Seconder on the walking stick. They serve as an extention of your walking circle. You don't even have to use it to poke around, just the process of waving it and it hitting the ground is enough to make snakes wary. It gives you a bit of a comfort zone.

2ndly, keep your camera handy. I missed taking a photo of a 4-5' rattler and simply got the smaller 3' rattler in the lense because the bigger snake was faster than I.

Georgian Bay is nice area. I kayaked around Killarney area some years ago. The sandstone & granite rock reminded me a lot of sand dunes, esp. at dusk.