Awenda Provincial Park

We booked our stay at Awenda back in January, but ended up with a sneak peek on May 10th.

The natural setting of the park - along the southern shore of Georgian Bay - was PERFECT for viewing the northern lights.

It made for an absolutely magical evening, and definitely had us looking forward to our upcoming trip!

Anyway, Awenda is a natural environment class park in Southern Ontario, and a bit of a hidden gem. We don’t hear mention of it on groups, anywhere near as often as some other parks.

We had a great time during our stay, and we were especially impressed with how well laid out, well maintained, and just how well run everything was.

Hope that wasn’t too spoilery, because I have an absolute BEAST of a post for you - so much to talk about, when it comes to this park

So... I guess let’s just get right to it!

The Basics:

Campground Name: Awenda Provincial Park
Address: 670 Awenda Park Rd. Tiny, Ontario L9M 0B9
Website: Awenda Provincial Park
Price: Ontario Provincial Parks uses a pricing matrix across all their parks. See 2024 Camping Fees for more details.
Reservations: Ontario Parks Reservations

Logistics

Registration and Check In

We booked our stay on the Ontario Provincial Parks online portal, 5 months ahead. Quick and easy, as always - no complaints there.

Registration - as usual - went quickly and easily.

Registration takes place inside a small registration office, next to the park store.

Maps, Signage, and Website

There were a LOT of discrepancies between the park map, trail signage, and website descriptions, when it came to the trails.

One trail went from being an “easy” on the site, to a “Difficult” on the map. In another case, the website calls the Bluff trail 10km a “moderate”, while the park map says it’s 13km and difficult.

Rounding differences are one thing, being off by 30% / 3 km is wild.

Some more observations:

Park Map

The park map is a 2 sided, 11 x 17" full colour map, matte paper. One side has a full park overview map, the other has more detailed maps of the 6 campgrounds.

We love how organized it is, and how much information is on it.

This one includes a block of information about the trails, with symbols indicating what is and isn’t allowed on / suitable for the trails (Hiking, biking, dogs), as well as distances, difficulty, and a suggestion of the time each will take.

You’ve got to take the distances and difficulty with a grain of salt, but at least they can be looked at as some ind of approximation.

An interesting thing to note: I think this might be the first bilingual park map we’ve seen? Trying to remember if Rideau’s was - either way, not a common thing to come across.

Signage

The signage in Awenda was definitely adequate. There were a few places where I think things could have been a little more clear, but that’s about it.

The nice thing is that Awenda Provincial Park is pretty straightforward to get around in. It’s not one of the parks where you really do need a driver AND a navigator!

As with the map, the signs were generally either bilingual - when they weren’t just fully pictorial.

The trail signage was fantastic. We saw a lot of instances of “you are here” type map signs, especially where trails would meet up with one another.

Services

The Trailer Sanitation Station area is huge, and set up as a loop. There are 2 dump platforms and 2 fill platforms - well spaced out - with a bypass lane the whole way.

Their setup / hose type was different from what we see in most parks. Porter liked it - he liked that it was all stainless steel and copper, said it seemed really new and nicely done.

He raved about the fitting at the end of the hose - He usually has to twist the whole filter head to thread the hose on, this one had one of those heads where you just have to twist the end of it.

It’s weird to see someone just totally geek out about hose connections being so great, but here we are!

Also, there were a TON of garbage bins, all in really good condition. This is as you enter the area, before you get to the actual “poop loop”.

Connectivity

We had absolutely no connection at our campsite, and lost it almost the second we drove into our campground - Wolf Campground - every time.

As for the rest of the park, the reception along the roads is spotty to decent, we could usually get an OK connection down by the beach, and by FAR the best reception we had was in the Kettles Landing picnic area, and along most of the Wendat Trail.

Accessibility

The park’s efforts towards being more inclusive in terms of accessibility were evident from the get-go, seeing an all-terrain wheelchair in the registration office. Apparently this is available to borrow, for free. (Non motorized).

In terms of using that wheelchair, the Beaver Pond Trail is accessible - mostly boardwalk - as is a fair amount of the Beach Trail.

I’ve never used an all terrain wheelchair, but I’m wondering if even the Wendat trail could be accessible with it? (See the hiking section for more thoughts on disabled hiking at Awenda. )

Anyway, the beach itself has an accessible viewing platform, as well as barrier free vault toilets.

One absolute JEWEL of accessibility is the Kettle’s Landing picnic area. It has a gorgeous, HUGE ramp and platform setup, with scenic views of Kettle Lake. (More on that in a bit.)

Note: Brabant Picnic Area isn’t accessible wheelchair friendly.

Each campground has a designated barrier-free campsite - these are located near the comfort station and water taps, and have a modified picnic table.

All the campground comfort stations are listed as being barrier free, and each campground has barrier free outhouses available. The barrier free shower in the Wolf campground was clean and well maintained.

Pets

Awenda has a fairly large and impressive pet beach. It is NOT an off-leash beach, though. Dogs must be kept on a 2 meter leash at all times.

Dogs aren’t allowed on any of the other beaches, and - as always - pet owners are expected to pick up after their dogs.

Note: the parking lot signage for the pet beach isn’t great. We saw one sign that indicated it to be further ahead, then... nothing.

You access it via the Beaver Pond trail head area - pass that trail, turn left on the next trail (Beach Trail). At that point, it gets obvious where the pet beach starts and ends.

Parking

In general, parking is adequate to good throughout the whole park. The campsites are definitely big enough to accommodate another vehicle (or 3!), and there is additional parking at the entrance of most (each?) of the campgrounds.

There are sizeable parking lots at each of the picnic areas, an a huge lot at the trailhead for Robitaille trail.

The parking at the beach feels like stadium parking or something. It’s a chain of lettered parking lots - one way the whole way, looping back to the station point. TONS of parking.

The chain of parking lots starts out with an offshoot to an RV and trailer parking lot - sizeable, but be forewarned: the road in it is VERY bumpy.

Then the main parking starts - at lot A - and goes through to J, before turning around and looping back, going up to lot M at the end.

It would be nice if the lot letters were shown on the map - they are not.

Miscellaneous

Solar Power

There is a high, full tree canopy - sugar maples and red oaks - throughout the campground areas.

Great for keeping cool, not so great if you’re using solar power.

Northern Lights

Awenda Provincial Park isa FANTASTIC place to view the Aurora Borealis, as the long beach area is north facing with no light pollution.

A couple of caveats:

1. Day use closes at 10pm, and your daily vehicle permit expires at that point. If you’re looking to go to the park specifically to view the lights, you’ll want to book a site. They DO kick people out.

2. The absolute lack of cell phone reception in the campgrounds makes keeping an eye on the numbers incredibly difficult.

If a day looks to have potential for a show, you’re going to want to plan to camp out at the beach - or somewhere that has connectivity - if you rely on apps to keep up on what’s going on with the conditions.

Campground Amenities & Info

Some basic information on the facilities at the campground:

Creature Comforts

Each campground has a central comfort station, with flush toilets (the only ones in the park) and shower facilities. The comfort stations in Bear, Hawk, and Turtle campgrounds also have laundry facilities.

Note: Two of these - Bear and Turtle - were closed during our stay in early June.

The other... looks like something we’d see at Thermea or something, Deer Campground & Hawk Campground had the cute toilets, Wolf and Snake had the older ones.

The beach trail also had the cute ones.

As a note: Hawk’s Comfort Station was designed in the same way as the cute outhouses - I wonder if they’re in the process of updating them all?

Park Store

The Park Store is separate from the gatehouse, but only barely - it’s a short walk up the sidewalk from it!

We decided to check it out right after we checked in for our campsite.

It was small, and carried all the basics we tend to see in the stores at the biggest parks - some basic groceries and snack foods, the wildlife stuffed animals, souvenirs, ice, some basic camping supplies, etc.

Big bonus points for selling my favourite brand of sausage - Great Canadian Meat Co - as well as locally produced honey and maple syrup. We actually recognized one of the farm names from a sign on the drive in!

This one apparently also offers a propane cylinder exchange service - the first time we’ve seen mention of that in one of the parks, so cool.

The shopping experience itself, though... was less than cool. It was our first experience with camping at Awenda, and it ended up being our only real complaint about the place:

The Incident

This was a first for us, probably due to the demographics we belong to.

We walked in, and the park employee dropped what she was doing, stared, and then asked “.. Can I HELP you?” in this really weird, suspicious way.

Later, we confirmed with each other that we both found it odd, and had both - independently - worried that we’d walked in after hours or something. Porter had actually checked the sign to be sure.

She followed us with her eyes the whole time, it was super uncomfortable.

As Porter was checking out, I went to go look at something, and he said he watched her tense up and pretend not to be staring at me as I was looking at whatever it was I’d gone back for.

It was so, so uncomfortable.

I’ve been shopping with black friends, and I recognized her behaviour - she thought we were going to shoplift.

It was weird and uncomfortable - the first time it’s happened to either of us.

I have no idea why she seemed to think that 2 middle aged people in glasses and PJ pants were suspicious, but it wasn’t a great welcome to the park.

Day Use Area

Awenda has a few day use / related type areas scattered throughout the park.

Closest to the registration building is the Trail / Activity Center.

There’s a large amphitheatre (yes, THIS one actually exists and is easy to find, unlike some parks!), and it sounds like it’s regularly used for interpretive programming and such.

Right near that is the only actual picnic shelter we saw at Awenda.

It’s not shown on the park map, but it’s easy to find. The website says it’s available for use, when it’s not in use for park programming.

Picnicking

Beyond the actual picnic shelter, there are several awesome areas to picnic at Awenda.

There are limited actual tables - and some benches - at the beach, but spreading out a blanket on the sand is always great. Beyond that, there are two other main picnic areas, both at Kettle’s Beach:

Brabant Picnic area has a little walk to get to from the parking, and a few picnic tables up on the ground level.

There’s also a (long, fairly steep) staircase that takes you down to a platform on the lake - there’s a single bench there.

Kettle’s Landing, on the other hand, is the nicer of the two picnic areas, IMHO.

It’s more accessible from the parking lot for it, has a few picnic tables at ground level...

From there, you can take either a staircase or a long ramp down to the lake.

The ramp is nice - it goes through the trees, and is really great for birding. There were several yellow warblers singing to us, each time we stopped there.

The ramp - and stairs - take you down to two large deck platforms, overlooking Kettle’s Lake.

Both platforms have benches, and a great view - no picnic tables down there, though!

The first platform also has a short set of stairs that takes you down to what appears to be a stone boat launch.

From what we could tell, this is probably the best way to get a canoe or kayak down onto that lake - we didn’t see anything else that looked like any kind of a launch point.

Anyway, all around a great area to picnic or just spend some time enjoying the fresh air and birds.

Rentals

The park offers a variety of items for rent or loan.

There’s the aforementioned all-terrain wheelchair available for loan. You can also borrow a Personal Floatation Device (PFD) - those require a $25 deposit.

Electrical extension cords are available to rent by the day or week.

There are also canoe rentals available, sort of?

The canoe rental place on the map - also with wood sales - was closed and gated.

Given that the website says the rental canoe use is restricted to Kettle Lake, we found it a bit odd that it was located in the campgrounds - clear on the other end of the park from the lake.

Also, we didn’t see any kind of rental information at the lake itself.

Campsite Details

As a note, a couple of the campgrounds were closed - and gated - during our stay (Turtle and Bear). We did a drive through of the ones that were open, but our actual observations were limited to Deer, Snake, Wolf, and Hawk campgrounds.

Driving into the campground areas was really nice - main roads have almost a tunnel effect with the trees - green everywhere!

Generally speaking, then campgrounds all look relatively similar - the same tall tree canopy, loops with a centrally located comfort station and a few water taps throughout.

Each comfort station that we saw had a playground, they were all slightly different.

The main differences in the campgrounds tended to come down to what was allowed / banned, and whether or not there was electricity and/or laundry.

Bear: Has laundry, is a radio free campground.

Deer: Radio-free.

Hawk: A mix of hydro and non-hydro sites, has laundry.

Snake: Radio free, generator free, AND pet free campground.

Turtle: Has laundry facilities.

Wolf: Hydro sites, seemed to be mostly car camping.

Note: While the map and website say “radio free”, the signage in the campgrounds say “audio free” - we like this!

We’ve always thought that “radio free” is too ambiguous. We’ve been on Facebook far to long to NOT wonder how many edgelords play TVs in those areas, saying “it’s not radio”.

In general, the camp sites all seem to be situated well back from the road, and from each other. Each had a firepit and at least one picnic table, so far as we could see.

Our site - site number 202 - was HUGE and had a trail opening behind it that wasn’t shown on the maps.

Our site was in REALLY good condition - flat, level, well packed ground. Someone had cleaned out the fire pit AND *raked* around it - that’s a new one!

Roofed Accommodation

This one was a bit of weirdness during our stay.

Awenda has a single - named! - roofed accommodation available for rent: The Stone Cottage.

The description sounds great, touting its spectacular view of Georgian Bay, stone construction, and pine interior.

We wanted to take a peek to see how the parking situation is there - thinking it may be fun to have a roofed stay stop on one of our longer trips - but couldn’t find it on the map.

We also couldn’t figure out where it could even BE, based on the description. On the beach with a clear view of an island that was to the west almost made it sound like it wasn’t even in the park!

So I called the office to ask about it, and the employee got SUPER cagey at the mention of the cottage. She told me that not only could SHE not tell me the whereabouts of the cottage, but that most of the other employees don’t even know the location.

It was all very weird and secretive. Do they only tell you the location once you’ve rented it? Seems silly.

So, obviously we took it as a mystery to solve.

I had to wonder what comes up when you go to rent it on the reservations site - and that site showed exactly where it was!

Super weird to get all squirrelly about it, when it’s right there on the reservations site. I wonder if someone famous/important was staying there at the time?

Anyway, it’s accessed via a gated road off the beach parking lot.

Not sure if they have to let you in and out or whatever, but we didn’t bother looking into it any further.

Entertainment and Activity

Awenda Provincial Park is a large park with a TON of recreational opportunities. We tried to experience as much of them as we could, during our stay.

Here’s what we thought:

Hiking

Depending on which set of info you go on, there’s something like 20 km of trails to hike:

Beach Trail

Beach Trail starts out about halfway down the main parking lot, and heads out to the 4th Beach on the west end of the park.

The trail is very wide, made of well packed gravel for the most part - some sections of well packed dirt.

It’s flat and even the whole way, rated easy (accurately!) and is either 1.8 km linear / 3.6 km return, or 4 km return, based on which source of info you’re looking at.

The first half or so of the walk is really nice, with plenty of beach views along the way - it was quite open, with lots of light coming through.

We liked all the little water streams that crossed under the path, they looked - and sounded - really nice as we walked.

Around the halfway point, the lake views disappear and it gets much darker - and with SO MANY MOSQUITOS.

This is where it becomes less of a scenic walk, and more of a “connecting trail to get where you want to”.

In our case, we were hustling to get to the 4th beach as fast as we could, being eaten alive the whole way!

You eventually come to a couple offshoot paths for Beach 3, and the trail ends at Beach 4.

Anyway, there are the cute vault toilets at each of the beaches 3 and 4.

Beaver Pond Trail

This was a cute little trail. It’s an easy walk - listed as being barrier-free - and mostly boardwalk.

The boardwalk was really well maintained, and you could see the history of maintenance in the boardwalk - the boards were different degrees of aging.

It made for a pretty stroll.

You pass by a couple streams and some falling water. Towards the end of the trail, there’s a little platform out to the side.

Lots of educational boards along the way - History of timber, glaicers, braver lodging, etc in the area.

Another one taught us the Jewelweed is a thing. Its flowers look like Triffids, and I will never unsee that.

Apparently you can see remains of a building and a bridge from long-ago logging days, but we didn’t see them, or the Nipissing bluff.

Maybe all that is easier to see in the off season, when the foliage isn’t so full?

Anyway, there were plenty of birds singing, but didn’t see any of them.

Overall, a nice walk through the woods.

Bluff Trail

This trail is either 10 km, difficult, and 2.5 hours suggested time, or 13 km, moderate, and 3.5 hours, depending on whether you’re looking at the website or park map.

It loops around the park, and connects with almost every other trail.

Beach seems to be the only trail not directly connected to it, but you can definitely walk from Bluff through the Nipissing trail, cross the parking lot and hook onto Beach Trail.

Anyway, it’s the only trail we didn’t really do at Awenda during our stay - we crossed over it or along it.

From what we could see - not a ton of it, mind you - it was relatively even, flat, wide open trails - well packed.

We’d been hoping to get some biking in on that trail, but it didn’t end up working out for us, timing-wise!

Brûlé Trail

This trail is listed as being 2 km linear / 4 km return (park website), and 2.3 km long / 4.6 km return on the map. Both indicate the trail to be rated Easy.

It’s a nice walk through the forest - most of the trail is the same wide, well packed, flat trail that we’ve seen on other hikes.

There were birds singing overhead, and some interesting fungus along the way, but mostly just a really straightforward, very consistent trail.

In the section where it overlaps with the Bluff Trail, it gets really wide feels like you’re walking down an old abandoned road.

We’re assuming this has something to do with trail grooming machinery, but it makes for a bit of an odd vibe, when you just came off a more rustic trail... if that makes sense?

Honestly, not a super interesting trail by itself - more of a connecting walk between destinations, more so than a destination trail.

As a note: There’s easy access to one of the vault toilets in the Bear Campground.

Nipissing Trail

Nipissing Trail is about 500 km in length (so 1km return), and is ranked as being moderate on both the map and the website. One says it’ll take you 30 minutes to do it, return, and the other says 20.

We came in at about 35 minutes, and agree with the moderate rating, though it’s kind of a low moderate. If you’re at all in shape and not physically disabled, it’s pretty easy - more on that in a bit.

The big draw of this one is all the stairs taking you up/down the side of Nipissing Bluff. (The info says 155 steps, we counted 160 stairs.)

You start out with a slightly uphill trail through some boulders, and pretty quickly reach the first set of steps.

The 155 / 160 steps are divided up, btw - we’d been a little nervous that it would all be a straight shot!

There are 3 runs of stairs, with the middle one being the longest, at 112 steps. (It’s two sections, 42 steps, then a platform with a bench, then 70 more stairs.)

The first set of steps is 17, and the third set is 31.

The steps are all wide and long, with a short rise between them.

I found it reasonably easy, not like the steps at Point Farms - our quads weren’t screaming after going up them!

Signs warn that the steps are slippery when wet, but there’s traction tape on them - always nice to see!

Also, you’ve got a bit of a recovery walk between each set of steps. It is uphill, but mostly a gently sloping hill.

This one was a nice enough walk, but felt more like a connecting trail, than a destination.

Not wheelchair friendly, would have been a bit of work but doable in crutches, no problem in a boot, and doable with a cane.

I think the description oversold it a bit - “At times providing you with the sensation of being part of the forest canopy”. There were trees growing from the ground all around us, we never really saw over top of them.

Again, kind of wondering if it’s different in early sping or late fall, when the trees are more bare and the view more open?

Robitaille Homestead Trail

This was listed as being 1.5 km linear / 3km return, and Easy (on the website) or Difficult (per the park map).

Porter did this walk himself, and says it was easy, but with some inclines. Said they were short and really not that steep, with a few small roots here and there.

All wide, well packed trail, no muddy areas.

He liked it a lot - there were ruins of a house, and a barn, and there was an old piece of farm equipment as well.

They were actually substantial ruins, too - we’ve been to some parks where the “ruins” were literally just a post or a rock. This, you could see where the structures were, which was cool.

A trail guide told you the history of the homestead, up til when it was sold to the park in 1997.

The trail ends just before the dunes. It looks like the trail probably extended into the dunes - officially or otherwise - at one point, but now it’s “do not enter”.

Overall, an entertaining and interesting trail.

Wendat Trail

The website rates this easy, the map rates it moderate, it’s probably somewhere in between. Overall a very easy, long walk - wide, flat, well-packed trail with few roots or other obstacles.

I’m thinking the distance - 5km per the website, 4km per the map, 4.6 km per MapMyRun. (We believe that to be the most accurate).

In a few places there’s a small amount of hill, but they’re really short and not wildly steep or anything.

Not really a lot to see on this trail.

Aside from the two noted areas of interest - the two picnic areas - there’s also a short boardwalk across some wetland / lake, and that was really pretty.

As with the other hikes we did, we could hear a TON of songbirds... but they were so far up in the tall tree canopy, we couldn’t see them.

Another thing to note: We did the trail because of the wetland section noted on the map, in combination with Great Blue Herons mentioned as being often seen in the swamps around the lake.

Aside from that one little section of boardwalk, you really don’t have any view of the swamps while on the trail, though.

Makes for a nice dry walk - only one very slightly muddy section - but not great for Heron viewing!

Lots of frogs and mosquitos, though. Be sure to hose yourself down with bug spray before starting down this trail!

The big excitement on this trail was the TURTLES. More on that in the wildlife section!

Biking

There are about 14 kilometres of trails available to bike on, between the Beach, Bluff and Brule Trails. These are all mixed use trails, and those on bikes are supposed to yield to anyone on foot.

Awenda also specifies that cyclists are allowed to bike on the several km of park roads.

We saw a fair amount of bike racks around the park, as well as a tire fill station near the Activity Centre. Seems to be really bike friendly in general!

Swimming

Awenda Provincial Park has 4 different beaches stretching along the Georgian Bay shoreline, each with a different feel.

There are rocky beaches, sandy beaches, and some that are in between. Each are perfect for taking in the gorgeous sun sets, and beaches 1 and 2 are best for viewing the northern lights.

Some observations:

1st Beach

This was where we viewed the BIG SHOW of Northern Lights from. It’s a little bit of a walk from the parking lot - and down hill.

This whole beach area is fairly rocky, which makes for great photos... but maybe not the best swimming.

Even in the sandier areas, there are a lot of rocks and gravel.

2nd Beach

Beach 2 is just past the dog beach, and is much sandier and better suited for swimming than the 1st Beach, IMHO.

You access it all along the Beach Trail - so it’s a bit more of a walk to get to, from parking.

3rd Beach

This beach is located in Methodist Point Bay, which is the sandiest of the beaches - nice soft sand, too!

You access this beach from further along Beach Trail, via 2 offshoot paths to the right. The first brings you to a rockier beach area, the second is the sandy area.

4th Beach

Beach 4 is the furthest beach along Beach Trail, and is the only west facing beach in the park - it’s on the other side of Methodist Point.

Because it’s west facing, it’s the perfect spot to see the sunset.

It’s also the perfect place to go to avoid the crowds. It’s just over 1.5 km from the closest parking to it, which probably weeds out a ton of people in the summer.

We went just before sunset, and there was NO ONE there - the gauntlet of mosquitos may have discouraged some, LOL!

Anyway, this beach is sandy, with some large rocks - not much in the way of gravel.

At the time of our visit, the water was SO still and mirror like - it was almost eerie, combined with the lighting.

It IMMEDIATELY made me think of Salvador Dali paintings, for some reason!

Birding, Wildlife, and Nature

Awenda is a GREAT place to take in the great outdoors, in multiple ways.

Here were our highlights:

Birding

The varied areas in the park - forest trails, shorelines, bogs, etc - were great for birding. The park is known to be home to at least 120 different bird species.

The big challenge was the tree cover. In the campgrounds and on some of the trails, the tree cover was SO high up, that you could basically HEAR all kinds of birds... but not see any.

So, our “heard” list is longer than our “saw” list:

Birds we heard: American Redstart, Black-Capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Chipping Sparrow, Eastern Pheobe, Eastern Wood Pewee, Great Crested Flycatcher, Mourning Dove, Northern Cardinal, Ovenbird, Red-Eyed Vireo, Red Winged Blackbird, Scarlet Tanager, Song Sparrow, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-Rumped Warbler.

Birds we actually saw: American Robin, Black-and-White Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Black-Throated Green Warbler, Canada Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Hermit Thrush, Least Flycatcher, Northern Flicker, Purple Finch, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Veery, Winter Wren, Wood Thrush, Yellow Throated Vireo.

We didn’t really get any photos worth sharing, unfortunately 🙁

Turtle Power!

Our first day at Awenda, we noticed some fenced off turtle nests around the Brabant picnic area.

Lots of signage about protecting turtles in the area, too.

The second day - as we were almost finished with out hike on the Wendat trail - Porter stopped and said “Wait, is that a rock? Or is that a turtle??”

Up ahead, as the trail opened into the Brabant Picnic area, was a big rock... with a tail. It was a snapping turtle!

We carefully made our way around it, only to find a second one - that one was actively laying eggs!

In awe of it all, we called the number provided to let the researchers know of any sightings. We decided to “babysit” the turtles until park employees arrived to supervise and then protect the nests.

They told us about how the painted turtles nest in the evening, and the snapping turtles nest in the morning - CLIMBING UP THE STAIRS from the water.

It was an amazing morning - definitely not a sight I expected to witness on our hike!

Plants

Our first time at Awenda - for the Northern Lights - we noticed that the forest floor was just completely carpeted with trilliums in bloom - I’d never seen anything like it!

Those were all finished by the time we returned for our June trip, but there were plenty of cool plants and fungi to see during our trip:

Boating

There are two main avenues for boating: Out on the open Georgian Bay, or on the park’s interior lake - Kettle’s Lake.

In terms of Kettle Lake, it’s small and perfect for canoes and kayaks. There’s no real boat launch (I think you’re supposed to launch from Kettle’s Landing), and motorboats are banned.

When it comes to Georgian Bay, you can see kayakers out there on a calm day, as well as a few sailboats.

You’ll have to go into Penetanguishene if you want to launch anything bigger than you can carry, though!

Fishing

We didn’t do any fishing during our time at Awenda Provinicial Park, but fishing is available both in Georgian Bay and on Kettle Lake.

The area of Georgian Bay between the Awenda Park mainland and Giant’s Tomb Island is known for Bass, Northern Pike, Panfish, and Pickerel.

Kettle’s Lake has Bass and Panfish.

I’m guessing people can just fish off the platforms at the picnic areas, I saw at least one fishing line recycling receptacle on one of them.

Discovery Program

Given what we could see at the Activity Centre, Awenda seems to have a great selection of interpretive programs to offer, with things like guided hikes, children’s programming, events, and even evening programs slated to run from late June to early fall.

When there isn’t any programming on the go, there are plenty of educational opportunities in the park, both in the form of the free Discovery Activity Book (available in the park store), and all KINDS of educational signage peppered throughout the park.

There are also at least 2 scavenger hunt type activities: One that seems a bit more casual, with a printout posted in the Trail and Activity Centre.

The other - the Geology Treasure Hunt / Discovery Challenge - is a bit more sophisticated, with QR codes and web pages involved.

Niantic Games

There are a few portals / Pokestops / Gyms scattered throughout the park. Nothing really grouped, though - enough to get your dailies in, and that’s about it.

There was NO reception in the campsites, so I can’t even tell you anything about playing in the campsites themselves - you’re best off going to the beach or the picnic areas.

Winter Activities

We were surprised to see such organization for winter trails - signage, separate trails for summer and winter, etc - given that the park is closed to camping in the winter.

They offer 17 km of backcountry ski trails, and a little wood heated log cabin to warm up in (at the Trail / Activity Centre).

The trails aren’t groomed, and dogs aren’t allowed on the ski trails. (They’re ok on the snowshoe trails, though.). The park does not offer any equipment rentals.

Final Thoughts

We REALLY liked this park, between the general atmosphere, the variety of trails, and just how generally well maintained it is.

Everything just seemed really thoughtfully designed, and kept up well. It makes a big difference, and really stood out to us, especially given some of our more recent experiences (*cough* Earl Rowe Provincial Park *cough*).

The only real drawback is the internet situation.

The only way we’re able to camp so much, is because we can work while we’re out. Having ZERO connection in the campground areas was definitely a challenge, and a bit of a dealbreaker for us when it comes to longer stays.

That said, it’s now WAY up on our list of favourite parks, and we’ll definitely be back!

More Provincial Park 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!

Balsam Lake Provincial Park
Bass Lake Provincial Park
Bon Echo Provincial Park
Canisbay Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park
Chutes Provincial Park
Driftwood Provincial Park
Earl Rowe Provincial Park
Emily Provincial Park
Inverhuron Provincial Park
Killbear Provincial Park
Lake Superior Provincial Park
Long Point Provincial Park
MacGregor Point Provincial Park
MacLeod Provincial Park
Mara Provincial Park
McRae Point Provincial Park
Neys Provincial Park
Pinery Provincial Park
Point Farms Provincial Park
Port Burwell Provincial Park
Quetico Provincial Park
Rideau River Provincial Park
Rock Point Provincial Park
Rondeau Provincial Park
Sauble Falls Provincial Park
Selkirk Provincial Park
Sibbald Point Provincial Park
Sleeping Giant Provincial Park
Turkey Point Provincial Park
Wheatley Provincial Park