We tacked a stay at Arrowhead Provincial Park onto a camping trip to Algonquin PP, & we're glad we did! Here is our review of our autumn stay - and a winter camping trip that followed!
The first time we visited Arrowhead - located just north of Huntsville, in the heart of Muskoka - was back in October. We had planned a trip to nearby Algonquin Provincial Park, and ended up tacking a stay at Arrowhead on at the last minute.
There was the possibility of an aurora borealis appearance in the days leading up to our Algonquin stay, AND we thought the stop would be a good way to break up the drive.
We had so much fun!
Our first impression was that it kind of reminded us of Chutes Provincial Park, in that the main area of the park is nice enough... but then when you go for a bit of a walk, you get more stunning views.
The beach, the bridge over the river, the waterfalls, etc - it’s a great place, with some really spectacular views!
One of the few provincial parks to offer winter camping, we knew we’d have to come back when/if winter ever hit.
... then we continued our October trip, and completely dropped the ball on our reviews. At the time I’m posting this, I’m behind by about 4 reviews, and the start of this post was only about half written when procrastination hit.
Whoops!
Anyway, we recently visited the park for the second time.
This review is now based on two visits, with the commentary and photos coming from two wildly different seasons and experiences!
The Basics:
Campground Name: Arrowhead Provincial Park
Address: 451 Arrowhead Park Rd. Huntsville, ON P1H 2J4
Website: https://www.ontarioparks.com/park/arrowhead
Price Ontario Provincial Parks uses a pricing matrix across all their parks. See 2023 Camping Fees for more details.
Reservations: Ontario Parks Reservations
Logistics
As part of the Ontario Parks system, reserving our stay - both times - was quick and easy, through the Ontario Parks website.
It’s a permitless campground - the main gate office was closed, so we had to go in to the campground store, as I hadn’t checked in online.
Checking in was a little annoying, but went quickly and with friendly service.
EVERYTHING was brown and yellow during our first stay - it was easier to see during out winter stay.
I do still wish that more parks would adopt the bright blue signs with white trim that we’ve seen in some parks.
During our second stay - in the pull-through loop - we had fantastic cell coverage at our site.
Some campgrounds were closed during both of our stays - more so during the winter stay.
All of the East River campground was closed to vehicle traffic during our winter stay. It was converted to the ice trail, with the poop loop being used as a parking lot.
Services
Dump Station
The dump station is on a loop, with two dump platforms and a bypass lane to get to the fill stations - which are on the other side of the loop.
It’s a really nice setup, efficient - we liked not having to wait for those dumping, in order for us to fill up on the way in. Wish more parks had bypass lanes, multiple platforms, etc!
The water was shut off on the last day of our fall stay - we were able to dump on the way out, but not rinse.
There’s also not really anywhere nearby where you can dump your tanks.
We spent several hours on our last morning frantically calling around, having realized that neither of the two following camp grounds had functioning dump stations, either!
All of the places that COULD have potentially been used as a backup dump site were closed for the season - from neighbouring RV parks, to an arena an hour away.
Very frustrating!
This park is known for their winter activities. If MacGregor can keep their dump station open, I don’t see why Arrowhead can’t figure something out.
If you’re planning ahead for a trip - instead of a “book it the day before because OMG the ice trail is finally open” trip, I recommend calling local septic pumping companies to see if someone can help you out.
Fill Stations
Aside from the seasonal fill platforms in the Poop Loop, there’s also a single fill platform just across the street, in the comfort station parking lot.
It was nice to have a fill station at the comfort station, it looked like a really high end bottle / jug fill area, but was also noted as being a trailer fill tap.
It looked like a super modern set up - different from any we’ve seen - but didn’t have a threaded connection on the hose.
This became a minor issue when we returned in February, as it was our only way to fill our water tanks.
Because there was no threaded end on it, we ended up having to use it to fill our 5 gallon water jugs, then use our pump & filter set up to get it from there, into our tank.
Accessibility
The camp store and comfort stations were accessible.
The roads were pretty rough and uneven in the fall, and EXTREMELY bumpy and full of potholes during our February stay.
We decided that Shake the Place - Machel Montano & Destra was officially our “drive through Arrowhead” theme song.
As far as the trails go, I believe that the Big Bend Lookout would be wheelchair accessible - NOT during the winter, though - but none of the other trails we did were wheelchair accessible.
Some would have been ok with other mobility aids, but they’re all relatively rough, narrow, etc from what we could see.
Pets
There are two main pet areas - a dog beach, and a dog exercise area. Dogs aren’t allowed on any of the beaches except the designated dog beach.
The dog beach is really nice, and has nice views of the lake, the bridge, and little east river.
It’s a bit of a drive to get to - clear on the far end of the Lumby campground - and it was just sort of a small, narrow-ish lawn area next to the water, with a parking lot.
There wasn’t even really a “beach” type area with it, just kind of grass adjacent to water.
Note: neither area is fenced in.
Also, the dog beach is not accessible at all during the winter months, and I wouldn’t doubt that the road to the exercise area is similarly blocked off, given the way the ski trails are situated.
Parking
The camp sites are generally fairly large, we had no problem parking our car in addition to the camper.
There’s also a ton of parking available at the other places of interest, like the beaches, the visitor center, the outlook, etc.
There are even parking spots available at most/all of the trail heads, including Stubb’s Falls.
Stubb’s Falls trail had a few great access points, with parking at (at least) one spot along the trail, and another parking section in the campground closer to the actual falls.
Campground Amenities & Info
This section of our review was written during our October stay, and not all of it will apply to winter camping.
Creature Comforts
Each campground section has its own comfort station, with flush toilets and showers. This campground does NOT have laundry facilities.
We actually learned that the hard way - after a long day of driving and exploring, we got ready for bed... and discovered that one of our cats had PEED in it.
First time for everything - why did this first have to be in a campground without laundry? AUGH!!
That changed up our plans for the second day, when we ended up having to drive 15 minutes into Huntsville to use a laundromat.
Anyway, all comfort stations are equipped with flush toilets. All privies in Roe Campground and many in East River Campground have flush toilets.
During the winter, the only comfort station that is open is the one at the entrance to the East River campground / the skating trail area.
Park Store
The Arrowhead park store - in the Visitor Centre - is super cute, and it’s wayyyyy too easy to spend a lot of money there.
There’s a whole rack of locally made maple syrup goodness - maple sugar, maple syrup, maple jelly, just all kinds of things - as well as locally roasted coffee, craft sodas, snacks, the usual camping gear, etc.
There were even locally made lip balms and such!
This park has a bigger selection of campground stickers and such than others we’ve seen, including HOLOGRAPHIC options.
It felt classy, too. It looked really nice, we enjoyed the variety, etc.
The employee told us that the maple stuff in particular was made by a local family - that he could call them up and he’d have his order delivered by the kids within a few hours.
Very cool!
You can get ice skates, snowshoes, and both styles - classic and skate - of ski rentals in the winter.
There’s also a lounge area and fireplace for people to hang out in and warm up after an afternoon of skiing or snowshoeing.
In the summer, you can rent canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, personal flotation devices, and helmets.
Day Use
The picnic shelter was really nice, and seemed like a nice place to host an event - it’ll accommodate 50-100 people, and there’s definitely adequate parking for it.
You can sort of see it from the parking lot, it’s just a short walk. The trail to the picnic shelter is relatively flat and smooth.
Aside from the group picnic shelter, there are also picnic tables at each of the beaches.
Campsite Details
This is a huge campground, with each of the sections having a fairly different feel.
We stayed in the East River campground during our October stay, and in the pull-through loop during our February stay.
The Roe campground and North Lumby campground areas were closed for the season during both of trips.
There was a wide variety in post distances, so definitely check. Ours was a ways away, but there was a nice clear path to it.
Of the sites we saw, most seemed have good privacy, both in surrounding trees and distance from each other.
I guess big, private campsites is the tradeoff for having posts far away from the camper!
On our first stay, we were next to a vault toilet - and you never would have known. No sounds or smells at all.
Both times, our sites were quite level.
A Note on Site Sizes
They had a variety of sites and the park map is such that you can find out which are small, medium, large, pullthrough etc because of the color coding - love that!
The thing is - you can’t REALLY trust the colour coding system.
On a drive through of the park, there were some marked “medium” that were HUGE, etc. The designation of what size a campsite was seemed to be pretty arbitrary, and not really consistent.
I don’t think there were any that were overestimating the size, though.
We didn’t see any designated as large, extra large, etc that didn’t live up to it - just some really big sites that were definitely bigger than the labeling would have you think.
So, I think you’re more likely to be pleasantly surprised by the size of your site, than screwed over.
Winter Camping
While most of the camp grounds are closed during the winter, Arrowhead offers winter camping in both a small number of sites - the pull-through sites across from the Visitor Centre - and camp cabins.
We stayed in the pull through section, and were surprised to see as many winter tents - with stove pipes coming out the top! - as we did RVs and tent trailers.
Those people are far more hardcore than we could ever be, and I’m saying that as a Winnipegger.
In terms of cabins, Arrowhead has 13 camp cabins available for rent, each with a queen bed and a double/single bunk bed, as well as a kitchenette inside, and a gas BBQ outside.
They’re SUPER cute, and there are short paths connecting the cabins to parking and the ice skating area.
Entertainment and Activity
Arrowhead Provincial Park is great for outdoor lovers, with a ton of stuff to do:
Hiking
We were able to do a few of the hiking trails, but not all of them. We’ll probably update this after future trips, when we experience more of the park!
Big Bend Lookout
This one isn’t so much a hike, as it is a short walk to a sight seeing stop.
There’s parking right near the walk - it’s less than a 5 minute walk from the parking to the viewing platform. Very flat, even, easy.
The platform looks out over a big loop of Big East River, and the surrounding area.
It was cool to see with the fall colours, but we both liked it even more in winter. Really great view!
Stubb’s Falls - 2 km, Easy
We didn’t do the entire Stubbs Falls trail on our fall trip, just on account of timing, weather, and laziness. We cheated a bit, and entered the trail fairly close to the falls.
This trail is said to be easy on the campground side of it, and from what we could see on our section, that was accurate - wide trail, quite flat, well groomed and well packed.
The other side of the trail is supposed to be a little more challenging, though I’m not sure exactly what all that entails.
At the falls themselves - regardless of which side you approach them from, be ready to climb down a fair amount of stairs.
Here, you can walk out onto the rocks that border the waterfalls on one side, getting RIGHT up to the rushing rapids.
Note: While it’s marked as easy, there’s a lot of stairs involved at the falls.
For REALLY good views of the falls, you have to walk down over uneven embankments, rocks, etc... so be careful!
Also: If you don’t feel like walking the whole trail (2 km on their website, 2.6 km per the park map), you can drive almost to the end of the east river campsite, park in the designated area, and take a very short walk to the falls.
Having been there already was a definite advantage, we knew what to expect under the snow and ice.
The trail up to the falls is designated as a snowshoeing trail, but people were using it as a general walking path.
Either way, absolutely gorgeous - see the end of our post for more photos!
Arrowhead Lake Trail - 4.5 km, Moderate
This is one of two trails designated to be both hiking and cyling.
It’s either a 4.5 km or 5.1 km trail depending on whether you’re reading the printed park map or the park website.
(Porter ran “Map my Run” starting from our camp site, and it was 6.1 km including getting to and from the trail)
The trail is rated as moderately challenging, though I’m not sure if that’s for hikers, bikers, or both. Porter agrees on moderate challenge, but was able to do it as a jog.
He’s saying “moderate” because of some steep hills, and a few sections with tree roots. Overall though, it was a wide, well-groomed trail.
It was a beautiful run that took him through multiple different environments, from pine forests to beach front, deciduous forest, etc.
He said it kept him interested, the constantly changing scenery.
We’ll update this after doing the trails, but - for the sake of complete info - we’ll include the details we know about these trails for now:
Beaver Meadow Trail - 7 km, moderate
This is Arrowhead’s longest trail, and takes you through a variety of different environments.
Porcupine Bluffs is the remnant shoreline of a huge ancient lake - and a key attraction - but it’s only visible in the spring and fall.
The trail takes you past a large beaver pond - with large rafts of cattails - and this is known to be the best place to see wildlife in the park.
You’ll also walk past evidence of the once successful Oke homestead - old fence lines, apple trees, old building foundations, and more.
Homesteaders Trail - 3 km, moderate
This trail takes you by traces of abandoned farm fields, left by the homesteaders that cleared the area in the 1870s.
It looks like it would be a really beautiful walk, from what little we saw of it in October - we’re definitely planning to check it out next fall.
Mayflower Lake Trail – 1 km, moderate
This trail encircles what used to be part of a large glacial lake.
It’s known to have several lengthy climbs and be quite muddy, so I’m not sure when we’ll get around to checking it out. Mud + inclines is a recipe for disaster, with my wonky foot tendons!
Biking
There are two biking trails, for those who bring their mountain bikes camping. Arrowhead Lake Trail is 4.5 km, and Lookout Trail is 3 km long - both are rated as being moderately challenging.
Winter Activities
While most people aim to camp in the summer season, Arrowhead REALLY seems to be known more for their offerings in the winter months.
They have a winter specific map available, with all of the different trails - skating, skiing, and snowshoeing - marked out. Aside from those activities, ice fishing is also available.
Cross Country Skiing
They offer cross-country skiing - including 28 km of classic ski trails and 16 km of skate ski trails, covering all levels of difficulty.
The ski trails make up the bulk of the winter trails in the park, and the trail conditions are kept updated on the Ontario Parks Snow Report.
The skiing seemed very popular while we were there, and the last day most of the trails were closed off for what seemed to be a pretty large competition.
Honestly, we don’t know much about skiing, but we’re seriously considering buying some gear to try it out on a future trip!
Ice Trail
I may not know about cross country skiing, but my focus was FIRMLY set on the ice trail.
It’s only 1.3 km long, but the idea of skating through a forest on a trail lined with torches sounded AMAZING.
We brought our own ice skates, but they do offer ice skate rentals at the park.
Arrowhead has a super cute setup for getting your skates on - two little areas with benches, cubbyholes for your stuff, and even fire pits:
I can’t imagine navigating it in the dark!
Though we were the first ones on after the morning ice conditioning, there were super deep ruts in the ice, it was incredibly uneven.
Beyond the ruts, the ice had a weird texture, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It was almost like stacked layers of thin ice, with air pockets between?
The layers would crack and break as you skated over it - super disconcerting. The best way I can describe it is that the ice texture was a lot like baklava. SO weird!
One of my friends from figure skating commented on my ice photo (below) to say she’d been there a previous year, and had a magical experience with great ice.
We’re both chalking it up to the weird weather we’ve been having this winter.
Snowshoeing
Living in the tropics of Canada, we haven’t seen a lot in terms of winter these past 5 years.
That didn’t stop me from buying 2 sets of snow shoes on clearance on Boxing Day, though - talk about hopeful optimism, LOL!
We finally got to try snowshoeing on our February trip - the first time either of us had done it since elementary school!
Arrowhead has 8+ km of snowshoe trails, and we got our start on the Stubb’s Falls trail, starting out from the Poop Loop parking lot.
Ended up getting WAY further than we thought we would for our first time out, had a blast!
Swimming
The park has a number of sandy beaches, none of which were really in use during either of our stays. October and February, go figure!
The designated day use beach seems to be the main beach, and it was the nicest of the ones we saw:
Weirdly, it seems to be split into 2 beaches - “Beach 1" and “Beach 2", but both were definitely better than the remaining two beaches.
Roe Beach was honestly not among the nicest swimming beaches we’ve seen at provincial parks, but that may be a seasonal thing:
That said, the water was very clear and clean - it’s just that the type of sand underneath the clear waters made it look like less of a traditional beach, IMHO.
Anyway, Lumby Beach was kind of weird.
We couldn’t access it via the Lumby Campground - which was closed for the season - but we could walk up the beach from the dog beach area to get a look.
... it just didn’t really seem like a very inviting beach, at least not when we visited.
Again, I’m guessing seasonality would make some degree of difference - I wonder what it’s like in the summer?
Birding
We continued our track record of visiting parks that are touted as ideal habitats for multiple species of birds, only to ... not really see any birds.
To be fair, the specific bird we tend to see mentioned for Arrowhead - the Great Blue Heron - is mentioned as being seen around a trail we didn’t use, but still.
We saw a couple of blue jays - including right in our camp site during our October trip, and we saw one single black bird or crow on our February trip - that’s it.
We’ve been hoping to see some of the tree swallows mentioned on their website - we Googled, they’re cute! - but no such luck.
So, not much in the way of birds for our trips. Tons of red squirrels, though
Boating & Fishing
Arrowhead boasts a couple of quiet motorboat-free lakes: Arrowhead Lake and Mayflower Lake.
While motorized boats are banned on those lakes, canoeing is allowed - and encouraged.
Rental canoes are available - you can get them, as well as kayaks, paddle boards, PFDs and helmets at the Visitor Centre during the summer.
The Little East River Canoe Trail connects quiet Arrowhead Lake to Big East River, with a short portage around the falls.
As far as fishing goes, Arrowhead Lake is known as a good spot to fish for smallmouth bass, and they keep Mayflower Lake - a small but deep spring-fed lake - stocked with rainbow trout.
Discovery Program
As with most of our camping trips, we visited Arrowhead outside of their regular programming seasoning.
It sounds like they do the regular “Discovery Activity Book at the Exploration Station” thing in July and August, though.
They do have a really cool amphitheatre out in the woods, though:
Pokemon Go
Cell service was spotty in general, but enough that we were able to get a few daily spins and catches in, no problem.
There’s a stop and a gym at the outlook, a few around the visitor center area - not a ton, but enough to get your dailies anyway.
That said, if you’re camping during an event and need to get some tasks done, Huntsville is just a 10 minute drive away, and has a TON of stops and gyms all through town.
Nearby Attractions
The park is in Muskoka, so is an easy driving distance from shopping, restaurants, etc. We joked to ourselves that it was weird to see signage for both Pizza Nova and Pizza Pizza, not far from the park.
Aside from the aforementioned laundromat excursion, we also spent some time exploring High Falls in nearby Bracebridge, which was about a 25 minute drive from the campground.
First off: Do not Google map “high falls” and trust the direction. It’ll take you to a private parking lot on the other side of the falls from where you’re actually supposed to be!
Here are the Directions to High Falls
This was a really fun area to explore.
If you’re more limited on mobility, you can park fairly close to the main waterfall, and walk over the bridge for a great view over it.
For those with a bit more mobility - and luckily I was having a decent tendon day! - A quick walk up the lane will take you to various paths descending down over rocks to the wooded area below.
From there, you’ll be able to access even BETTER views of the falls- including being able to walk right out to them! - as well as a stream with several other waterfalls up the length of it.
There was very little signage, and we couldn’t find a ton of information online, so it was really cool to explore, and not really know what was next, where to go, etc.
Afterwards, wandering around had us happen across a bridge across the upper falls - probably a smarter idea than using the board laying across some of the lower falls, as a bridge.
Some of the falls are kind of small, but you can walk right up to them, walk out on rocks below them, etc.
The forest itself felt like something out of a movie, like I was half expecting a talking deer to come out and invite me on an adventure or something. It felt fairytale like.
The mossy overgrown rocks were just a really cool visual, with the rust coloured pine needles carpeting them, the ground, and some fallen trees.
The air was also really crisp and clean, so it was just a really great way to spend an afternoon screwing around.
Some of the paths are pretty steep and you should DEFINITELY exercise caution. At one point I almost fell off a rock when fallen pine needles on it made my foot slip right out from under me.
Important Note
When we tried to go back to Little High Falls Park during our February stay, we were disappointed to see that the park was gated off for the season. Boo!
So be sure to visit it while it’s actually open!
That said, if I had my time back... I don’t know why we didn’t just go back to that first (wrong) parking spot and walk to the bridge from that side. Could have gotten a bit of a view, anyway!
Final Thoughts
Arrowhead PP is a super cute park, and it opened our eyes to the possibility of WINTER camping - something we’ve enjoyed a few times this “winter”, even before making it back to Arrowhead.
We like that there’s a bunch of easy trails during the non-winter seasons, and the Stubb’s Falls trail was a lot of payout for very little work - and that’s somewhat of a rarity in the campgrounds we’ve been to.
The winter activities were intriguing when we first visited, and a blast to participate in when we went back.
The camp sites are really nice, and we’re thinking we’ll have to make a somewhat regular thing of going to Arrowhead.
After the first trip I had to admonish a couple of my friends who are FROM this area, for never telling me about the campground with a freaking skating trail and winter RV camping available.
More Campground Reviews
Want to read some more of what we have to say about the campgrounds we've stayed at? Here are some more reviews!
Bon Echo Provincial Park
Bruce Peninsula National Park
Chutes Provincial Park
Conestogo Lake Conservation Area
Driftwood Provincial Park
Elora Gorge Conservation Area
Fifty Point Conservation Area
Killbear Provincial Park
Lake Superior Provincial Park
Long Point Provincial Park
MacLeod Provincial Park
Meaford Memorial Park
Neys Provincial Park
Port Burwell Provincial Park
Quetico Provincial Park
Rideau River Provincial Park
Selkirk Provincial Park
Sleeping Giant Provincial Park
Turkey Point Provincial Park
Valens Lake Conservation Area
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