forest.

The small trail through the woods

It's honestly kind of surreal.

You're standing in what feels like the absolute middle of nowhere, and suddenly there's this towering old mill above you. Trees are growing up through it, all around it. It's hard to believe an entire working town once stood right here, full of noise and smoke and constant activity, a hundred years ago.

Nature basically swallowed the whole building.

Exploring the Old Sawmill

We spent about an hour just wandering around, checking everything out.

There's moss-covered walls, holes in the concrete, old metal cables and bits of scrap and hardware scattered all over the place. You can still see raised concrete platforms where heavy mill equipment used to be bolted down.

Down by the shoreline, the round foundation of the sawdust burner is still there. There are crumbling bricks and old bits of lumber around the water too, though the water levels change what you can see year to year.

The little details were honestly my favourite thing to photograph.

Moss softening the edges of the concrete. Shadows from the trees moving across the walls. Roots curling around the foundations. Little windows into the forest where the holes in the structure line up just right.

The little details are what I love photographing most

At one point, something small suddenly jumped across the pine needles in front of me.

My heart nearly jumped straight out of my chest.

The quiet and the eeriness of the place clearly had my nerves on edge, because the "terrifying creature" turned out to be a very gentle little toad, just hopping along, minding its own business.

Apparently, the ghosts of Mowat are quite small and covered in warts. 🐸

Paddling Beneath the Old Bridge

Once we'd explored the mill, it was back into the kayaks and on into Potter Creek.

Near the mill are the remains of an old bridge that used to connect the sawmill to the main rail line. Rather than horse-drawn buggies, it looks like it was actually part of the mill's rail infrastructure, moving supplies, workers, equipment or lumber across the creek.

What remains of the old bridge, still standing over Potter Creek

Accounts differ on exactly when it was built. One local history source puts it somewhere between 1933 and 1940, while the sawmill itself dates to around 1923. What's left today is just a collection of weathered timbers and old structural bits, slowly falling apart in the water.

Paddling underneath it was honestly one of the best moments of the whole trip.

The bridge isn't imposing anymore, but it still gives you this real connection to the past. Looking up at the old wood, I tried to picture the creek back when the mill was running and trains were rolling through a landscape that would have looked almost nothing like the forest around us today.

Paddling underneath was one of my favourite moments of the trip

Deeper Into Potter Creek

From that old bridge, we kept going farther up Potter Creek.

Potter Creek narrows in, calm and quiet after the open lake

The narrow creek felt so calm and intimate compared to the open water of Canoe Lake. The forest presses in closer on both sides, and the farther we went, the more removed we felt from the busy access point behind us.

We stopped to watch a great blue heron fishing along the creek.

Our great blue heron friend, hard at work

Wildlife sightings are never a guarantee in Algonquin, and somehow, after all our visits, we're still the two people who cannot find a moose. But moments like this more than make up for it.

We kept going for maybe another two kilometres, as far as the water would let us, before our kayaks started scraping bottom.

Along the way, we passed under what I'm pretty sure was another old railway crossing, a cool reminder of just how much the railway once shaped travel, industry and tourism through this whole part of Algonquin.

Another old railway crossing, tucked away in the middle of nowhere

Then it was time to turn around and head back.

What to Know Before You Go

This one takes a bit more planning than your average recreational paddle.

Launch from Canoe Lake Access Point #5 and make sure you've got a valid park permit. Only use designated public parking and access areas, seriously.

Give yourself at least four to six hours for the whole outing, paddle out, explore, paddle back. Strong paddlers might move faster, but photographers and curious wanderers (like me) will probably want more time than that.

What to Bring

• A properly fitted personal flotation device
• Your cell phone
• A camera
• A whistle and whatever else is legally required for paddling safety gear
• A map or offline navigation app
• Plenty of water
• Lunch or snacks (bonus points if it's a snacklebox!)
• Sun protection
• Bug spray
• A small first-aid kit
• A dry bag for your phone or camera
• An extra layer, just in case
• A towel, in case you get wet or fancy a swim
• A headlamp, in case the day runs longer than planned

Canoe Lake can get windy and wavy, so check the forecast before you head out, keep an eye on changing conditions, and skip the exposed crossing if thunderstorms or strong winds are in the picture.

Spring and early fall mean fewer bugs, cooler paddling and gorgeous, atmospheric photos in the forest. Summer is warmer with more daylight, but expect more company at the access point and along the main routes.

Concrete, metal and moss

Leave No Trace

The ruins might feel abandoned, but they're still part of Algonquin's cultural and archaeological history.

Don't take bricks, metal, glass, lumber or anything else. Don't carve into the walls or move things around just to set up a photo. Leave the site exactly the way you found it.

Walk carefully, try not to trample areas you don't need to, and pack out everything you bring in.

A few more detail shots

These ruins have survived fire, weather, water, frost, plant growth and roughly a century of change. Part of what keeps them standing is visitors resisting the urge to take a little souvenir home.

Take photos and memories instead.

A Forgotten Side of Algonquin Park

Honestly, the history of Algonquin Park always fascinates me.

Today, we think of it mostly as this protected wilderness full of lakes, forests and wildlife (though we still can't find a single moose). But underneath all of that is a completely different era.

Railway lines used to cross the park. Hotels like the Highland Inn welcomed early tourists. Logging companies built mills, dams, camps and whole little settlements. Families lived here, kids went to school here, and workers spent their days surrounded not by peaceful wilderness, but by saws, locomotives and industry.

A 1925 CNR pamphlet, from Algonquin's early tourism days

Over time, a lot of those buildings got dismantled, burned or just left to fall apart. Rail service ended, the communities disappeared, and the forest slowly took the clearings back.

The concrete ruins beside Potter Creek are just one surviving piece of that much bigger story.

Standing in among those walls really got me thinking about how temporary our presence actually is. A place can feel so permanent when people are living and working there, and then a couple of generations later, there's trees growing right through the floor.

Nothing feels permanent once the trees move in

This Trip Remains One of My Favourite Algonquin Adventures

...because the destination gave the whole paddle a real sense of discovery.

There were no signs telling us we'd arrived. No gift shop, no viewing platform, no crowd standing around the ruins. From the water, you could easily paddle right past this whole site and never know it was there.

The reward really was in the search for it.

We paddled the iconic Canoe Lake, ducked into a quiet creek, wandered under the forest canopy, and ended up standing inside a forgotten piece of Ontario history.

That mix of paddling, photography and exploration is exactly what I'm always chasing.

It was beautiful, a little eerie, and honestly nothing like a typical day out on the water.

For paddlers, photographers, history nerds and anyone who loves a forgotten place, the ruins near Potter Creek give you a glimpse into a side of Algonquin Park most visitors never see.

Sometimes the best spots aren't the ones on the main attractions map.

Sometimes they're just quietly waiting under the trees.

Me, standing amongst the ruins

With love from the Valley,
Lana

Ottawa Valley Air Paddle is located at 67 Madawaska Street, Arnprior, Ontario. We are your Ottawa Valley home for kayaks, paddleboards, and winter gear. Visit us in-store or at ovap.ca. Demo centre open Thursday through Sunday at McLean Park on the Ottawa River in Arnprior, try before you buy.