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Point Pelee National Park – in November

Posted on by pioneerintrees

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…

first stop: Thousand Islands National Park

Posted on by pioneerintrees

On a road trip to PEI back in 2018 we stopped for a pit stop at the Thousand Island’s visitor’s centre in Mallorytown. We took an obligatory sign photo – you can see the pain of it in Liam’s face and posture – and then explored a bit.

My First oTENTik

During our hike around the National Park, we saw some very cool A-frame tents facing the river. We couldn’t fully investigate since campers were occupying the tent, but I knew that I wanted to stay in one of those tents some day. They looked so civilized …

Fast forward to the present, when the recollection of those tents became the impetus I needed to get me into a National Park during the fall. Who wouldn’t want to bypass sleeping on a thin pad in a tent? (Ok, lots of people love that, I do too, actually, but still…) So I did a search and found that there are many of these tents (“oTENTiks”) in our National Parks, not just Thousand Islands National Park (and they are close by – woot!). Search again, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, but they’re generally all booked up, even in the shoulder seasons. Eventually I was able to secure 2 nights on McDonald Island in the Thousand Islands National Park for mid September. This would be National Park #5 for me!

All I needed was a couple of willing (and available) friends to go with me… and that was surprisingly easy, considering the complications of having to get ourselves to the island! (YAY Marie and Carol!) After lots of discussions and planning we took 2 kayaks and rented a third in Gananoque, which has the closest boat launch to McDonald Island. (Note: overnight parking on city streets is free until October 15th. Bonus!)

Getting There

Packing (and unpacking) for any trip is always my least favourite part, and this trip was no exception, for me at least. The three of use had to not only determine what we need, but be mindful that it would fit into our kayaks. (Yes, it all fit…) Needless to say, we learned a lot about the limitations of a dry sack’s flexibility and the pros and cons of randomly stuffing items to the far reaches of a kayak’s tip or tail.

Mid September camping is not without risk, especially when you are paddling across the St. Lawrence to get to your campsite, but we had phenomenal launch weather and a calm river when we put in. It took us a while to find our island (while there are not actually 1000, there are a shit ton). There are several solid docks and a nice beach for mooring on McDonald Island, but after we landed there and found our campsite, we decided to paddle around the island and pull up right in front of our site. These 3 photos are taken with me standing in one spot and swivelling from side to side. (You can barely see top of the oTENTik in the opening of the woods. Look harder!!) It was a pretty awesome site! Site 2A. Highly recommend!!

Camping on McDonald Island

McDonald Island has a self check in. You pay docking / beaching fees, your wood, and your campsite (cheque or credit!). You can leave your recycling and your garbage in handy bins, which is pretty awesome. There’s a cart for hauling your stuff to your site, 2 incredibly well ventilated and maintained toilets, and 3 communal eating areas to enjoy (one is a large covered structure with a wood stove). At each oTENTik site there’s a food locker, outdoor covered eating area, charcoal grill and firepit. It’s all very impressive!!

The oTENTik!

Finally I get to show you our oTENTik! It was fabulous in almost all ways.

You can see that there are Adirondack chairs on the deck. Nice touch! (We took these out to the rocks for the sunsets.) It sleeps 6. The mattresses are firm and clean (take a fitted sheet, it’s worth it). There’s a solar powered light and power jack (fits a car cigarette lighter style adapter – who the hell knows what this is called – we didn’t bring one which was a bit of a bummer – read the fine print!). There’s also a nice wooden table and 4 chairs inside, but you’re not allowed to eat, prep or store food in the oTENTik, so we only really used the table to hold our gear. The oTENTik comes with a broom and dustpan, but the floor is very gritty with old dirt (apparently no mopping), so plan for indoor shoes / slippers! No heat, so we had every article of clothing imaginable for cold nights – just in case (FYI, many oTENTiks in other parks DO have heat …). On our second night there was quite the windstorm, which caused the awnings of the tent to flap and snap and make a ton of noise. It sounded like a massive branch was scraping the roof. I was wishing I had earplugs.

Kayaking in Thousand Islands National Park

We had some great paddles around the islands, stopping from time to time to get our bearings, have a pee, eat some lunch, put our kayak skirts on … that kind of thing. The maps that Marie got from the rental shop were really handy because they included marker locations (each marker is numbered so you can figure out where you are). This helped a LOT since all of the islands in the area we were kayaking are labelled #1.

There is a fantastic website detailing 9 routes in the greater Thousand Islands Paddling Trail. We stuck to paddling route #3, the Admiralty Islands, which are relatively protected from the winds. When we went outside of that zone we were buffeted with really high waves and a cross wind. It was fun, and we all had kayak skirts (thankfully), but we were glad all of our paddling wasn’t in that kind of wind.

So that’s camping on an island in Thousand Islands National Park in September! Lots of fun. Go for it!

What I’m thinking …

Posted on by pioneerintrees

Honestly, most of what I’m thinking right now has to do with how much this blog program has changed since my last post, and how utterly frustrating it’s going to be to learn the goddamned thing. Jesus. But I’m retired, and retired people must do what they want. And yes, I want to blog about National Parks, so let’s get to it! #sinceipayforthedomain

On to the topic of this post.

A long, long time ago, perhaps when I was in my 20s, I thought that it would be really cool to visit all of Canada’s National Parks at some point in my life. The years crept by and it went out of my head till recently, as I’ve been thinking about all of the things I can do in this new retired life of mine.

There are 48 National Parks, as you can see in the image on the left. Up until this September, I’d visited 4.

Banff

I went hiking and camping in Banff National Park (in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains) when I was a kid – with my mom, dad and sister. I don’t recall a lot of it – just a general fear of bears, a stay in a cabin in the mountains that featured mice walking over us in the night, and my sister losing a pair of cherished jeans on a hike. I think I was 10 years old. I also remember thinking we were never going to stop walking…

Sadly I have no photos from our time at Banff National Park – at least not right now. But I’m betting I could find a slide or two if I sifted through mom’s boxes.

Fundy

I have camped in Fundy National Park in New Brunswick twice – first in 1993 with my lifelong bestie Carol, and again in 1995 for the honeymoon of my very short marriage (it had nothing to do with Fundy by the way). Fundy National Park was awesome – so many trails to explore and activities for visitors – and the tides are so phenomenal! Visiting Fundy was the first time I explored a National Park as an adult. I loved it, which is why I went again only 2 years after my first visit. (Ok, it’s hard to believe we were 28 … we hardly look old enough to be camping on our own…)

Grose Morne

In 1998 I went to Grose Morne National Park in Newfoundland with Jim. We had initially thought we’d travel all around Newfoundland, but ended up staying in the park for the majority of the time. We simply loved camping there. The proximity to the ocean and a fresh catch every day, the awesome new friends that we met & hung out with, the (rather challenging) hikes – all so great. I recall that it rained a lot, but we were game. We had so much fun!

Prince Edward Island

TWENTY YEARS LATER, in 2018, Paul and I took Liam and Bree to PEI. We rented a cool little cabin in Prince Edward Island National Park, which really didn’t seem like a National Park to me … in my memory it was basically a long strip of beach and woods alongside the ocean. But alas, it counts as a stay in a National Park! We rented bikes, ate fish, explored the beach – the typical seashore beachy type of things that you do. Lots of fun and some new experiences for the kids, and a good way to come back to life after chemo.

So those were my first 4 National Parks!

Coming soon… a wee review of my first National Park exploration since retirement (and my 5th park). Bet you can’t wait.