Whiteshell Provincial Park; Our Kind of Place

In one of our previous trips to Canada I met a couple from Manitoba who said we should visit there and especially visit Whiteshell Provincial Park, a huge park near the border of Ontario.

When I found that their West Hawk Lake Campground had full hookups I booked us for a week.

We’re happy to be here in a site at the end of the row.

On my first walk I discovered that this pretty little lake is almost round…

and deep enough for scuba diving…

because…

it was created by a meteor strike about 100 million years ago.

I also discovered that it’s best to take a walking stick on every hike.

We’re on the Canadian Shield now and though not mountainous, nothing is level,

and most of the paths have some sections that are very rocky.

The Canadian Shield is a vast area of Precambrian rock scraped bare by glaciers. It has very thin soil and in many places the paths are worn down to the rock, so it’s like a sidewalk through the forest.

Where there is just bare rock, trails are marked with posts…

or sometimes red flagging tape. It makes them fun to follow.

Trees are very shallow rooted. This mature tree fell over and you can see right through the root ball, which is more a root plate.

We found this young tree peeled away from its tenuous hold on the rocks.

We pushed it upright and propped it up, maybe it will be able to reroot itself.

Because the bedrock is at or just below the surface there are lakes…

and streams everywhere.

Streams are low now…

so what in the spring would be a torrent is just a trickle.

This is a great landscape for beaver,

and their dams are a permanent part of the topography.

There are also deer…

and bear. Though we haven’t seen a bear there’s scat and they set up a bear trap in town so I never hike without my air horn (I call it my bear horn), which sits in a pocket on my shoulder water bottle holder.