Highways and campgrounds
BY SCOTT HADDOW
Wild Northerner staff
One of my favourite things to do each summer is a road trip-camping trip. It’s not hardcore. It’s not intense. It is not meant to be. There is no true destination. It’s all about fun, stopping to see as much as possible and enjoying the journey.
My family (wife Arielle and our kids Hunter and Teeryn) and I did one of these last summer. We took 11 days and the truck and our gear and went all over northern Ontario. We hit Lake Superior Provincial Park, Neys Provincial Park, Pukaskwa National Park and ended it at Ivanhoe Provincial Park. In-between we spent time in Wawa, Marathon, White River, Chapleau and Potholes Provincial Park.
It was like any other trip of this nature we’ve taken before – full of unexpected surprises, meeting lots of great people and invigorating.
The first two nights, we stayed at Rabbit Blanket Lake campground. We have stayed in LSPP before at Agawa and backcountry, so we felt some time at this spot was warranted. We used the spot to hike Old Woman Trail and the Nokomis Trail and slipped in a day paddling excursion on the Michipicoten River. It was a nice way to get in some amazing sights (Nokomis) and do plenty of rock jumping on a creek (Old Woman).
The next few days we spent at Neys Provincial Park. This was like going to a natural amusement park for us. The rich history of the park area dating back to World War II and the prisoner of war camps, remnants of old fishing boats, along with the rugged beauty of the north shore of Lake Superior makes this park memorable.
We brought the kids along the coast of the big lake in search of neat places. About 10-km from the park beach, we found a sweet little rock covered bay with several good places to jump from into the water.
We spent hours leaping from the small cliffs into the green, clear water. The kids could not get enough of this and it was wonderful to share it with them and Arielle.