A schoolboy error, I grant you. I’d wandered off the trail searching for a small, ahem, privacy and wasn’t quite sure which was the right way back.

Abruptly, I was lost in a forest as dense as a smiling London looter.
The glorious isolation and beauty of Algonquin State Park, in Ontario — a three to four-hour drive from Toronto — abruptly became sinister and threatening, as I scrambled over tangled roots, my face slapping branches, my legs gripped by briars.

Pretty: The remote Algonquin Provincial Park is a three to four-hour drive from Toronto

 

I was sweaty and grouchy, and felt the first tingling of panic. And then I saw it: a darker shadow in the claustrophobic Algonquin murk. A moving shadow. And by its side, a further, smaller outline.
It was the dreaded scenario — a protect black bear and her cub. Well, I’d questioned for it. This was why I’d come to Canada. To meet a bear in the wild.
But it was also my greatest dread. Our Canadian family adventure had begun in the relative protection of the Blue Mountain resort, outside Collingwood, on the shores of the magnificent Georgian Bay — itself a pinched-off segment of the even more majestic Lake Huron.
Blue Mountain is primarily a ski resort, but it’s now tempting summer visitors with a dizzying array of harum-scarum activities. My goal for the first leg was to hold back my fearless eight-year-ancient daughter Rosie (slogan: Higher! Quicker!), and egg on my more tentative 12-year-ancient son Gabriel (slogan: ‘I’m not eating it if it’s got sauce on it’).

Bear-faced peek: An adult female black bear with two newborn cubs – a native species

So we took a truly terrifying journey along a swaying walkway through the treetops; we explored scenic caves and caverns, many haunted by the ghosts of long-lost First Nation tribes; we mountain-biked, zip-lined and, finally, took a sort of organic-flavoured rollercoaster ride, which followed the contours of the mountain.
The next leg took us on a five-hour drive around the shore to the northern tip of Georgian Bay.
The drive itself was a spectacular delight, as we cruised through forest and swamps, finally reaching the austere wonder of Killarney, which now heads my personal list of the loveliest places in the world.
Mountains, lakes, forests: if those things do it for you, then Killarney will do it for you like nowhere else on earth. The particular beauty of Killarney is, paradoxically, a product of its relative infertility.

Canoe do it? Taking to the water with a kayak or canoe is a well loved activity in this area

 

The soil is thin, which affords an airiness to the woodlands, and the impervious rock means there are countless lakes: some tiny enough to skim a stone across from rocky shore to shore, others vast stretches of placid blue perfection.
We spent a day climbing to the top of the Silver Peak, the highest point in the range but, in truth, it was more of a tough hike than a climb. Nevertheless, once we’d burst through the treeline, we found a view that somehow managed to combine sublime immensity with delightful complexity.
Each quarter turn brought something astounding to the eye: some new and subtle combination of tree and rock and water.
We spent an even more astounding day kayaking among the thousands of islands off Killarney. It was there that I had my definitive Canadian wasteland experience. We were kayaking between two islands, lying in the bay like beached quartzite whales.

 

On reflection: A sunset over Georgian Bay testifies to the beauty of this region

 

Rosie yelled out: ‘Dad, what’s that?’ and pointed ahead. It was a beaver, swimming unhurriedly across our path. A moment later a blur appeared, buzzing around the boat. I couldn’t quite work out what it could be.
Some new and colossal species of mosquito? And then it resolved itself before my eyes: a  ruby-throated hummingbird, here, miles out in the bay. It paused, nodded in a courtly sort of way, then disappeared as quickly as a jet fighter.
We stayed in the Killarney Mountain Lodge, a tasty piece of Sixties Americana, immaculately preserved.
The wooden cabins are basic, but comfortable, and the food is huge and hearty. But it is the setting that makes it: right on the rocky shore of the bay. I’d never seen the Milky Way before, and never quite understood what it meant.

Breathtaking: A view of Lake Killarney with Georgian Bay in the background – a haven for adventure

 

Well, I’ve got it now: a fantastic spray of Champagne arcing across the heavens. I tried to make the children stay and ogle, but they were too obsessed with the wonderfully retro games room, with its shuffleboard (like shove ha’penny, but built for the Titans), ping-pong and billiards.
I was a small mystified to find that we were the only British tourists among the laid-back Canadians in Killarney. Rural Ontario offers families the chance of real adventure, without the serious effort involved in reaching the further-flung regions of the Yukon or British Columbia.
Besides the whole wasteland thing, a huge part of the attraction is the friendliness of the Canadians, especially if a couple of bottles of the brilliant local beer are thrown into the mix.
After Killarney we double-backed somewhat to Algonquin Provincial Park. This is an authentic chunk of wasteland. One highway lops off the southern part of the park but, apart from that, it’s just you and the plants. And the moose. And the bears.


 Wasteland: In Killarney, there are countless lakes thanks to the impervious rock that abounds here

 

Travel is always partly an internal journey, and it was here I learnt something vital about myself: I like kayaking, but I’m not one of nature’s canoers. Canoeing seems to target my terrible back, even as kayaking is as relaxing a way to see the world as has been invented.

And canoeing can occupy the ultimate torture: portage, where you hoist your canoe on your feeble British back and schlepp it across the land between lakes. It hurts. It really hurts.
Theories abound on the best way to deal with a bear circumstances, and I couldn’t remember which was appropriate.

Was it to back away at a snail’s pace? To make as much noise as possible? Somehow to prove that you’re not a threat? I’d heard that playing dead doesn’t work with black bears, unless you want to mind them tuck into the free meal.
I was just about to try my basic fall-back strategy for life: running away screaming like a girl (not, Rosie, obviously, who only ever screams, as I said: ‘Quicker! Higher!’). But, instead, the bears just ambled away. It was the ultimate insult — I was no threat to them at all.

Travel Facts

Prestige Holidays (01502 567 222), www.prestigeholidays.co.uk, offers eight nights for a family of four to Ontario from £7,200, including Air Canada return flights from London to Toronto, car hire, two nights’ room only at Westin Trillium House, three nights’ full board at Killarney Mountain Lodge, three nights’ room only at Deerhurst Resort and selected activities.