Little Current, Ontario

Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 5 – 6, 2019

We departed Killarney at 8:40am for our first day in the North Channel on our trip to Little Current. Little Current is 29 miles from Killarney, but we decided to take a highly recommended side trip to the “Pool” which made our trip 56 miles - almost twice as long as needed (see photo from this section of our map). 

We finished passing through the Killarney Channel and out to relatively calm open waters. The scenery was beautiful, so we once again took far too many pictures. We passed the lighthouse on Badgeley Island and arrived at the entrance to Baie Fine at 10:25. Baie Fine (pronounced as Bay Finn) is one of the few fjords in North America. The “Pool” is located at the end of the 10-mile long fjord and provides a well-protected and remote anchorage. A few boats were already anchored when we arrived and we understood why people would enjoy hanging out here for a few days.

We were back to the main small boat channel by 1:30pm and on our way towards Little Current. There is an old railway swing bridge that has been converted to car traffic just before the Port of Little Current. The bridge only opens on the hour, so we had to hold position near Goat Island for 30 minutes waiting for the bridge to open. The boat traffic builds as it gets closer to the top of the hour, yet everyone politely takes their turn going through when the bridge opens.

We arrived at the Port of Little Current, at the southeastern end of the North Channel, at 3:10pm and were all tied up by 3:40pm. The town is located on Manitoulin Island, the large island separating the North Channel from Lake Huron. There are about 1,600 townsfolks living in the town of Little Current which provided options for restocking supplies plus a couple of interesting restaurants/bars. We stayed two days to do some shopping and sight-seeing. To our surprise when we awoke on our second day, the Victory I cruise ship was in port. It’s carries only about 200 passengers, but is nicely decked out and “small” means it can manage the canals and locks as needed to travel between Chicago and Toronto during the warm season. Even though it’s a small cruise ship, when docked just beyond the marina, it made all the personal pleasure craft vessels look rather insignificant. All-in-all, this was another little Canadian harbor town worth a visit.