Grundy Lake Provincial Park

It’s a larger campground, and provided a different camping experience than some of the other near-north campground we’ve been to. It felt more like one of the cottage country, “closer to Toronto” campgrounds than I expected it to!

Anyway, its size and setting make it a great campground for the whole family - there really is something for everyone there. Several beaches, a few challenging hiking trails, many different settings for canoeing and kayaking adventures, and more.

We were there for 3 days in early September, right at the end of the Labour Day long weekend.

We had a great - though bumpy! - time - let us tell you all about it!

The Basics:

Campground Name:
Address: 20400 Highway 522 Britt, ON P0G 1A0
Website: https://www.ontarioparks.ca/park/grundylake
Price: Ontario Provincial Parks uses a pricing matrix across all their parks. See 2024 Camping Fees for more details.
Reservations: Ontario Parks Reservations
Park Classification: Natural Environment
Season: May 10, 2024 to October 15, 2024

Logistics

Some information to help you plan your visit to Grundy Lake Provincial Park:

Registration and Check In

We booked our stay online at 7 am sharp, 5 months before our stay. We lucked into a waterfront site, and pre-registered at that time.

Grundy Lake is the first park we’ve seen in a while that still uses paper permits. So, we weren’t able to bypass checking in by doing preregistration online, but it did speed things up a little.

Check in at the main gate was quick and easy as usual, with friendly park staff.

Maps and Signage

Some information on getting around the park, once you get there.

Park Map

The park map comes as the larger, newspaper format that you see at some of the larger parks... and the map sprawls across two pages of it.

So, it’s huge - 17" x 22" when unfolded. This got kind of unwieldy when getting around the campground.

Also, even with all of that space to work with, parts of the map run off the end of the page, and aren’t shown elsewhere. Most of the Beaver Dam trail, everything north of the Poplar campground (including several lakes), and a Gut Lake Dam trail are completely cut off.

The annoying thing about the Gut Lake Dam trail is that there’s no info on the site about that trail - so we have no idea what to expect for distance or difficulty. So, we just skipped it altogether.

Signage

The signage is ... not great... in Grundy Provincial Park. Where there ARE signs, they’re really good... but there are a lot of occasions where there aren’t signs at all.

After driving around the park a few times, you’ll get the hang of it... but it sure was easy to miss the turnoff to the road our campground was located on, when returning from the main section of the park.

There’s also no sign pointing to the comfort station in our area, so it was easy to miss that turnoff as well - it just looks like another unlabeled campground road, you can’t see the comfort station when driving up.

Waste Services

There is a Trailer Sanitation Station, as well as a separate Trailer Fill Station at Grundy Lake Provincial Park.

The Trailer Sanitation Station has the fill platforms first, and they’re almost as soon as you turn into the Poop Loop from the main campground road - no room for lining up behind whoever is filling their tanks.

To make matters worse, the fill stations are on either side of a single lane - no bypass. So, only one person can fill, and they will block the way to the dump platforms.

I bet that gets fun on long weekends!

Anyway, it spreads out a bit to 2 lanes for the dump platforms, but still no bypass lane.

All the fill hoses were threaded, by the way.

As a note: this is the first time we’ve seen a warning about elevated levels of sodium in the water supply - good to keep in mind, when planning your trip!

Connectivity

We had decent internet pretty much everywhere in the park. Not GREAT connectivity, mind you, but more or less consistently having some degree of connection.

It got very slow at times, but never cut out entirely.

Accessibility

All of the comfort stations are designated as being barrier free, though the one near the Jack Pine campground had a pretty rough approach to the building. The other two were paved and had ramps as necessary.

The Park Office was also designated barrier free, and a bunch of the vault toilets are labeled as being barrier-free on the map. AT LEAST one of those “barrier free” ones is absolutely NOT wheelchair accessible in person, so take that with a grain of salt.

None of the trails are wheelchair accessible, and the only one that’s going to be accessible for those with any other kind of mobility device is the Pakeshkag Lake Trail.

Personally, I think the wildly understated distances at the trails is an accessibility issue. When you’re budgeting your mobility, having a surprise ½ km or more tacked on without notice can be an issue.

The one wheelchair friendly picnic table we noticed in the park was at the far pet exercise area - the one by Beaver Dam trail. This isn’t noted on the map or on the website, by the way. The area it’s on is pretty rocky.

Fantastic view at that picnic table, though!

Finally, the park has a beach wheelchair available to borrow, at the park office. This is also not noted on the site - and we didn’t see Mobi Mats on any of the 5 beaches that were open during our stay.

Pets

Grundy Lake Provincial Park is a really pet-friendly campground, with two gorgeous dog beaches.

The far beach - near Balsam campground - is a leash-free pet exercise beach... and I forgot to check if the other one (on Gurd Lake, between White Spruce and Hemlock campgrounds) was as well.

Anyway, both areas are spacious, with convenient parking, great views, and picnic tables. Note: The Gurd Lake one doesn’t show parking on the map, but there’s a small lot right there.

As a note, the Balsam dog beach is really close to the highway, so it’s pretty noisy.

The Gurd Lake Dog Beach also has a canoe rack and several turtle nests, btw.

Parking

In general, there seems to be a ton of parking available at the park, both in the campsites themselves, and at the major points of interest (trail heads, comfort stations, etc).

The parking is a bit sparse in the area of the main beach, so if there’s a popular program going on at the Discovery Centre, you may need to park down by Smokey Point and walk back up.

Note: There’s no parking indicated on the map for the dog beach on Gurd Lake, but there IS a small parking lot right there..

Miscellaneous

The roads at Grundy Lake are TERRIBLE. Seriously, even doing a drive through - at slow, campground speed! - in our car had us feeling like we were going to whiplash ourselves from all of the potholes tossing us everywhere.

Be sure your car has a good suspension, just know that it may not anymore, after driving at Grundy Lake Provincial Park.

This is a park that is desperately in need of re-grading the roads. Yikes.

We were really glad our site was near the front of the park, and not too far off into one of the bigger campgrounds. Even the RV specific campground had horrible roads - I’d hate to drive our RV through it.

While we love the park in general, the roads are actually bad enough to make us debate whether or not we’ll be back. I can’t remember any other park where that was the case!

Unrelated: the park is in an area of relatively low light pollution itself, though Sudbury is located north of it. It’s a good place for stargazing, and *should* be a good place to view the Northern Lights - but there was no aurora activity during our stay.

Campground Amenities & Info

Here’s some basic information on the campground amenities you’ll find at Grundy Lake Provincial Park:

Creature Comforts

There are 3 comfort stations, each with flush toilets, laundry facilities, and showers.

None of them are really IN any of the campgrounds, they’re just sort of near the entries to multiple campgrounds, right off the main roads.

The 3 comfort stations are covering 9 campgrounds worth of campers, so you may find a bit of a line for showers, on busy weekends.

The laundry facilities at the White Birch / Jack Pine comfort station were in totally reasonable condition. There were tables by the washers and the dryers - which were on opposite sides of the room.

It was $2 per load, both for washing and drying - Loonies only.

Not really sure if these are actual vault toilets (they look like it from the outside), or actual flush toilets.

Grundy Lake Park Store

There is a small park store at the front office, mostly carrying Ontario Parks souvenirs.

If you need ice, groceries, camping supplies, etc... the Grundy Lake Supply Post is located right across the street from the park entrance.

Along with the store, they also have “The Pinecone” - a bit of a snack bar / café, with ice cream, hamburgers, poutine, fish & chips, etc on the menu.

Visitor Centre

The Visitor Center is kind of a small, shack type building near the Grundy Lake Main Beach area, and next to the road down to Smokey Point.

We didn’t go inside - if you can go inside? Not sure if it’s more of a supply closet situation, as they were hosting programming just outside of it.

Anyway, there’s also an amphitheater just down the road, at Smokey Point. It sounds like that’s where most of the programming takes place.

Day Use Area

The day use area is kind of spread over a few sections in the middle of the campground, with more picnic tables randomly scattered throughout the entire park.

Main Beach and Smokey Point each have a good picnic area, and Smokey Point actually has a picnic shelter there. Across the street from the main beach is another little nook - beside Nesbit Creek - with a beach volleyball setup.

There’s also another volleyball net - on the grass, not a beach volleyball pit - by the far parking at Smokey Point. This one isn’t on the map, though.

Campsite Details

Grundy Lake Provincial Park has 9 campground areas for car camping, as well as 3 group camping sites, a private cabin, and several backcountry camping sites.

Balsam, Red Maple, White Pine, and White Spruce were all closed and gated for the season, during our visit.

Car Camping

The 9 Grundy Lake Campgrounds Are:

Balsam Campground: All non-electric sites, very close to one of the dog beaches, not very close to any of the comfort stations.

Hemlock Campground: A mix of electric and non-electric sites, not super far from a comfort station. This is a radio-free campground.

Jack Pine Campground: A mix of electric and non-electric sites - some waterfront - has a small canoe launch, is near a full comfort station.

Red Maple Campground: All non-electric sites, a bit of a hike to the nearest comfort station. This campground is radio-free and pet free.

Trailer Campground: All electric sites, exclusively for RVs and trailers. Near a comfort station, has a a canoe launch and horseshoe pit.

White Birch Campground: A mix of electric and non-electric sites, this is the campground we stayed in. Several of the sites are waterfront, and this campground is near a comfort station.

White Pine Campground: Mostly non-electric sites, with a few electric sites on one side of it. Has a path at one end, that’s a short walking distance to the closest comfort station.

White Spruce Campground: Really small campground, all non-electric sites. Feels a bit more secluded than the rest of the park campgrounds.

Our Campsite

Our campsite - 653 - was fantastic.

Large, relatively good privacy, not TOO far from the front of the park (an important feature, given the road conditions there!), and with a little path to a small beach!

The beach had a north facing view over Grundy Lake, and would have been PERFECT for Northern Lights.

Unfortunately, there was no activity during our stay.

Still - a great site!

Backcountry Camping

Grundy Lake Provincial Park has a number of backcountry canoe-in sites, and you can apparently reserve specific sites at this park. Aside from the reservation, you’ll also need a backcountry camping permit.

Each of the back country campsites has a box privy, fire pit, food locker, and picnic table. All of them are accessible by canoe, and some seem to be accessible via the Pakeshkag Lake Trail.

Group Camping

This one’s a bit confusing - the site mentions there being 3 group campsites, though we could only find one on the park map.

I looked at the reservations website, and - again - I can only find the one that was on the park map.

So, if you’re looking at booking one of the other two that may or may not exist... have fun?

Anyway, we had a chance to peek in at the group site, as it was unoccupied. It’s a generator free campsite - and also pet free. It has its own water tap, as well as a path to the Red Maple campground beach.

It doesn’t have its own vault toilets, but it’s pretty close to a comfort station.

Roofed Accommodations

There is a single roofed option at Grundy Lake Provincial Park - “White Birch Cabin”.

It’s right on Grundy Lake, and next to a short trail that takes you to the main beach.

It sleeps 5, with a queen bed and a twin/double bunk bed that sleeps 3.

Entertainment and Activity

There are a number of activities you can take part in, in Grundy Lake PP. Here’s some info about what you can choose from:

Hiking

There are a few great hiking trails in Grundy park, and we made a point of doing each of them during our stay. Here’s what we saw and thought:

Beaver Dam Trail: 3.6 km, moderate to difficult

Porter did this trail by himself, as I had a rough go of hiking the day before, and was still recovering the next morning. I’ll let him describe it:

“Overall, this trail is much more foresty and marshy than the other trails in the park with only small sections of it being rocky.

There are several areas of boardwalk, including one very long section that is also incredibly narrow. Boardwalks definitely seemed to be kind of a running theme with this one.

Note: It was designated as being 3.6 km long, it ended up as 4.45 km for me.”

Gut Lake Trail: 2.5 km, moderate to difficult.

Porter did this trail the same morning as Beaver Dam trail, while I was resting my tendons.

This trail starts out at Smokey Point, crossing over a little footbridge there.

He knew that this trail followed the shoreline of Gut Lake, so he followed the paths in that general direction until he finally saw a trail marker. Says he:

“It’s not like you’re going to get lost, there’s just a lot of little paths where people have explored the rocky outcrops and such. The arrows and trail markers are set up for you to go clockwise, so I happened to choose well by following the side of Gut Lake.

Note: This was supposed to be 2.5 km long, it ended up being 3.36 km.”

Pakeshkag Lake Trail: 5.2 km , easy

This is listed as being a 2.6 km trail, so 5.3 km long return. In actuality, it’s only about 0.1 longer than stated - so FAR more accurate than the other trails.

This is a multi-use trail, and the only one in the park that’s really suitable for jogging or cycling on. It also gets used as a portage for accessing some of the backcountry camping sites in the park.

For the most part, it’s just a straight shot through the forest, but the view opens out into lake views in a few spots, including a Beaver Lake wetland, and overlook, and the trail terminus at Pakeshkag Lake.

There were many turtle egg protection boxes on the trail, mostly by Beaver Lake. We counted 19 boxes on the trail!

Nice enough trail, not really anything to write home about.

Swan Lake Trail: 1.5 km loop, moderate to difficult

The day after we arrived at Grundy Lake Park, we decided to do an early morning hike, and hit up Swan Lake Trail shortly after sunrise.

This trail was pretty difficult, and involved crossing over rocky ridges, up to lookouts over Swan Lake. I’ve done some pretty wild things in a boot / with a cane, but there’s no way I would have been able to do this trail if I was having a “mobility aid day”.

The roots are frequent and very close together in some areas, and there are some rock faces that are probably 30 degrees you’ll need to walk up. You’ll definitely want some grippy, stable hiking boots for this trail.

It started out with a boardwalk over a marshy area of the lake, and continued on to just really showcase the landscape of the Canadian Shield, both in what you were climbing over, and what you could see from the lookouts.

This part of the park is a protected nature reserve, and the park’s site says it’s a good place for seeing amphibians, beaver, bitterns, deer, fish, moose, reptiles, etc.

We did, however, see a TON of birds. Right after crossing the boardwalk, and about ⅔ the way along the hike - up on that lookout ridge - were the best areas for birding that morning.

More on that in the birding section, though.

Also of note: That boardwalk is terrifying.

It floats... and doesn’t do a great job of it. Lots of movement, and at one point it’s flooded. You’ll want to wear sturdy, grippy boots for this trail in general, but waterproof would also be a good idea!

Finally: Expect a fair amount of road noise on this trail, it runs pretty close to the Trans Canada Highway.

Biking

There aren’t any dedicated trails in the park, but - as noted - the Pakeshkag Lake trail is a long, linear trail that’s mixed-use and suitable for cycling on.

Beyond that, we saw a bunch of people cycling on campground roads during our stay.

Swimming

There are 6 sandy beaches in Grundy Lake Provincial Park:

Balsam Campground - Accessible via the canoe launch parking lot, even though the Balsam Campground was closed). The perfect place for watching the sun set.

Main Beach - Has two small parking lots on either side of the main campground road. This beach area was super popular for launching canoes during our visit.

Poplar Campground - Has a decent sized parking lot right next to the beach. A great place for watching the sunrise.

Red Maple Campground - Was inaccessible during our stay, as Red Maple Campground was closed and gated for the season.

White Birch Campground - Has a small parking lot with a short trail to access it. Really great place to watch the Aurora Borealis, if conditions are right!

IMHO, the Poplar Campground has the nicest beach of the ones we saw, with sandy-sand and a clear lake. The White Birch and Trailer Campground beaches are small and more private - great beaches for a more quiet experience.

Note: We’ve heard about Slippery Rock - a large, moss covered boulder at Red Maple Beach, that acts like a natural Slip N’ Slide - and the jumping rocks somewhere near Gut Lake... but that’s not really our scene.

We weren’t able to see Slippery Rock - as the campground was gated - and we never did get around to looking for the jumping rocks.

Birding, Wildlife, and Nature

This is a great park if you’re a bird watcher!

The Swan Lake Trail, and the beginning of the Gut Lake Trail - near Smokey Point were far and away the best areas for birding during our stay.

Also of note: Beaver Dam Trail has views of a Great Blue Heron rookery, which is apparently active in the spring.

Beyond that, the area near the far dog beach / Beaver Dam Trail was also really great - a few loons came right near the shore, and the trees were alive with a bunch of American Goldfinch and Yellow-Rumped Warblers the evening we got in.

... and we heard: American Bittern, Belted Kingfisher, Brown Creeper, Cedar Waxwing, Dark-Eyed Junco, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Gray Catbird, Palm Warbler, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, Red-Eyed Vireo, Rock Pigeon, Solitary Sandpiper, Tennessee Warbler, Wood Duck.

In terms of other animals, there were signs about black bears in the area, and the site mentions then possibility of seeing deer, moose, owls, and more.

... we weren’t so lucky, LOL!

Boating

Motor boats aren’t permitted on any of the lakes in Grundy Lake Provincial Park, so there aren’t any standard boat launches in the park.

There are, however, 9 small canoe launches throughout the park, spread across the major inland lakes.

Weirdly, the park doesn’t offer canoe or kayak rentals - you can get those at nearby businesses, though.

Fishing

Grundy seems to be a pretty popular spot for fishing - I think we saw more people fishing from the shore on various beaches there, than at any other park we’ve been to!

The park map has each of the main inland lakes labeled with the species of fish you can find in it:

Clear Lake: Bass, Northern Pike, Panfish.

Grundy Lake: Bass, Crappie, Northern Pike, Panfish, Walleye

Gurd Lake: Bass, Brown Bullhead, Northern Pike, Panfish, Walleye.

Gut Lake: Bass, Crappie, Northern Pike, Panfish

As a protected wildlife area, there is no fishing in Swan Lake, or in any of the unnamed, small inland lakes / ponds that surround it.

Discovery Program

We arrived a bit too late in the season to have a chance to attend any of Grundy’s Discovery Programming.

We were handed a calendar of events starting on Monday August 26th, with the last event ending several hours before our arrival. Um... thanks?

Anyway, lots of cool stuff happened just before we arrived, including guided hikes, a park “Spirit Night” in celebration of its 65th anniversary, art programs, nature demonstrations, and more.

There’s a nice amphitheatre at Smokey Point, right next to the entrance to the Gut Lake Trail - I’m guessing a lot of the summer programs happen there.

As is the case with many Ontario Parks... such programming is pretty much limited to the Summer months, ending after the Labour Day long weekend.

Niantic Games

For such a huge park, there actually aren’t a ton of Niantic Pokestops / Ingress Portals / etc in the area.

The best area is on Smokey Point, where there’s a concentration of 4 or 5 of them in a smallish area.

Other than that, there are plenty of spawns / energy throughout the park, and enough cell reception to be able to play.

Nearby Attractions

The only “field trip” we took during our stay at Grundy Lake Provincial Park was a short road trip to nearby French River Provincial Park.

This park is a set of countless inland lakes and waterways along 100 km of river, mostly only accessible by canoe or kayak.

There’s a small day-use area, and an award-winning Visitor Centre that covers the history of the French River area, the historical fur trade that used those waterways as trade routes, etc.

A nice little day trip - and only 17 minutes away from Grundy!

Final Thoughts

We really like this park - in particular, the hiking trails. Good lord, those are some amazing trails!

Also: The birding is fantastic!

We loved our campsite, with the easy access to a fairly private little beach. It was relatively level, decent privacy, and pretty big - what more could you ask for?

Oh, yeah... decent roads. You could definitely ask for roads that aren’t at risk of giving you a TBI just from driving on them!

We are kind of undecided on whether or not this will be a repeat campground for us. If not for the roads, 100% it would be.

Given the layout of the park, though, driving is pretty necessary to get anywhere else in the park... and doing so is pretty miserable.

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!

Arrowhead Provincial Park
Awenda Provincial Park
Balsam Lake Provincial Park
Bass Lake Provincial Park
Bon Echo Provincial Park
Bonnechere Provincial Park
Bronte Creek Provincial Park
Canisbay Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park
Chutes Provincial Park
Darlington Provincial Park
Driftwood Provincial Park
Earl Rowe Provincial Park
Emily Provincial Park
Ferris 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