Brent Campground

Brent Campground is one of the two remote campgrounds on the north side of Algonquin Park. It’s situated on the north shore of Cedar Lake, roughly 40 km south of the town of Deux-Rivières, Ontario.

This review is going to be a bit of a weird one. See, we didn’t actually end up staying at Brent Campground.

We had PLANNED to - we booked a few nights at Kiosk Campground, then a few nights at Brent.

We had picked a super cute site at Brent, and were really looking forward to it... until we let our nerves get the better of us.

The thing is, pretty much everything we read about the campground included horror stories about the 40 km long logging road you have to drive down to get there. Giant potholes, washouts, tight turns, etc, with lots of comments about the need to be cautious.

We psyched ourselves up the best we could, but a couple bad experiences - Gargantua Rd at Lake Superior Provincial Park, then the more recent experience of having to turn the RV around at Springwater Provincial Park - had us a little spooked about the possibility of running into a lot of trouble on the way in.

So, we extended our Kiosk stay by a few days, cancelled our Brent booking, and decided to visit in the car, for a closer look.

As it turns out, we didn’t really have anything to worry about, on that front. The logging road was in better condition than one particular section of the main campground road in Kiosk!

More on that in a bit, though!

Anyway, we spent a good amount of time on our little fact-finding mission. It was a 2 hour drive - one way! - from Kiosk, after all... figured we’d make the most of it!

Now, let us tell you all about it!

The Basics:

Campground Name: Brent Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Address: Unorganized South Nipissing District, ON K0J 1R0, Canada Click here for Google Maps Location
Website: https://www.ontarioparks.ca/park/algonquin/brent
Price Ontario Provincial Parks uses a pricing matrix across all their parks. See 2025 Camping Fees for more details.
Reservations: Ontario Parks Reservations
Park Classification: Natural Environment
Season: April 24, 2026 to October 25, 2026

Logistics

Some basic information to help you plan your trip to the Brent Campground in Algonquin Provincial Park:

Registration and Check In

We booked our trip as a 3 day stay ahead of time, but then got nervous about the possible condition of the ~40 km gravel road and cancelled at the last minute.

So, we visited using the reciprocal day pass deal through Ontario Parks: while there are some exceptions, you can generally visit almost any park as a day user, if you have a valid camping permit at another Provincial Park.

Anyway, booking the site was quick and easy, via the Ontario Parks registration app... as was cancelling the site.

When we arrived, we went to check in at the park office - soon after you turn onto Brent Rd from the highway - but it was closed.

It was a bit weird - the lights were all on at the Brent office building, but there were no people, and no office hours posted anywhere.

It was really nice looking office though. The landscaping and steps up to it were a lot fancier than I was expecting for such a remote campground!

One thing I should note though, was that the one employee we ran into was SUPER weird to us.

He came after us on the beach, asking what we were doing there, did we have a reservation, etc. We explained the situation (canceled it, were visiting to check out for a future trip, had an active booking at Kiosk).

By that point, we’d been grilled far more than we ever have at any other park, but he just kept going - asked me to hand my phone over for him to scroll around on my reservation, etc.

Then, he was kind of following us around at another couple points, and staring us down like we shouldn’t be there. It was completely bizarre!

He was nice - even offered us a zip tie when he noticed our license plate had come loose (I guess the dirt road did it in!)... while he was following us. He just did NOT trust us for some reason.

Anyway, on that note: I recommend having a printed copy of whatever pass you’re using to visit. There is NO internet there, so I was really lucky to have a cached version of the email that I was able to access!

He definitely would have kicked us out if I hadn’t been able to get that reservation email open!

Getting There

The only road into the Brent Campground is an active logging road - loose gravel most of the way - about 40 km long.

As I’d mentioned, the whole reason we’d ended up cancelling our stay at the last minute was because we’d read some horror stories about the road on the way in.

We were kind of picturing a longer version of Gargantua Rd at Lake Superior Provincial Park, and it was definitely making us nervous!

In the end, we figured it better to make the trip in our car, keeping our camping base at Kiosk. Not knowing what we were getting into, we definitely didn’t want to be stuck trying to turn around on something impassable.

As it turned out, we stressed out over nothing.

This was a really wide, relatively flat logging road with a posted speed limit of 50 km/hour, and a warning to keep right and watch out for wildlife.

There were washboard bumps/ridges in patches, the potholes were pretty small, annoying rather than catastrophic.

We drove it 40-50 kmph, no problem at all - we’d been worried about possibly having to crawl along, based on some reviews we’d seen.

In the end, it was a fairly pleasant drive - very scenic, especially with the fall foliage everywhere!

Now, caveat: This was specifically in October 2025.

I’m sure weather and thaw conditions will make a difference, so I’m not sure if the posts were ACTUALLY being overdramatic, or just wildly different conditions at the time.
When in doubt, call the office and see what they have to say about the current road condition.

Maps and Signage

Some info to help you get around Brent Campground:

Park Map

If you have an opportunity to print a park map off ahead of time - or grab the Algonquin Provincial Park “newspaper” - I definitely recommend that.

We saw a printout of the map on the window at Brent Campground Office, and that was it! Luckily we’d taken a photo of it.

I’d hoped to see one of those little newspaper cubby things to grab a copy of the Algonquin info book, but we didn’t see any, anywhere in the campground or at the office building.

Personally, I think that the map in the printed guide is a bit better than the one on the office window was... but given that there’s no cell reception anywhere near the park, get whatever map you can!

There’s a Brent Campground Map PDF that you can download and print, from the park’s website.

Anyway, there were a few inaccuracies and omissions on the maps vs reality, but it’s a small enough park that it’s easy enough to figure out.

Signage

The signage along Brent Rd and at the beginning of the campground was all fantastic - large, high contrast, informative, well-placed, etc.

Once into the campground, the signage was smaller and not as great. Again, though - small campground, you’re not really going to get lost there!

Waste & Water Services

Like Kiosk Campground, there is no trailer sanitation station at the Brent Campground... or anywhere nearby, really.

In normal times, your best bet would be to go to Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park on the way into or out of the park... but it was closed at the time, due to storm damage. (I THINK it’s going to be opening in 2026, but no official announcement at the time this was written.)

That park is about 40 km west of Brent Rd, once you get to the highway - it’s closer to the highway down to Kiosk Campground.

If you’re coming from the east, Driftwood Provincial Park is also about 40 km out from Brent road, along ON-17.

Anyway, beyond the dumping situation, there were no trailer fill stations anywhere, just water taps.

None of the ones we saw were specifically marked as being potable water, though. We didn’t see any boil water advisories or anything, but they may have been untested water for washing dishes and such - signage would have been good!

Finally, there was a decent sized garbage depot near the entrance to the campground.

Connectivity

There's no cell service at the campground, at ALL. You lose cell reception pretty soon after turning onto Brent Rd from ON-17, so expect a ~40-45 minute drive if you need to make a call.

That said, there is wifi available at the park office - but that is 38 km or more from the campground.

Accessibility

This is not a very wheelchair-friendly campground, beyond a single accessible parking spot at the campground office.

There's no disability access information on the map, and - to the best we could tell - none of the vault toilets were wheelchair accessible.

If there ARE any barrier-free toilets, they weren’t marked as such - the one I went into was not barrier-free.

The one trail in the campground itself has absolutely no information posted about how accessible it is (isn’t!). There are also no accessibility accommodations at the beach, and we didn’t see any barrier-free campsites.

I'm actually not remembering anything that was particularly accessible, even the roads weren't great so you wouldn't necessarily want to wheel around them.

That said, if you have mobility issues that aren't wheelchair related you should do fine. At least most of the vault toilets we saw had ramps to them, the beach is small and relatively easy to cross, etc.

I’d avoid the walking trail, though - it was definitely more “moderate”.

Pets

Dogs are allowed, and all of the standard rules apply: keep them leashed, pick up after them, and don’t let them harass other campers, wildlife, or plants.

Also, dogs aren’t allowed on the beach, and we didn’t see anything about a dog beach. You might be best off booking a waterfront/water access site, if you want your dog to be able to swim.

Parking

The campsites more or less all seem big enough for whatever gear you're bringing plus a car.

If you do need additional parking, there’s a parking lot down by the beach area, and more near the Brent Store.

Campground Amenities & Info

Here’s some basic information on the amenities at Brent Campground:

Creature Comforts

This may not be the park for you if you’re looking for modern conveniences like flush toilets or showers!

There are no comfort stations, and the outhouses are all vault toilets or composting toilets.

I used one of them, and it was in really good condition - I was surprised how new and clean it was inside, because it kind of looked like part of a horror movie set from the outside.

One weird thing to note: There was a lock on the outside of the door.

There was no one but my husband* and I around - well, and that creepy employee that apparently did NOT want us in the area... but the idea of getting locked in from the outside didn’t sit well with me.

I’ve never seen that “feature” on an outhouse before!

*Not that I’d put it past him to prank me!

Park Store

The Brent Store is apparently home of Algonquin Outfitters, but it was closed during our stay... and looked like it had been for a WHILE.

The little store was run down looking from the outside - it being surrounded by what appeared to be abandoned cottages didn’t help that vibe, either.

I’m guessing it hadn’t actually been closed all that long, as there was a pricing list at Brent Office, mentioning “at the gate” and “at the campground” prices.

We were assuming “at the campground” meant at the store, as we didn’t see anywhere else that made sense.

Anyway, the prices at the gate were listed as:

Firewood - $10
Kindling - $7
Ice Cubes - $4.50

The campground was listed as being cash only. Ice is $5, and they didn’t have posted amounts for firewood, etc.

Visitor Centre

The Algonquin Provincial Park Visitor Centre is about 4 hour’s drive from the Brent Campground, along the Highway 60 corridor.

I love museums, but I’m not sure I’d say it would be worth an 8 hour return trip to visit, TBH.

Your best bet - when it reopens - would be to check out the Visitor Centre at Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park. (Driftwood doesn’t have one).

Day Use Area

The day use area at Brent Campground is really tiny - it’s really just the beach, and a few picnic areas off to one side.

There is one little section that’s slightly separated from the beach, with a picnic table overlooking the beach - that was really cute.

Campsite Details

As with Kiosk Campground, there are a few ways you can camp: car camping, using the campground as an access point for backcountry camping, or renting one of the ranger cabins.

Car Camping

There are only 30 sites at Brent, none of which are electrical sites, radio-free sites or group camping sections.

That said, there are a fair number of camp sites with either a great water view, or direct water access, which is nice.

As usual, the car camping sites all have a fire pit and at least one picnic table.

At the time of our visit, most sites had the picnic tables upended, which gave a really weird, unwelcoming vibe - like we were there after the park closed down for the year, rather than almost a week before it was to close.

Anyway, we wandered around to get a quick look at the sites, and there were some standouts to mention:

Sites #1-4

This was a weird thing - we’d assumed them to be walk-in campsites, based on how they were pictured on the map.

Per the map, they’re located along a little walking trail - a typical way Ontario Parks tends to represent walk in sites.

In reality, it was more that they were placed along sort of a cul-de-sac ... that looked like overflow parking. These seemed to be larger sites, and at least one of them looked to be a seasonal campsite, based on the set-up we saw there.

It’s kind of a weird area - there IS a marked trail back there, which takes you to some kind of memorial - it’s not described on the site or map.

Site 4

This was the site we booked, and DAMN - we were really kicking ourselves for having cancelled and done it as a day trip.

SUPER cute site - large, with basically its own private beach below!

Sites #5 and #6

Near “our” site were two of the cutest sites we've seen in a while - especially #6.

It's down in a more secluded section of campground, looking over a lake with a little island right in front of it!

Unfortunately, our rig wouldn’t fit there :(.

Site #17

Campsite 17 is the weirdest campsite I think I've seen yet. It's basically on the beach, with the main parking lot right beside it.

The front part of the campsite has no parking signs in front of it and then there's like a chain link draped fencing to block it from the actual parking.

It’s got a nice view of the beach, it’s just really weird in the context!

Site #24 & Site #25

This was another weird one, but I think kind of cool, also?

These two campsites are located on a small private beach. At the time of our visit, there was a big dock pulled up between them - presumably it’s set up on those sites, during the main season?

I could see those sites being AMAZING, especially if you booked both and split it with friends!

Jump Off Campsites

There are a couple jump off campsites for backcountry campers at Brent Campground - one is sort of near the beach, and the other is on the far end of the park, near the little cul-de-sac I just mentioned.

Neither one has direct water access.

Roofed Accommodation

There are two cabins available for rent at Brent: The Brent Deputy Ranger Cabin / #764, and the Brent Cabin / #763.

Both are drive-in accessible, and include parking for a single vehicle with your reservation. There is no running water, electricity, or indoor washrooms at either of the cabins.

Each of them supply visitors with a propane BBQ, propane fridge and stove (propane is provided), table and chairs, and solar lights. They also come with a broom, dust pan, fire extinguisher, metal pail, shovel, and wash basin.

In both cases, visitors are asked to bring their own flashlight/lantern, food, linens, matches, pots and pans, sleeping bags, and utensils.

Dogs aren’t permitted, smoking is prohibited inside the cabins, and you’re not allowed to set up any tents outside of the cabin.

Visitors can pick up their cabin key at the Brent Permit Office (40 km away!), but the cabins are left unlocked if the keys aren’t picked up before the office closes.

In that case, the key will either be on the table inside the cabin, or will be delivered the next morning.

Beyond that:

Brent Deputy Ranger Cabin

This was originally an ice house in the 1930s, but ended up being upgraded to serve as home for Brent’s Deputy Chief Ranger at some point.

It’s a single room cabin that sleeps 2 in a bunk bed (double on bottom, single on top), with vinyl covered mattresses. There’s also a couch, and chair, as well as a fire pit outside.

This cabin is heated with propane heat, with the propane supplied by the park.

Brent Cabin

This cabin was originally used as the Brent Deputy Chief Ranger’s headquarters, and was built in 1932.

It’s is much larger than the Deputy Ranger Cabin, and sleeps 10 people across 4 bedrooms. It also has an actual kitchen and living room - with a wood stove in a stone fireplace.

Entertainment and Activity

Here’s some basic information on the various activities you can partake in, while camping at Brent Campground in Algonquin Provincial Park:

Hiking

Weirdly, the Ontario Parks website only lists one hiking trail at Brent - the Brent Crater Trail. There are a couple more hiking trails, though - right in the campground!

Limestone Trail

This trail starts out from the parking lot at the beach. It’s labeled at the trailhead AND is on the campground map... though there’s no trail description on either of those, nor even a mention of this trail on the park’s site.

Porter did PART of the trail, and estimates it’s probably about half a km long.

Here’s what he has to say about it:

“The trail is fairly wide, with some rough footing - due to roots and rocks - and moderate inclines.

About ¼ km in, there's a short side branch that leads to a very sandy beach. This beach is MUCH nicer than the main campground beach - more like the kind you’d lay out on in the summer.

Anyway, the trail seemed to continue on from there, but I turned around and went back at that point.”

Brent Campground Historic Site Trail

This one wasn’t well-signed, and we kind of happened upon it when we were looking at the campsites on the west end of the campground.

From that little cul-de-sac, there’s a short path that takes you out to some sort of a memorial or grave site of some sort. It wasn’t labeled, and we didn’t see any plaques or anything in the area to give any context at all.

We didn’t see where the path picked up going the other direction from that area - it looks like it might be near the nearby vault toilet, from the map - but apparently that path continues the entire length of the campground.

Again though - aside from it being marked on the map, there’s no information about the trail on the park site or anything!

Googling it, though, it looks like it’s probably about 3km long - and I saw a reference to it literally just being the campground road, rather than a separate trail alongside it, as pictured on the map.

Brent Crater Trail - 2 km, Difficult

We had been racing sunlight on the way into the Brent Campground, and figured we’d tackle the Brent Crater trail on the way out, if we had the energy / decent enough weather for it.

By the time we were headed out, though, the weather had gotten pretty miserable - chilly with some light rain - so we didn’t bother.

Anyway, this trail is located about 8km north of the park, is listed as being “Strenuous”, and has a recommended completion time of 1 ½ hours.

This trail starts on the side of the logging road and descends down from the rim of the crater to the crater floor, then continues back to the trailhead.

Along the way, there are supposed to be a series of interpretive sites that teach about the history and geology of the crater.

From what we could tell, though... it’s just going to look like a forest. The whole crater is grown in with plants and trees!

We’ll report back, if we end up having the opportunity to check it out in the future.

Brent Crater

On that subject, let’s talk about the Brent Crater...

About 22m from the actual trail head - there’s an observation tower, across the road from the Brent Meteorite Crater.

It has its own small parking lot, with a LOT of exhibit panels talking about the history of the crater - so you don’t necessarily have to do a difficult hiking trail to learn all about it!

From the observation tower, you can see clear across to the other side of the crater. Signage at the site mentioned being able to see part of one of the two lakes (Tecumseh Lake and Gilmour Lake) in the distance, but we couldn't see it.

Anyway, the Brent Crater was first identified by John A. Roberts in 1951, via aerial photographs of the area. He noticed an feature that was about 3 km across, and almost perfectly round.

It's been determined to originally have been 1400 feet deep, but has since been partially filled with 900 feet of sedimentary rock.

Signage at the location estimates the impact that created the Brent crater to have been about 450 million years ago, and released energy that would have been the equivalent of 250 megatons of TNT!

The signage and diagrams were interesting to read, we definitely recommend stopping by to see it, if you’re staying at Brent Campground!

Biking

There are no dedicated biking trails at Brent Campground, and it sounds like using that section of the abandoned rail trail is WAY more frowned upon than at Kiosk.

You could probably bike along the campground roads, but they’re not in the best of shape.

Swimming

The beach is only a short walk from a LOT of the campsites, and there were a couple docks pulled up onto the beach at the time of our visit. Those could be fun to jump off in the summer!

The water was shallow and very clean and clear.... but the beach was kind of ugly. Very rocky and just didn’t seem like the kind of place you’d want to sprawl out on a beach towel, you know?

Maybe it’s my bias against inland lake beaches, but really... there are nicer inland lake beaches right in Algonquin.

Anyway - according to Porter - the secluded beach along the Limestone trail is MUCH nicer, as we mentioned in the hiking section!

Birding, Wildlife, and Nature

Despite not spending a ton of time at Brent Campground duirng our little fact finding mission, we had some pretty decent luck with birding.

The highlight was a few Horned Larks on the beach. One seemed to be very friendly, and was perfectly cool with us photographing him from a fairly close range!

Overall, we heard and/saw: Black-Capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Common Loon, Horned Lark, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, Ruffed Grouse.

Boating

Algonquin Provincial Park is known around the work for its canoeing opportunities, and we passed at least a couple of Portages on the logging road on the way in.

We actually walked a short way on the Muskwa Lake Portage, and quickly came to a GORGEOUS lake.

We’re definitely going to have to buy a canoe or kayaks at some point, we are definitely missing out!

Anyway, several sites have direct water access to Cedar Lake, which connects to a whole network of rivers and lakes throughout the area. It even looks like you could canoe all the way to Achray Campground if you liked - along the Petawawa River.

Also, the Ottawa River runs alongside the other side of the ON-17 highway from the campground, with even more canoeing opportunities for those who want to make the drive back up the logging road.

Beyond the canoeing opportunities, Cedar Lake is one of the few lakes in the park that allow motor boats. There’s a 20 hp limited on outboard motors, though.

There’s a boat launch on the campground beach - basically just a designated spot to drive down the beach into the water, rather than a formal, built launch.

It’s a pretty shallow approach, and the water looks shallow a fair distance out - it didn’t look like there’s a steep drop off anywhere near where you’d drive in. Also, the parking lot nearby looked to be able to accommodate boat trailers.

Fishing

We didn’t see anyone fishing at the time of our visit.

That said, Cedar Lake seems to have a good reputation as a fishing spot for Lake Trout, Smallmouth Bass and Walleye.

Just note: we didn’t see a fish cleaning station or anything along those lines, so plan ahead!

Discovery Program

Best we can tell, there’s no organized Discovery Program at Brent Campground - even during the summer months. I suspect it may be too small / remote for them to bother with.

That said, there’s a Brent historic town site / historic site exhibit. I’m not sure what the exhibit entails, as the most we saw when we went looking was a sign about it.

The town site appears to be some old cottages and maybe a rundown apartment building. I feel like I may be unknowingly be disparaging someone’s summer cabin or something - the area that we THINK was the town site wasn’t really labeled as being an attraction.

The buildings we saw didn’t seem to be SO long-abandoned that they’d be labeled as a “historic town site”, though - at least a couple of the cottages looked to be in relatively recent use.

We didn't really want to go exploring, because it kind of seemed like we were somewhere we shouldn't be. The whole thing could definitely use some better signage / info!

That said, there were a few educational signs in the day use area / towards the town site area.

Niantic Games

There is absolutely no cell phone reception in the campground - or anywhere remotely near it - so we definitely did not get Ingress or Pokémon Go loaded.

Don’t expect to be able to play while staying at Brent Campground! Even if you had something like Starlink, I doubt there are any portals/Pokegyms, etc.

Final Thoughts

So, as we mentioned... our worries about the road in turned out to be completely unfounded.

When we saw the site we had booked, we were kind of kicking ourselves for having bailed on the camping trip - it would have been really nice to spend a few days at that site!

Not enough to make that drive 3 more times to do so, though! (Back to the Kiosk, back to Brent with the RV, then out!).

There are aspects of this campground that are really cute, but we’re not entirely sure we'd want to make the truck down the 40 km road to camp there.

Logistically, it’s not ideal for us - no power, water, internet, or dump station anywhere nearby, is DEFINITELY limiting. If we’re going to haul the RV 40 km down a logging road to such a remote location and back, it would be nice to be able to do so for more than a few days.

That said, there were some really cute sites there - the waterfront sites in particular were really nice!

So I guess what I’m saying is that your view of the campground is going to vary wildly based on your situation and set up. If you can deal with more than a few days without electricity / internet / water tank filling / tank dumping... it really is a cute park. I’d imagine even at high season, it’s got to be a more quiet campground than most!

Your interests are also going to impact it. I could see this being an AMAZING place for those into canoeing and/or fishing, for example.

Will we be back? Not sure. Wouldn’t rule it out, but I think we prefer Kiosk in terms of the more remote campgrounds in Northern Algonquin.

More Algonquin Provincial Park Campground Reviews

Want to read some more of what we have to say about the campgrounds and attractions in Algonquin Park? Here are some more reviews!

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Canisbay Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Kearney Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Kiosk Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Lake of Two Rivers Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Mew Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Pog Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Provoking Falls, Algonquin Provincial Park
Raccoon Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Rock Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Tea Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Whitefish Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Winter Camping in Algonquin Provincial Park

Interested in exploring campgrounds beyond Algonquin Park? We've got a huge - and ever-growing! - list of them here: 2 Nerds in a Truck Campground Reviews.

We also have posts on Ontario Waterfalls, other Places to See, and a ton of Camping Recipes to cook up, while on your adventures!