Karen, Odin, Marcus and I left Arrowhead provincial park and arrived at Killbear in the afternoon of the 14th Aug. Killbear Provincial park is one of Ontario Parks most sought after destination. Getting a reservation here, especially over a holiday weekend takes a special kind of determination. You literally have to wake up at 0 dark thirty, prefill all the reservation fields (If you are lucky to have found an available site) and hit the “reserve” button at exactly 07:00:00 (using an atomic clock if possible) if you delay until 07:00:01 you will be disappointed. They do accept reservations up to five months in advance (despite my following all the pre-mentioned steps, we were unable to book a site with electricity)..
Killbear boasts over 880 campsites in 7 distinct campgrounds, as with all Ontario parks the only hookup offered is electricity, and at Killbear even that is only offered at three of the campsites. Most sites are reasonably well treed and offer some shade and privacy. Given how many sites are at this park, and how fully booked it is most of the time, we were pleased with how quiet it was for the most part.
The park, and the region is well known for its population of Massasauga rattlesnakes…however before this nugget of information scares you off, only four people have ever been bitten at the park, treatment usually involves a short hospital stay, no one in the last 50 years has died from a bite. In all the camping and hiking Karen and I have done in this region, we have not seen any sign of this snake.
If you like beaches, you should love Killbear, there are miles of beaches throughout the park, with some beautiful smaller hidden ones that can only be reached by hiking the shoreline, or boating in. The shoreline trail is the nicest hike at the park, it is not an official trail, more of a cross country rock scramble, but very scenic. We spent most of our time with Odin at the beach near Lighthouse point, not only was it closer to our campsite, but it was definitely the most kid friendly beach (nice gently sloping shallow water) It also has a lot of shaded areas to set up for the day….We spend hours every day at this beach.
Each campground has its own beach area (other than Blind bay which I believe has no beaches) they are all clean and weed free making them all very kid friendly. There is a recreation trail that runs the length of the park (approx. 6 Km long) that is designated as a bike path, in fact there are signs prohibiting bikes from the road…the problem is this path is very rough in areas, with loose gravel and deep channels caused by heavy rain. Unless you have a pretty rugged mountain bike, I would not bike this trail. The park has four other hiking trails. The short Lighthouse trail, beautiful twin points trail, the adventurous shoreline trail, and the lookout point trail. Odin showed little interest in wasting his time hiking, especially if it took away precious time that should be spend either at the beach or eating ice cream…as a result Karen, Marcus and I did all the trails in the last two days after Odin had returned home.
Camping with a young Grandson can have interesting challenges…Odin with all his playing could become quite the mess…Time for Grandma to get him ready for bed..
Washing Odin using the shower head at the back of the trailer worked out fantastically, He seemed to have a hoot as well. Unfortunately our time with Odin came to an end, our week of having him camping came to an end, and Karen and I packed up his stuff (amazing how much stuff a two year old has) and we headed off to Parry Sound to link up with “Mum” (Kali) we chose Waubuno beach to meet, as it had a great playground. Waubuno Beach was awarded the prestigious blue flag, it made the list, along with 26 other beaches and nine marinas across Canada. The Blue Flag represents the internationally recognized gold-standard for water quality, environmental management and education, safety and amenities. We all had a lot of fun. We went out for lunch before saying goodbye to Odin and Kali…it was a great week with our grandson, both Karen and I are already looking forward to extending it to four weeks next summer……
Back at Killbear without Odin, Karen and I had two more days of camping, we spent most of the time hiking the trails at the park.
The weather was hot and extremely humid on our last day, Marcus took advantage of cooling off often.
We all had a great trip to both Arrowhead and to Killbear provincial park, both Karen and I consider Killbear to be our favourite provincial park, and will be visiting again next year.
