In early November I headed to Point Pelee National Park with my fellow adventurers, Marie and Kerry. It was a fair drive for us (5.5 hours), but we were up for it! We had booked 3 nights in an oTentik and the weather was promising, with sunshine everyday and no sub zero temperatures at night!
Check in is 3pm, and we got there around 4 … so we hauled our stuff to the oTENTik, bought some wood before the store closed and then headed out for a quick hike (November days end by 5:30 in Southern Ontario). We figured we’d stretch our legs a bit and catch the sunset, which was pretty awesome.
A bit about Point Pelee National Park
Point Pelee is a peninsula that juts southward into Lake Erie. It’s very close to the USA/Canada border – not much further west are Windsor ON and Detroit USA.
Fast Fact: Point Pelee is the southernmost point of mainland Canada! It’s approximately 7 km long. Walking to the tip is pretty neat. We were so lucky to have bright sunshine, warmth and relatively light winds (note the waves on the west side of the spit and the calm on the east). Since we were there on the off season, it wasn’t crowded at all.
Point Pelee is known for being a “major migratory flyway”. In other words, if you’re a birder, you’ll want to go and check out the birds that land there during their migration. We saw a dead bird and a dead monarch butterfly on the beach, a pair of bald eagles, a flock of black birds, and at the Marshlands a great blue heron and some ducks. (Obviously November is not when you go there for the birds!!)
Aside from birds, Point Pelee has all sorts of interesting vegetation – from the cattails in the Marshlands to the Carolinian Forest (named after the Carolinian states, ahem). We saw prickly pear cactus and groves of horsetail, and huge vines wrapping around shaggy barked trees. Very cool to notice the differences between the Carolinian forest and the one I live in, east of Toronto.
The trails in the park are very well maintained. The vast majority are hard packed and with the peninsula being completely flat, they are very accessible for easy hiking or biking (you can rent bikes at the Marshlands store). There is only one area of trail that wanders close to the beach that is much harder to walk on. In the time we were there we figured that we walked all of the trails – or close to it – approximately 13km / day.
The Marshlands boardwalk is 1 km long. It’s very cool to walk that loop and use your binoculars to try to identify the various ducks (and the single heron). During the regular season you can rent kayaks and canoes, which would be fantastic.
Our campsite: Camp Henry
We were pretty impressed with the oTENTik and amenities at Camp Henry. The tents are fully stocked with cookware (e.g., pots, utensils, plates, cups) which is so handy! The majority of oTENTiks are heated with a gas stove – three have a wood stove. Each site has a new gas bbq, picnic table, secure food box and a fire pit. Since our wood was not exactly dry, we fussed over our fires. This was our only complaint about the park services. No biggie.
We had a raccoon visit us at our campfire each night, so yes, we made sure our food had been put away! The storage box is really handy, you can drop a cooler into the bin and have plenty of room for other bags of food. Luxury!
The bathrooms are sparkling clean and well lit, the showers were hotter and stronger than mine at home. Special bonus was the washing area, with two sets of double sinks for cleaning dishes – dishwashing soap included! Super impressive. At the store Josh sold us (damp) wood & kindling and a few gift items (no spoilers here!). As mentioned previously, at the Marshlands site there is another privately owned gift store which has all sorts of amazing merch and provides rentals.
The best thing about wandering through a National Park is seeing unexpected and beautiful things.
We enjoyed exploring the beach for rocks and dead things, checking out bird nests, and considering what species of trees we were looking at. Oh, and berry-filled poop!
Stay tuned for the next National Park adventure…
You are giving me great ideas for next fall. And what fabulous weather you lucked into. I did walk the spit one balmy Thanksgiving Monday years ago – it was 18 degrees.