Written: August 16, 2026

Visited: August 6 – 9, 2026

There are many places in Georgian Bay and The North Channel that everyone says, “this is beautiful”, “you must visit blah, blah, blah…” or something similar. Baie Fine (pronounced bay fin), truly is one of those places. It is stunningly beautiful.

Although not technically a fjord, as apparently a fjord is glacially formed and found only in salt water; Baie Fine was glacially formed during the last major Ice Age. The Laurentide Ice Sheet about 20,000 years ago covered what is now Ontario nearly 2 miles thick. About 12 – 14,000 years ago, as the climate warmed, the glacier began to retreat, gouging and scaring the rocks forming the narrow tongues of land and bays we see today. By 11,000 years ago, the glaciers were gone and fresh water filled the scoured agrea forming what is now Georgian Bay, the North Channel and Baie Fine, a part of The North Channel.

There are a few larger and deeper freshwater fjords, but this is one, a mere 10 miles long and only 60 or so feet deep was rather spectacular.

Anchoring

At first we anchored outside The Pool, several miles west in the “outer anchorage”, most of the way up the fjord but not through the final more narrow cut. This is such a popular place, we thought it would be too busy.

It was a bit rocky with west winds coming up the valley in the outer anchorage, so we moved the next morning. Boats come and go every day, so by coming fairly early we were able to snag a good spot in The Pool as several boats left before we arrived with Rincon.

We stayed for several days; we are learning to slow down after having moved rather quickly for much of our trip this year. With some winds coming, it also made us feel more comfortable with the ability to free move with the wind. A stern tie can be rather troublesome if there are really strong winds. This anchorage is so protected that we never really felt the winds.

Hiking

Another thing that is quite nice at Baie Fine is hiking. It is in the Killarney Provencal Park which has several canoe/hiking trails. Jim and I, as you may remember from earlier posts, are always very happy to get off the boat and explore on land.

From The Pool, there is a short, steep trail to Topaz Lake. The trail trail is perhaps a mile or mile and a half with return. Not a terribly pretty trail, but the lake is a gorgeous mountain lake. The water is very clear as apparently the lake was killed during the era of acid rain, thus, no fish and no plant live. It is apparently safe for swimming. We did not do so as it all seems a bit cold for us, but we saw other do so. We just dipped our feel in which was lovely.

The trail we took the next day was towards Cave Lake, with a side trip to Artist Lake. This is a pretty tree covered trail, quite lovely. Artist Lake is pretty much plant covered, but canoes do use it to cross for the portage north. (See portage sign above). We were headed to Cave Lake but got sidetracked at this lovely creek draining from Artist Lake to The Pool. We stopped for snacks and got stuck. We continued on a bit after this, but had to get back to the boat as we were getting together with Jim and Julie from Narwhal.

Continuing to be Friendly

As I mentioned above, Jim and Julie ended up coming to Baie Fine. We both had anchored on the outside and then moved to The Pool. We have found ourselves quite simpatico and thus got together several times for dinner and I have to say, a bit of partying. We could not seem to help ourselves. Sadly, this was our last shared anchorage as they need to make tracks a bit faster than us. They are doing a bit of scouting of nice places as we head through The North Channel and down the Michigan coast. We miss them.

There Are Always Funny Things

We have seen more float planes around Georgian Bay and The North Channel than anywhere we’ve ever been. When we were in Alaska (not on our boat), we saw float planes and actually took a private tour on a float plane to see bears salmon fishing. That was cool. Here, there are float planes everywhere; they are a mode of transportation We saw them in Toronto, all around Parry Sound, in Killarney, and overhead in many other places. Perhaps most surprising to us was the helicopter at the Okeechobee Lodge at the entrance to Baie Fine. From reading their website, the lodge is not terribly active but the helicoper belongs to the owner.

As we were leaving the sound, we kept seeing float planes. 5 or 6 buzzed the sound as we headed down. Then we began to see them taking off near the lodge, Then, one was taxing towards me as I drove through a narrow part of the channel near the lodge.

Pic of taxing plane (What are the rules in sharing a water way with a float plane. I THINK I have the right of way but lookat at Google and the float plane is less maneuverable than my big boat so I have to give way… into the rocks or shallow water?)

Now that was a real oddity we did not expect to see in Baie Fine!