Grundy Lake Provincial Park

Finding a campsite in Ontario in the month of August was beginning to feel a little like digging through that proverbial bale of hay in search of a needle. Without a reservation made well in advance of your chosen vacation weekend, you could find yourself without a site for your tent! That said, most parks set aside non-reservable sites that can be claimed on a first-come, first-served basis. Since we live in the GTA and knew that most sites would be claimed before we even made it past Barrie, we decided that it would be best to reserve a site first! Though we originally planned on visiting Bon Echo, as a result of our procrastination and subsequent lesson learned, we found a site available at our second choice location of Grundy Lake Provincial Park.

Located just off the Trans-Canada highway, near the town of Britt, Grundy Lake Provincial Park is a beautiful area of Ontario in which to take a hike, canoe ride,or camp. The landscape is a great representation of mixed forest and Canadian shield rocky outcroppings. It is about a 4 hour drive from Toronto.

We set up our tents on a very roomy and private site on the shores of Gut Lake. Our friends Shane and Chelli, set up their tent on one side of the site and we set ours up on the other,side with plenty of room for the picnic table, camp chairs and fire pit in the middle. We had a great view of the lake, a quick walk to the vault toilet, and even a little short-cut trail to the beach. The beaches in the park are very swimmer-friendly, with gradual slopes into the lake. This also makes this park a great place to camp with kids and domestic animals. Our site was located in the Hemlock campground which was one of the radio-free areas in the park. We have come to appreciate the serenity provided in these seemingly more and more available areas of Provincial Parks. The radio-free campground is popular with families and individuals alike who are in search of a more peaceful night's sleep and a noticeably calmer evening for communing with nature (read lots of furry guests in the night time!)

Our site number was 118, if you are interested! The registration site for Ontario Parks provides details about each site, including tree cover, number of tents or shelters the site could comfortably host and other information.

Since Shane and Chelli are active hikers and bikers, we opted to bring our newly purchased bikes with us on the trip so that we could join them on the various trails. An added bonus to bringing along your bicycle is a quicker trip to the comfort stations! The main roads through the park are paved but there are many other campground roads (one in particular that will take you out to the wilder, more remote edges of the park) that are not. The trails in the park are not listed as bike trails (more like hiking trails) but if you have a mountain bike, you should be able to handle the rugged terrain. Though, in all honesty, the trails in the park were a little too 'adventurous' (read rugged) for Nancy (who ended up carrying her bike through certain sections) but the rest of the gang had a blast. Many of the trails border the edge of the lakes and we really enjoyed taking breaks on the rocky mounds of the Canadian Shield that made for perfect oversized benches looking out over the park's various lakes. We saw plenty of loons popping in and out of the lake, diving underwater and resurfacing many metres away. We were also entertained by an endless stream of courageous divers using the rocky outcroppings as natural diving platforms into the lake. The best place for this kind of diving is on the cliffs of Gut Lake.

In addition to the many side trails, Grundy Lake Provincial Park has three main hiking trails in a variety of natural settings and varying in degree of difficulty and length. The Beaver Dam Trail is 4.5 km (about 2 hours) of moderate-rated hiking through forest, marsh and across granite rock. In the marsh section, be prepared to get your feet a little wet if there has been a lot of recent rain (and equally muddy on the trails if the weather has been wet!) We really enjoyed this hike that kind of winds its way through such mixed terrain in the form of a figure eight. There is a section that seems to dump you out of the forest onto a big slab of granite that overlooks a lake. There is a picnic table at this point in the hike and we would have loved to have packed in a snack if we had known! The Gut Lake Trail is an easy 2.5 km (1.5 hour) over granite rock that overhangs or overlooks the lake. There is one section about a third of the way along where you come out above a river offshoot of the main lake that is very beautiful. You will see an inukshuk rock sculpture when you arrive at this picturesque junction. It’s a great place to sit and take a break to enjoy some water and take some photos. This trail gives you access to the best spot for cliff diving (or jumping). Of course, if you’re like us, it also gives you a great spot on the other side of the lake to watch other brave(r) souls jump off the cliff. Though, to our credit, we did take a nice dip in the lake at the end of our hikes at the Main Beach. The water is calm and quite cool and there is a nice, long, slope into the lake at all of the swimming areas. Many designated swimming areas have diving platforms about 50 metres out from the beach. For you information, there is a third hiking trail called the Swan Lake Trail but we opted to forego the one hour easy hike in favour of attending the Shawanaga Pow Wow.

On the drive up to Grundy Lake, we saw many signs advertising a PowWow in the First Nations community of Shawanaga. We decided that would make a great afternoon activity for us, especially since Shane and Chelli have never attended a pow wow. The Shawanaga ‘Honoring Sacred Mother Earth’ Pow Wow is the fourth that we have had the good fortune to attend in Ontario. A Pow Wow is not only a fun but a sacred event that celebrates First Nations culture, song and dance. There is an emcee who announces the Pow Wow participants, important guests, dances and protocol. The emcee also provides visitors with important reminders to ensure that proper etiquette is followed during the ceremonial dances and proceedings. It is essential for spectators to stand during sacred portions of the Pow Wow and to refrain from taking photos or videos. Again, listen to the emcee and you will learn what to and not to do! When in doubt, ask someone. We have really enjoyed our experiences at the Six Nations Grand River Pow Wow, Wikwemikong Annual Cultural Festival, and the Canadian Aboriginal Festival (once held at the Rogers Centre but now hosted by Copps Coliseum in Hamilton). The dances are beautiful and each one has a particular traditional dress (the fancy feather or fancy shawl, for example), style and speed. There are also many opportunities for spectators to participate a various times in the Pow Wow- so listen carefully for your cue! You will be motivated to get up and dance by the beating drums and singing. Entry to Pow Wows does vary but the fee is usually between $5 and $15.

Back at the campsite, around nightfall, we set up our fire and get down to the business of cooking. We have really taken to using the fire for all of our needs, as opposed to our old Coleman stove. The fire pits at Grundy are equipped with a grill that is great to support your camp pots and pans. We cooked all of our meals and boiled our coffee wire on our fire. The only thing to be VERY mindful of when cooking on your campsite, especially in Grundy, is your food and water waste disposal. Be sure to lock everything up in your trunk and to get rid of cooking waste safely. There is a lot of animal activity in the night, especially in the radio free areas of the park. It is also so dark that you may not even know that you have a furry guest until you light up your flashlight. As we were enjoying our campfire, we happened to flash on our light to get some more wood and found out that we were being monitored by a few large hares! There are raccoons and many other furry creatures in the park, some that will be very happy to sniff, growl, snarl and shake up anything that you leave out on your site, so be very mindful of how you are leaving your site when you head off to the bathroom, to the lake or to bed.

If you are one of those people who is curious about those snarly, growling large animals that stalk the forest and campgrounds at night. We were given a tip that we may be able to see live bears at the local dump—especially early in the morning. Though Nancy and Chelli were not too pumped to come face to face (okay, more likely 15 metres to face) with a bear, Shane and Rob were excited to take some photos. Unfortunately, the bears weren’t that hungry on the day that they visited. Rob even made a second trip, but still no bears. Though, along the way to the dump, we were fortunate to see two moose, what we believe was a wolf, a few deer and many different birds.

When planning your trip to Grundy, here are a few helpful ideas to make your stay more enjoyable. The nearby town of Britt is a tiny but lovely place to visit, enjoy an ice cream cone or a meal at the marina restaurant (or lakeside on their picnic tables), and to purchase grocery needs from one of the local grocers. Ouelette’s has fresh fruits, veggies, hand-scooped ice cream and other essentials. They also have a modest selection of beer, wine and liquor. The shop at the marina has a butcher and there is also the Grundy Lake Supply Post that can outfit you with all of your camping needs (their butter tarts are quite delicious too!) We recommend that you purchase your wood at the Supply Post too--- it was the driest that we found in the area. Your other option for purchasing groceries is to stop in Parry Sound at one of the ‘big box’ grocers but you will do just fine if you leave your shopping until you get to Britt. Another good tip, bring LOTS of mosquito repellent--- the little suckers are alive and well in Grundy!

Grundy Lake Provincial Park