Petawawa River

This is some of the best whitewater in southern Ontario (yeah, we consider Algonquin still southern Ontario). For river paddlers, this is the best Algonquin has to offer, and it delivers. The best experience is at least five nights putting in at Brent on Cedar Lake and taking out at Lake McManus. Or, you could put in half way down at Lake Traverse. If you really boot it, you can do Traverse down in two nights. 

The Petawawa has plenty of class 1-3 rapids that are a lot of fun. Most of the runnable whitewater is 'drop and pool', which means fun but short rapids. The river switches it up for the last third offering you some long ongoing swifts and class ones to help you on your way, including one aptly called "Five mile rapid". You'll finish off with two very long lakes that will feel like forever.

There are several portages that we've marked on the map below. You'll need to zoom in to see some of them, but we recommended George Drought's guidebook for this river. It has everything you need.

Cedar Lake to Lake McManus

This longer route has more complex whitewater and more portages.

Nights: 4 to 6.

Paddling distance: 88 km

Map links: Put-in, Take-out

Shuttle distance: Brent to McManus is 138 km, (2 hours, 44 minutes)

Lake Travers to Lake McManus

Nights: 2 to 3.

Paddling distance: 47.4 km

Map links: Put-in, Take-out

Shuttle distance: 47 km, (54 minutes)

Resources

Outfitters

• For gear rental or shuttling,  Algonquin Bound Outfitters, Algonquin Portage, Dennis Blaedow (message this guy through Facebook).

Water level data

• The best water meter for all the paddleable areas is Petawawa Real-Time Hydrometric Data near the town of Petawawa. 

• The Wilderness Canoe Association says, "Low: 13 cms (2.3 m online gauge). Ideal: 25 cms and up (2.45 m online gauge). High: Unknown. It does get significantly harder at flows above 40 cms, with more of a bigwater feel.

Maps: 

• Jeff's Algonquin Maps (Use Algonquin east if you're purchasing)

• Chrismar Algonquin 4 North Central map