Franchere Bay, Moose Lake (Bonnyville)

In late July, we spent some time in Bonnyville and paddled Moose Lake. The weather was uncooperative (wind, rain, smoke) so we decided to put in at Franchere Bay Provincial Recreation Area on the west end of the lake.

There is a boat launch here but we decide the beach looked just as easy. We parked about 30 meters from the water's edge and carried down a gentle grass and then sand slope. There is was a one-foot drop (retaining wall) down to the beach.

There were pit toilets, picnic tables and the usual stuff in this campground. The lake has a sandy bottom and looked quite swimmable.

We went left off the beach (north) and under the bridge into the channel (Thinlake River) that connects to Thin Lake. There were a fair number of birds here, even during the slow time of the summer and we went about 3km upstream before we started to bottom out a bit and turned back.

The shore was basically bullrushes giving way to bog or boggy forest.

We came back out into Moose Lake and then Jenn got her kayak sail deployed and spent some time enjoying the wind.

We drove around a bit to look at other launch sites, thinking we'll be back at some point. On the southwestern shore is the Pelican Point municipal campground. This has a boat launch and beach (meh) and gives easy access to the southern basin (which as lots of islands). We may well try here next time.

On the northern shore, we came south off of Highway 600 down Lakeview Drive (Range Road 72A) to this sandy launch. This launch gives good access to the northwestern basin as well as river (that doesn't seem named on google maps).

A little further east on 660 is access to Moose Lake Provincial Park (down Range Road 70). The park is sprawling and the launch is pretty decent. It gives good access to the eastern end of the lake.

There seem to be lots of access points to this pretty big lake. I wish the weather had been a bit better!