The Tepee Lake canoe route starts at the Canoe Lake access point in Algonquin Park, and the out and back to it is an overnight canoe route with one portage each way, 17.8km of paddling spread over three days, and two nights. It’s a great trip if you’re new to the backcountry, paddling with kids, or you want a weekend on the water without too much work. It’s quite a busy route but for a lot of first-timers, that’s a feature rather than a flaw.
The shape is straightforward. Paddle 4.6 km north up Canoe Lake, carry 240 m around the dam into Joe Lake, then paddle 2.1 km up Joe’s western narrows into Tepee.
At a glance
| Park | Algonquin Park |
|---|---|
| Access point | Access Point #5, Canoe Lake, Highway 60 |
| Route type | Out-and-back |
| Longest portage | 240m |
| Booking type | Lake-zone reservation. Book the lake; sites are first-come, first-served. |
| Permit required | Yes, Ontario Parks interior permit via ontarioparks.ca |
| Parking | Large lot at the access point. One vehicle is covered by your backcountry permit; extra vehicles need their own |
| Drive from Toronto | About 3h |
| Drive from Barrie | About 2h |
Route overview
Book this one if you want a night in the backcountry without a big commitment. One short portage, half a day of paddling, and you’re at camp. It suits a first backcountry trip, families with kids, and anyone who doesn’t mind some company from fellow paddlers. It’s one of the shortest Algonquin Park canoe trips you can do and many love it just for that reason.
Know that it’s busy. Canoe Lake is the most popular access point in the park. Camp Arowhon runs on Tepee’s west shore all summer. Motors up to 10 horsepower are allowed on Joe and Tepee. If you’re picturing two days in the secluded backcountry, this may not be the one for you. If you’d rather not feel completely alone on your canoe trip, it could be a great option.
Canoe Lake is the only real open water, and it runs south to north, so wind either helps you or hurts you rather than pushing you sideways. Joe’s western narrows is sheltered but can feel lengthy. Tepee opens into a wide basin with the camp along the west shore, then narrows into a channel running north and east where the Little Oxtongue comes in. Every campsite on Tepee is along that channel, and which one you take changes the whole trip.
If you’re choosing between this and the Canoe Lake Loop, they start on the same water. The loop carries on past Tepee to Littledoe and hits a 1,106 m carry with some elevation on day two. This route allows you to enjoy some backcountry travel but gives you a day to spend at camp rather than continue travelling.
Tepee gets written off in a lot of trip reports as a mediocre place to camp. There may be something to that for seasoned backcountry paddlers but for many, this will be a great way to spend the weekend.
Day-by-day breakdown
Day 1: Canoe Lake Access Point to Tepee Lake
One carry and you’re at camp.
8.9 km paddle 240 m portage
Launch from the docks at Canoe Lake Access Point and point north. The first 4.6 km is the only open water on the route. You’ll pass the summer camps on the east and west shores, the Tom Thomson memorial cairn on Hayhurst Point, and the sawmill ruins along the west side if you hug that shore. Give yourself an hour, more if there’s a headwind, and be aware that Canoe Lake allows motorboats up to 20 horsepower.
At the north end the lake splits. Take the right channel toward Joe Lake; the yellow portage sign is easy to spot. The carry itself is 240 m of flat, wide, well-walked trail past the dam, with rushing water on one side and an outhouse partway along. The Canoe Lake landing is a single small beach with room for only a few boats. The Joe Lake side is a long shoreline with plenty of places to put in. That mismatch can cause backup: on a busy afternoon, and especially on a Sunday when everyone is coming out at once, you can end up waiting for a turn at the Canoe Lake end.
From the Joe Lake landing it’s 2.1 km up the western narrows into Tepee. Stay left where Joe splits toward the East Arm. The paddle into Tepee opens up with Camp Arowhon’s waterfront on your left. Keep going, the channel running north and east out to Little Oxtongue River, which is where most of the Tepee Lake campsites are. The first sites start roughly 1 km across the lake, and the last one is about another 1 km beyond that toward Fawn Lake.
Day 2: Tepee Lake layover
The reason to book two nights instead of one.
0 km paddle 0 m portage
A layover day is what’s great about this trip. You have no schedule, and three good options.
The best of them is north. From the top of the channel the Little Oxtongue carries on through Fawn Lake, which is more a wide spot in the river than a lake, and on into Littledoe. It’s roughly 1.5 km from the last Tepee site to Littledoe with no portage at all, and Fawn has a reputation as one of the more reliable moose-spotting stretches in this part of the park. Early morning is the time to go. Littledoe is a bigger, prettier lake with rocky points and long peninsulas, and it’s worth an hour of poking around if you’re up for it.
South is the other option. The Joe Lake cliffs sit on the western side of Joe and are one of the better-known jumping spots in the corridor, with ledges at a few different heights. It’s a longer paddle than the Littledoe trip because you’re backtracking down the channel first, but there’s no portaging involved either way.
The third option is to stay put, which is always enjoyable. If you’re going to swim, the channel bottom is soft and weedy in places rather than the clean rock you get on the bigger lakes. Something to think about when looking for a site.
Day 3: Tepee Lake back to Canoe Lake Access Point
The same trip in reverse.
8.9 km paddle 240 m portage
The way out is the way in. Down the channel, across the Tepee basin, 2.1 km down Joe’s western narrows, over the dam portage, and 4.6 km south to the dock. Three to four hours at a relaxed pace, which leaves room for a slow breakfast.
The one thing worth planning is your timing at the portage. Sunday is exit day for most of the corridor, and the Canoe Lake landing is the bottleneck. If you’re off the water by mid-morning you’ll usually beat the worst of it. If you leave camp at noon on a Sunday in August, expect to wait. It’s a short wait and nobody minds it much, but it’s the difference between a ten minute carry and a twenty-minute one.
Canoe Lake is also the leg most affected by wind, and it tends to pick up through the day. A calm early crossing is a much better paddle than a choppy afternoon one, which is another argument for getting up.
Portage breakdown for the Tepee lake portage route
There’s one portage trail on this route and you cross it twice, for 480 m of carrying in total. It’s the same trail on the way in and the way out. We’ve used Jeff’s Map’s 240 m here but note that the sign at the landing says 295 m.
| Portage | Distance | Difficulty | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canoe Lake to Joe Lake Day 1, outbound |
240 m | Easy | Wide, flat, well-walked trail around the dam, with an outhouse partway along. The Canoe Lake landing is one small beach and backs up when it’s busy; the Joe Lake side is a long rocky shoreline with more room. |
| Joe Lake to Canoe Lake Day 3, return |
240 m | Easy | Same trail, opposite direction. This is the crossing to time. Sunday late morning through afternoon is the worst of it, when most of the corridor is heading out at once. |
Camping on Tepee Lake in Algonquin Park
Nights 1 and 2: Tepee Lake
Tepee’s campsites are different than most lakes. The main part of the lake has almost none, because the western shore belongs to Camp Arowhon. Most of the sites are clustered along the narrow channel running north and east out of the basin, where Tepee turns into the Little Oxtongue River. Both banks have sites, and they’re close enough together that you can see one from the next in a few spots.
This is why Tepee has a reputation for average camping. Most of the channel sites are cut straight out of the shoreline: flat, compact, serviceable, with a view of the far bank a stone’s throw away.
Keep paddling. The sites get further apart and more private the further north you go, and the last one before Fawn Lake is nothing like the rest. We stayed at the farthest site on the channel and it was quiet and properly separated from its neighbours. It does sit beside a swampy stretch, and we saw several large snapping turtles in the shallows there, which we noticed a couple of hours after we’d already been swimming. That’s less alarming than it sounds; see the wildlife section below. But it’s a real feature of that end of the channel, and it’s the reason the water isn’t as clean-bottomed as the open basin.
So, get there by early to mid-afternoon and paddle the full channel before you pick. Fifteen extra minutes may get you a great site.
Picking the best backcountry site
On a channel like this one, the usual advice about elevated rocky points doesn’t apply; there aren’t many. What matters instead is separation and the landing. Look for a site where the sign is the only thing visible from the water, because that usually means a rise or a screen of trees between you and the paddlers going by. Check the landing before you commit, since a gradual beach makes unloading a loaded boat far easier than a steep bank. Avoid the sites directly across from each other unless you like company. Read our full guide to picking the best backcountry campsite
Campsite booking
Algonquin runs on a lake-zone system, so you reserve Tepee Lake for each night rather than a numbered site, and you take whatever’s free when you arrive. Book both nights on Tepee for this route. Reservations open five months ahead at 7:00 a.m. ET through reservations.ontarioparks.ca, and July and August weekends go quickly. One thing to watch: Joe Lake is split into two separate booking zones, Western Narrows and East Arm, and neither of them is Tepee. Make sure you’ve selected the right zone before you pay. Our Algonquin backcountry reservations guide walks through the booking window step by step, and the rest of our Algonquin canoe routes are worth a look if your first-choice lake is gone.
Wildlife and water on the route
Loons are a frequent find on this route. Both times I’ve paddled this route they are very social and allow you to get very close. On water this busy they’ve stopped treating canoes as a threat. If one comes over, sit still and enjoy it. What you shouldn’t do is chase one that’s swimming away, and in early summer stay out of the shoreline nooks and stream inlets where they nest; a loon pushed off its nest leaves the eggs exposed. The Loon Preservation Committee has the short version of that.
The Little Oxtongue stretch north of Tepee, through Fawn Lake and on toward Littledoe, is the best moose water on the route. It’s shallow, slow, and lined with the kind of marshy edge moose feed in, and it has a long-standing reputation for early morning sightings. Herons are close to guaranteed, and beaver activity is constant along the channel.
Snapping turtles are the one that surprises people. We saw several large ones in the shallows near the far end of the channel, and only noticed them after we’d been swimming there earlier the same afternoon. Snapping turtles are not a swimming hazard. In the water they’re shy and will leave rather than confront you, and bites while swimming are rare enough that Ontario conservation groups treat the fear as a myth. Ontario Nature’s material says they won’t bite unless harassed, and mostly won’t bite underwater even then. Think Turtle’s guidance covers it well. Wear water shoes, don’t dangle fingers off a low rock the way you would bait, and swim as normal.
Bears are the more serious consideration. The Littledoe cluster of lakes just north of here has a documented history of bear activity, and Tepee is inside that neighbourhood. Follow Ontario Parks food storage rules, and don’t leave anything scented in the canoe overnight.
Camp Arowhon and how busy Tepee Lake gets
Tepee’s western shore is taken up by Camp Arowhon, a kids’ overnight camp that’s been running since 1934. It’s the reason there are no campsites around the main basin, and it’s a big factor in what this lake feels like on any given weekend.
When camp is in session the waterfront is busy: canoes, sailboats, and windsurfers. Paddlers on Joe Lake have reported hearing camp music in the evening, so it’s louder again from the Tepee channel. For 2026, Arowhon’s sessions run from late June to mid-August, with changeover in late July.
If you want Tepee quiet, book before the last week of June or after mid-August. September is the best month on this route: camp is closed, the traffic drops off, the bugs are gone, and the colours start mid-month. If you’re going in July or August anyway, aim for a weekday and take a site at the far north end of the channel.
There’s an upside to the camp that’s easy to overlook. There’s a doctor on site through the summer, a short paddle from any Tepee campsite. If your group is nervous about the backcountry, that can be comforting.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if all the campsites on Tepee Lake are taken when I get there?
It shouldn’t happen. Ontario Parks caps how many parties can book each lake so reservations don’t outnumber the sites. What you lose by arriving late is choice, not a site. That matters more on Tepee than most lakes because the sites sit in a single line along the channel, so a late arrival can mean the only one left is the first one you paddled past. Your permit covers Tepee and nothing else, so don’t drift onto Joe or Littledoe if you’re unhappy with what’s free.
Can you bring cans or bottles into Algonquin’s backcountry?
No. Cans and glass bottles are banned in Algonquin’s interior, and it’s enforced; park wardens carry the same authority as an OPP officer. It catches first-timers out every season, almost always with beer. Decant into plastic bottles or a soft flask before you leave the car, and pack out everything you carry in.
Is there cell service on Tepee Lake?
No. Algonquin has limited cellular coverage along the Highway 60 corridor and none established in the backcountry. You may get a bar or two at the Canoe Lake access point before you launch, but assume nothing once you’re over the portage.
Can you have a campfire on Tepee Lake?
Usually, in the existing fire pit at your site, but check before you leave. Algonquin declares a restricted fire zone or a total fire ban in dry conditions, and during one no campfire is permitted anywhere in the park. Wood and charcoal burning stoves are banned too, including BioLite-style ones; only gas stoves with a fuel shut-off valve are allowed. Carry a stove whatever the forecast says, because a ban can land after you’ve already booked. The fire rating is posted daily at park offices.
How long does it take to canoe from Canoe Lake to Tepee Lake?
Plan on two and a half to three and a half hours from the launch to a campsite, including the portage. The paddle up Canoe Lake to the portage takes about 45 minutes to an hour in calm conditions, the carry is a few minutes of flat walking, and Joe Lake to the Tepee campsites is another hour or so. Wind on Canoe Lake is the main variable; a strong headwind can add an hour on its own.
How many campsites are on Tepee Lake in Algonquin Park?
Roughly 8 to 11, and they’re all in one place: strung along both banks of the channel running north and east out of the basin, where Tepee becomes the Little Oxtongue River. There are none around the open lake, because Camp Arowhon takes up the western shore.
