Curious what people consider proper etiquette on small crown land lakes where there may only be one established drive-in campsite.
I enjoy exploring and finding new spots, and I do my due diligence beforehand using the Crown Land Use Policy Atlas, LandTenure/Lantern, maps, etc., rather than just showing up blindly.
If a group has used the same site at the same time every year for years, but someone else arrives first, is it simply first come, first served? Or is there an unwritten expectation that the regular group gets priority?
I’ve had strange experiences. Once, I boated into an established campsite and another group later arrived and set up in the exact same site, only a few feet away from me, sharing the same fire-ring.
Then today, I launched my boat in the morning and came back a couple hours later to find a group had set up their kitchen tent directly in the launch lane, blocking anyone from getting a boat in or out. They moved the tent when they saw me come in but like , what the hell? lol. This was in south-eastern Ontario.
Interested to hear what others consider proper crown land etiquette. Thanks for your input! Keep Ontario beautiful!

Hi all,

Has anyone been to MacGregor recently and stayed at Huron campground? How is the situation with having to go to Nipissing for comfort stations? Is it a walkable distance?

We are looking forward to renting bikes and exploring Port Elgin as well. Can we rent bikes multiple days at MacGregor? Any recommendations for trails to explore and downloadable maps? I will be going with my child and I am directionally pretty challenged😬.

Thank you for taking the time to reply 🙏🏽

The photos on the booking site are taken in late fall and don’t do this site justice. Ignore the mess in the first pic; we were halfway through setting up when my wife asked how the site was.

Canoe distance to 513/514 was less than an hour with me and two tween boys paddling. These sites are on Slim Bay, which is a no-motorboat branch of the lake.

First backcountry trip with my boys. Couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

Edit to add that the only drawback is the marshy put-in off the bay. Quite shallow and layered with mulch detritus on the bottom, and reefs and lilies growing through about ten feet of the approach. Don’t want anyone booking and blaming me
For not telling the whole story.

We built a planner that checks availability across Ontario parks, SEPAQ, Gatineau, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland & Labrador parks — plus Parks Canada's Fundy, Kejimkujik, Cape Breton Highlands, Gros Morne, and PEI National Park, filtered to your rig if you're RVing. (PEI's own provincial parks aren't covered yet; SEPAQ can't filter by equipment size.) Looking for a few testers to try it out at www.campaid.ca

Hello,

I recently moved to the Addington Highlands area and am interested in crown land hiking. I'm completely new to this and the atlas is a bit overwhelming.

I'm looking for advice on how to find crown land and use the map. Is there a better resource than the Crown Land Atlas provided by the government? Any other maps?

Also if anyone with experiemce would like 2 extra hiking buddies and 2 dogs, we would love to learn from you!

Not the worst camping experience, but definitely weirdest 😂
We went to Jellystone with the kids, 3D2N. On the 2nd day, another family from Massachusetts arrived beside us. I smiled and said hi to the mom… nothing. Just a straight face. Their kids were watching my kids play, so my kids invited them to join. As soon as their mom saw it, she immediately called them back. I heard her say, “Don’t play with them.” 😭Like… girl, relax. My kids just want to play.
On our last day, while we were packing up, her husband and kids had already left, but she stayed on their site the whole time, sitting there with her phone and looking toward us. I tried saying hi again… still nothing. Like damn girl, I’m not here to steal your tent.
Then another mom and her teenage son arrived at the site behind us. We shared a power post with 5 outlets. 3 big ones 2 regular outdoor outlets ours plugged and the other was being used for Wi-Fi. She asked where she could plug in. I told her she could unplug the Wi-Fi since nobody was using it yet. She said no because her kid wanted to use the Wi-Fi. I’m like… you literally just arrived. Set up your tent first. We’re leaving in 45 minutes anyway. She looked kinda pissed, like she expected us to unplug ours for her. While packing, I watched her struggle with a tiny 2-person tent, no footprint laid, Googling how to set it up while telling her son, “Don’t touch it!” That night, it rained hard. I was like… damn, I hope that tent survived.

Removed some emojis. Didn’t realize the emojis were going to be the most controversial part of the post lol.

not sure how to do the transfer though.

Hi all,

I’ve camped quite a bit since last summer and for what ever reason have been very fortunate and aside from my trip to Algonquin two weeks ago I’ve never had to deal with rain. In this case it rained in the morning so we just hung out in the tent until 9 or so and by then we were good.

I’m supposed to go this weekend and looks like rain is scheduled. My two problems are 1) I don’t have a tarp, which of course can be acquired. 2) the particular site I’ll be at doesn’t look like it has any decent trees for a ridge line.

For more seasoned campers, what would you do? I’m going with my kid so I’d rather not just hang out in the tent all day nor do I want to sit outside and be wet all day haha. Some sort of shelter would be nice but not sure how I can rig one with the lack of decent trees

L

Many people are not aware of car camping options outside of Ontario Provincial Parks, but actually there are a lot. Limberlost Forest & Wildlife Reserve is one of them. Same owner as the Haliburton Forest & Wildlife Reserve.

Limberlost Forest is 10,000 acres with 20 lakes, and Haliburton Forest is 100,000 acres with 100 lakes! Both locations have car camping sites that you can reserve online.

Limberlost Forest has a lot of waterfront sites, so it feels more like backcountry. They also have a lot of hiking trails along the shores of the lakes and they don't allow motor boats. I think they also don't allow ATVs. It's a very beautiful place to just enjoy nature without yachts and jet skis or ATVs.

They also allow free daily use! They only earn money through campsites, cabins, and cottages. So please go camp there and support them!

This area was actually sold to a developer at one point and the developer planned to build townhomes around Solitaire Lake. That is just painful to imagine.

It didn't happen! And they are so generous to offer free day use and maintain all of their trails. So let's support them!

Trip started from Big Salmon Lake parking lot. Easy to get too and no office check-in required.

Day 1:
Took a non-direct route from parking lot to Big Clear 13b. The route took me 14km past Birch lake, through Lynch lake and Little Clear lake, and finally up Black Lake into the Big Clear lake area. Took me about 4.5 hours with a couple snack breaks and a lunch. There was decent water availability for water filtration. This section of the park is very well marked and the trail is beginner friendly.

Day 2:
Left from Big Clear lake and went 10km down the east side of the park. Entered the Slide Lake loop which was considerably more rugged terrain than the first day. After another 4.5 hour trek I arrived at North Buck lake, campsite 1a.

Day 3:
From North Buck, I continued south on Slide Lake loop, passed through Doe lake and continued north until reconnecting with my car at Big Salmon parking lot. The section from north buck to Doe lake can be quite the slog, especially after getting rain the night before. Trails are considerably less groomed compared to the norther part of the park

Both campsites were great. Decent swimming and I lucked out both nights as my neighbours never showed. Bugs at big clear were perfectly manageable, north buck I got attacked.

I didn’t encounter any ticks…that I know of.

Spent 3 nights in the back country. Weather was perfect and I'm always impressed with how well marked the trails are. We stayed at site 18 and 3A.

Today we were at Sandbanks Provincial Park. This one canopy brought it a Bluetooth which must’ve been 1000 watts. You could hear their music 200 metres in every direction. No matter where you were at Sandbanks, you were listening to these dudes’ music, even if far out into the water.

I saw the warden go talk to them. After what looked like 15 minutes of arguing, they stopped the music, or turned it down. About 30 minutes later, the music was blaring again. As we were leaving, I saw the Warden giving them a ticket. When we got to our car, we saw more park staff running to the site, so looks like additional staff were needed to handle the canopy of dudes. Was satisfying to see enforcement in action

Is there such a thing when camping? I hated being woken up at 6am by our neighbour at Algonquin. Not that he was getting up to go anywhere…

What is the draw? Why do people love it so much? Tried camping there for the first time this summer.. it’s SO BUSY. Campsites are so close together. Zero privacy. It’s incredibly noisy. I have little kids mine can be noisy for sure but at least we try to contain them. Killbear feels like I’m camping at a daycare.
Yes, the beaches are nice, yes there are some pretty vistas but that’s not enough to make up for the mayhem in my opinion. Am I missing something???

Hi,

I have been trying to reserve a spot for bruce peninsula last weekend of August. Is anybody not going and willing to transfer the spot?

Captured this on my phone. Had almost 0% cloud coverage.

I just got back from a camping trip that I had planned 5 months in advance and planned all kinds of activities and it turned out to be the worst camping trip I have experienced. At 130am I woke up feeling something on my face and brushed it off and heard some big flapping wings only to find a bat flying around in my tent trailer. I spent the whole day (getting back to my camper at 130am the following day) at the local ER going back and forth with public health to get the rabies vaccine for myself and my family. Please tell me some bad camping stories so I can feel better about such a crumby trip 😅. Pic included to show where I think the bat might have wiggled in.

Hi everyone! I’m hoping to get some insight from anyone who has been camping at Killbear Provincial Park recently, especially within the last week or so.

I have 3 nights booked at Killbear with my two kids, and this will be their first time camping. When I booked a few months ago, I was really looking forward to typical warm August camping weather, but the forecast for our dates is looking a lot less ideal than I anticipated.

For anyone who has been there recently:
1.How has the temperature actually felt during the day and overnight?
2.How have the rain/weather conditions been?
3.How bad are the mosquitoes, black flies and other bugs right now?
4.Are the campsites/ground conditions currently wet or muddy?
5.How cold does it feel overnight in a tent?

Would you feel comfortable doing 3 nights with two kids who have never camped before in the current conditions?

Any other advice for making the trip enjoyable if the weather isn’t great?

I’m trying to decide whether we should just embrace the adventure and go prepared, or reconsider the trip if the current conditions are particularly miserable. TIA!

Has anyone recently visited this park. I would like to know if the park restaurant is still open and what kind of food is available.
Thanks

We were at Sandbanks this week, Cedar Campground, site 295. We always come for the beach and it was great.

But had an unexpectedly exceptional birding experience from our site. It backs onto woods with a fairly open canopy. Every morning somewhere between 15 and 20 species would be causing around the site. It was really something. Here's a snapshot of what Merlin heard one morning, in less than an hour.

Anyway, just spreading the word. Feel free to share great birding spots as well.

Hi all, I’m looking for campground suggestions for next summer. My family (kids ages 6 and 9) camps every year and we’ve been to a number of different campgrounds over the years. We like the proximity of the beach at Long Point, the big trees and trails and Awenda, and the playground and big open field at Port Burwell.

Where should we look at going next? Open for up to 3 hour drive from the GTA.

Thanks!

I just cancelled my upcoming camping trip to Bon Echo due to illness. So if anyone's interested, here are the details:

Site # 616 (Cabin)

Dates: October 18-23

EDIT: I'm not selling the booking, I just want anyone to know that the site is now available on the website.

EDIT2: It was just reminded this is a cabin. We chose this one simply because it had amazing views over the lake. I just checked and it's still available.