Kayaking on Kennedy Lake

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During the May long weekend I planned a three night kayaking adventure with a group of friends. We had a number of places in mind to explore, but settled on Kennedy Lake as an destination due to the weather, winds, and interests.  With this very same group I explored Kennedy Lake back in 2013. However, for this trip we identified the eastern arm and Laylee Island as a new area to explore.

We paddled directly off the boat launch on highway 4 on Friday evening. We traveled up into the eastern arm of Kennedy Lake circling Laylee Island before camping on it’s western shore. Although the Backroads Mapbooks do show a camping site on the western shores, we had a difficult time identifying one. We ultimately settled on a small driftwood covered beach which we managed to fit our tents onto. It may be that this site was the mapped campsite, but it was so overrun with driftwood that there was not much room left on the beach.  In the end some of this driftwood resulted in a lovely campfire. The shoreline did provide for some great exploration.

On day two we set out with intent to paddle into the western arm of Kennedy Lake. On the way we discovered Kennedy Lake North Recreation Site. This large beach also known as ‘Secret Beach’ had a number of great campsites, a lovely little island off-shore, and some beautiful old growth forest beyond the beach. We set camp here early in the day, just because it was such a sweet spot, then explored the area and paddled out to the little un-named island off the beach. This island has a single campsite which could offer a wonderful little getaway for a couple.

Our final camp was found in the western arm of the lake just east of Agnes Island. We paddled north into the western arm of the lake, circumventing Agnes Island before locating our campsite. The site was mostly west facing with a lovely little brook coming down from the mountains. We found a significant amount of karst rock here on the beach. Karst rock is a striking white colour and was easily spotted on our beach. We ended up making our fire ring out of strictly karst. I celebrated the first swim of the season at this spot, as the sun lingered in the sky, and the lake was brisk but enjoyable.

Twas in the end a wonderful weekend exploring new areas on Kennedy Lake. We enjoyed favorable weather and a lovely full moon rising on Saturday night.