Long Lake, North Access

In mid July, I drove up to Long Lake, just south of Athabasca and west of Highway 2. I'd previously paddled here out of the Forfar Recreation Park on the southeastern shore. This time I want to try the Long Lake Campground operated by the county of Athabasca on the northern end of the lake.

The campground is small with three sites, fire pits, and tables plus a very dark pit toilet. The boat launch is steep but you can unload right at the edge of the water and park 30 feet back. The launch is sandy and shallow but quickly transition into weeds. The water was pretty clean, although maybe not as nice as Narrow Lake, immediately to the north.

The northern half of Long Lake is pretty shallow and has speed limits for power boats. 

The bottom half of the lake is deeper and has more boats. On the eastern shore is the Forfar Recreation Park campground, which has a day-use beach and boat launch. This was nicely kept and there is a fee for use. 

The rest of lake is basically this: a mix of aspen and fir. The western shore was a bit sandier than the eastern but neither was particularly notable.

There were a lot of loons on the lake. I saw at east four different pairs as I worked my way down and they were loud.

I also saw a moose browsing in the weeds along the shoreline. She seemed mostly disinterested in me (I was a long way out) and eventually moved off into the trees.

Overall, a nice enough lake. I hear it gets busy with boats on the weekend and there were a lot of boats on the campers-only beach just north of the public beach at Forfar. I was there early on a week day and only saw one boat on the water. I'm not sure I'd go back--it was almost two hours each way and there are a lot of nice lakes within a two-hour drive. But, if I was in the area, I might take it in or go back to Narrow Lake.

Forfar Recreation Park, Long Lake

We drove up towards Athabasca last week to check out the Forfar Recreation Area. The trip is about 90 minutes north on Highway 2 followed by a short drive west on Highway 663.

There is a $5 entry fee to access the lake. The main access point has a beach, boat launch, dock and swimming area. The water is lovely (spring fed and clear). There is also a campground with separate beach.

We paddled north up the west side of the lake. After getting through the first narrows we hit a shallower area with a speed limit. This was much nicer as we weren't have to cope with the wake of the many boats pulling tubes.

Pretty typical northern lake but with lovely clear water (more like northern Saskatchewan lLakes at the tail of the Shield).

We paddled up towards a camp. We came back down the east side to try and get out of the wind that came up. There is also a small camp ground at the north end of Long Lake, but I don't know what kind of lake access there is (google suggests limited).

Further north is Narrow Lake. We didn't try that but there is a campground with water access about half way down the east side of Narrow Lake.

Overall, a lovely day and a very nice lake. We might go back again and see what the south end of the lake holds. There is another Long Lake about 60km to the east (which is confusing) that also appears to have a campground and beach that we might try this summer.