I’m from Madawaska, Ontario. Because of this I’m a very outdoorsy person and I visit Algonquin park constantly every summer break. This story happened last may, soon after I got back to my home town from university. It had been since winter break that I last explored Algonquin, so I was itching to get out there after seeing my family and unpacking my stuff. The next few days would be extremely rainy but I didn’t care. A day after I came home I drove into the park and decided to hike the mizzy lake trail. It’s a roughly 12 kilometre trail that loops in between many marshes, lakes and wetland.
I arrived at the trailhead and got moving. It had started raining pretty hard earlier in the morning and it was pretty nippy out, about 8 degrees Celsius which was colder than average this time of year. This was okay cus I had my rain gear. The first couple hours were pretty normal, I saw a moose in the tree line at mizzy lake itself. When I reached wolf howl pond along the abandoned railway is when stuff got off.
I don’t know why but the temperature seemed to drop very rapidly, it felt like the negatives. In the distance I saw another hiker walking in my direction, I thought nothing of it at first, but as she got closer I saw she was a young girl looking about ~9 years old. This was pretty weird, she was all alone. She also wasn’t wearing any rain gear, she just had an absolutely soaked hoodie and a backpack. She was pretty pale and was shivering a lot. When we met I asked her where her parents were, she didn’t answer verbally but kinda just shrugged. I asked if they were ahead of her when she last saw them and she nodded.
This was odd because nobody passed me on the trail, I hadn’t seen anyone period. If they went up ahead of her, I would have passed them first before finding her. I suppose they could have made a turn when the trail merged with the rail line but the rest of the line doesn’t really go anywhere. I gave her my extra raincoat, a small compact camouflage one I always have in my pack and use for hunting. I also gave her an emergency blanket for retaining heat. I told her that she should come with me to the trailhead, when her parents realize she’s missing that’s probably where theyll go. It would also give me better cell reception so I could call someone for help. She nodded we started moving.
About 2 seconds later, I turned my head back to ask her for her name and she literally wasn’t there. I was shocked for a couple of seconds. There wasn’t anywhere for her to go, we were on an elevated trail (an old rail bed) with water on both sides of us. There was no forest, and I didn’t hear any splashing. I checked both ditches like 3 times in my confusion. She just disappeared into thin air and took my favourite hunting jacket with her. I reported this to park authorities but they didn’t seem to take it seriously. Nobody believes me.