Frontenac Park

Frontenac Park is like the little sibling of the go-to Ontario wilderness areas that everyone flocks to - namely Algonquin Park and Killarney.  As such, many people don’t even know about it.  It has a good network of hiking trails, 48 backcountry campsites and is closer than the others.

I normally take a long(er) trip somewhere in the Autumn – late September or early October.  I love the outdoors in the fall…  the colors, the sights, the smells, not to mention the lack of bugs and cooler weather is great for hiking.  So, this year since I had not been to Frontenac before, I decided check the place out with 4 days of backpacking (see trip report here).  There’s some quite good paddling available there as well, but I decided to hoof it this time.

The park boasts 160kms of trails on their website…  I think that is a little on the generous side, whoever came up with that number.  I hiked an obvious majority of the park, and did a bunch of bushwhacking looking for points of interest as well as backtracking in some areas to get to another area of the park, and I ended up with 75kms according to my GPS, which is less than half of the official statement of 160kms.  I think the true number is probably in the low 100s, even with portages counted as hiking trails.

The terrain in the area is quite unique.  Even though there is nothing in the area that could remotely be called a mountain, the landscape is quite hilly with steep granite ridges and valleys.  It seems the beavers have moved into the area somewhat recently (within 100-200 years ago), as almost all of the depressions have been dammed up and are lakes or bogs, there are dead tree stumps sticking up out of the water, showing the relative recentness of the dams.  There are no rivers or large creeks in the area, only small streams and brooks.  The forests are almost entirely hardwood forests, with only the odd conifer.  The west side of the park has a little acidic area with conifers - pine and tamarack trees.  The majority of the park is former land used by homesteaders scratching out a hard living, mica/feldspar mines, and hardwood logging camps, the abandoned remains of all which can be seen.  There’s even ‘Old Thor’, an abandoned truck used for roadmaking in the area, off to the side of one of the trails, and a large old boiler for one of the mines, Tetts Mines can be found in the woods.  The official park map has many points of interest such as these and most can be found if you do a little off-trail exploring to look for them.  The trails in the northern part of the park are mainly the old roads from the former inhabitants.  The area around Slide Lake in the south East is the most scenic and rugged – I would recommend visiting that area if you are only there for a short period.

The campsites are arranged in ‘clusters’ , with one cluster usually being four campsites.  There’s 13 different clusters, making 48 total reservable backcountry sites in the park.  There’s no car camping available.  And by calling these backcountry sites, I’d have to classify these as deluxe backcountry sites.  Each site has a leveled tent pad (complete with permit holder for some reason), a set eating/fire area complete with a picnic table, a steel fire pit with grill (the standard issue provincial park type), and either one or usually two well made semi-permanent benches made from split logs.  Not only that, there’s either one or two shared outhouses/privies for the cluster, made from fiberglass….  and the kicker, they’re stocked with toilet paper, too!  To go beyond that, some sites even have set up bear rope/pack hanging areas with some chain/wire/tube/pipe contraptions between trees at a designated spot near each campsite.  These amenities do make the camping more comfortable but at the same time gives me the feeling that I am almost car camping.  I could personally do without the extras, but I don’t mind them.  Some sites are very close together and would be a bit annoying at busy times, where others are spaced apart.  Two of the three nights I was the only one in the cluster I was in.

Another cool aspect of the park is it’s open year round and offers many courses to teach outdoor/wilderness skills.

As far as the quality of backpacking goes, I would even go so far as to say Frontenac trails are more scenic than Algonquin backpacking trails, a lot more variety to look at, although it doesn’t feel quit as remote, as you will encounter more day trippers since any part of the park can be reached as a day trip.  In any case, I’d certainly recommend a trip here for a few days, there’s lots to see!

Links:

Everytrail trip report

Frontenac Provincial Park Wikipedia

Friends of Frontenac Park

2011 Map of the park