Inverhuron Provincial Park

Closing out our first camping trip of the season - a few stops in Southern Ontario - we checked into Inverhuron PP for our first time.

It was a really short distance from MacGregor PP (Port Elgin), where we’d been staying - I think about a 25 minute drive! It was definitely a refreshing change from the 3+ hour drive times that we usually have to do!

As we pulled into our site, I could smell the pine from in the camper, even with the windows all closed. It had just rained, so it was a nice clean smell.

As it turns out, it was a great place to enjoy the great outdoors - and we definitely made some stand-out memories there! (No spoilers, I’ll get into that in a bit!)

Overall, it’s a beautiful location.

Our campsite backed onto a trail that was just steps from a gorgeous rocky shoreline of Lake Huron - it was a fabulous place to spend some time.

We hiked all of the trails in the area, spent some time laying around on the beach (It was 22 degrees - in the beginning of May!), and all around had a great time.

SO much to talk about, so let’s get to it!

The Basics:

Campground Name: Inverhuron Provincial Park
Address: 19 Jordon Rd., RR#2 Tiverton, ON, N0G 2T0
Website: Inverhuron Provincial Park
Price Ontario Provincial Parks uses a pricing matrix across all their parks. See 2023 Camping Fees for more details.
Reservations: Ontario Parks Reservations

Logistics

Registration and Check In

We booked ahead of time, on the Ontario Parks website.

Just before our trip, we had some questions and called in - very friendly service.

Check in is done inside a small building, but with plenty of room in it. As always, checking in at the park was quick and easy, with super friendly staff.

Maps, Signage, Website

This was the only frustrating part of our stay - the information across the website and map (less so with the signage).

Website

The website did NOT have much information on the park, and what they did have.... wasn’t always accurate.

The big thing for me was the lack of info about the hiking trails. Most park sites have all the trails listed, with lengths and difficulty - usually with a description.

The page for Inverhuron Park makes mention of there being one trail, with no description beyond that. Weirdly, the MAP on the page - if you download the file - actually does list all 4!

Park Map

For the most part, I actually like the park map - it’s a single page, 2 sided, with maps of the overall park, just the campground area, and a bunch of info about the nuke site.

The only real issue I have is that points of interest aren’t present on the map. The Lime Kiln is mentioned in the trail description, with only a vague description of location.

We had no idea there even was a Maloney Homestead until we happened upon it.

The locations of Saw Mill Site, Lookout, and Former Schoolhouse Site are all noted on the map for the River Trail - at the trailhead, not on the paper map.

The little educational garden at the front isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site or the map.

Minor point, but I like to know when there are points of interest to go seek out!

Signage - Roads

The road signs through the park are the blue and white signs, which is nice - they’re easy to see against the woods, no matter what time of year it is.

The only issue we really had with the road signs was that - when driving through the Holmes Bay Campground - there’s no sign indicating where the comfort station is.

It’s on a little road off to the side, and completely obscured from view when driving down the one way street - so we actually drove right past it, the first time.

Signage - Beach

This one deserves its own section, because it was so WEIRD. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such mixed messaging in any other park!

So, you get to that beautiful beach, and see all kinds of signage telling you to stay off the dunes, they’re protected and fragile, etc.

Very clear messaging!

No big deal though, as there are a couple big boardwalks that go up and over the dunes.

Our first time at the beach, we took the one to the far left, by the comfort station.

... and it ended with a platform lookout! A nice lookout, mind you... but no way to access the beach from it.

We were a bit shocked, as we’d seen nothing saying that this was anything other than the way the park expected you to access the beach.

So, we went over to the other boardwalk.

This one had a lot of the signage about protecting the dunes, but also a small, weathered piece of laminated paper printout stuck to the rail, telling you that there was no access to the beach via the boardwalk.

... so yeah.

Loads of signs telling you to stay out of the sand dunes, and the only way to access the beach from the parking lot is a few trails through the sand dunes!

It would be one thing if the trails looked official - maybe edged with a rope barrier or something.

The thing is, when we’d first seen these trails ... they looked like ones that had been made by a few people breaking the rules. NOT like the expected way to go!

Trailer Sanitation

The park has an interesting set up for the trailer sanitation station - it’s actually two stations.

The fill station is on the way into the park, just past the main gate. It has 4 fill platforms: Three on the left, one on the right. It’s only one lane, though, with no bypass.

The dump station is on the way out of the park, with 4 dump platforms across two lanes - no bypass lane.

Connectivity

Cell reception was fair to good through most of the park, but pretty bad at our campsite. The upload speed was terrible, download was fair.

Accessibility

As with most Provincial Parks, there are accessible showers and toilets at the comfort stations, as well as a few campsites - they’re not marked on the map, though.

The beach is not wheelchair accessible at all. For those who have mobility issues WITHOUT a wheelchair, I recommend accessing the beach via the boat launch / dog beach area.

As far as the trails go, the part of the Chain Trail that the sites back onto seems to be mostly wheelchair accessible - assuming you can get onto it.

None of the paths from the sites that we saw were in any way wheelchair accessible, and most would be difficult for anyone using any kind of mobility aid.

There are other entry points, though. The one at the comfort station between Holmes Bay and the Cabin is probably your best bet.

The rest of the trails have varying degrees of accessibility - see the hiking section (below) for more details.

Pets

There’s a really nice dog beach, between the boat launch and the main beach.

You can access it via the boat launch area, the day use / picnic shelter parking, or the main beach (the far right of that parking lot).

There is no physical separation between the main beach and the dog beach, and dogs are required to be on leash when not in the water.

As a note: This park had a much higher than average number of really cute doggos.

More dogs than we’ve seen in a long time, and SO MUCH CUTE.

Parking

The sites all have PLENTY of parking, and there seems to be ample parking at the day use/picnic shelter and beach areas.

Less so right at the boat launch, but there’s a second parking lot kind of behind that one.

Miscellaneous

Orientation

The beaches behind the Holmes Bay and Lime Kiln campgrounds are pretty much directly west facing.

Not so great if you’re looking for the Northern Lights, but fantastic for some glorious sunsets over Lake Huron. There are large sections of flat rock, great for pulling up a chair on summer nights!

The beach along Gunn Point varies from south west to south facing.

The Nuclear Power Plant

The park shares a border with the Bruce Nuclear Power Station, with a fence running along that part of the park.

Signs along the fence note that it’s private property... and patrolled by armed guards, complete with a silhouette image of one. Not the sort of thing I love seeing, but hey, it gets the point across.

There’s a public warning siren along the road to the cabins, and apparently two others within the park. They did not go off during our stay.

There WERE some weird noises coming from the plant during our first night in the park: it SOUNDED like there was a helicopter, and also someone yelling over a loudspeaker.

We didn’t see a helicopter, and honestly it kind of sounded like the sound of it was being broadcast over the same loudspeakers, rather than right there in reality.

Kind of bizarre when you’re trying to enjoy a sunset on the beach! It was surreal, felt like something out of a movie.

Anyway, there’s a whole column of information on the park map, addressing safety concerns and telling you what to do in the event of an emergency.

Campground Amenities & Info

Here’s some basic information about the park amenities:

Creature Comforts

There are 4 campground comfort stations - one on either end of the campground area, and one each between where the separate campgrounds meet.

There’s also one in the row of cabins, and another at the beach parking area.

Most seem to have shower facilities and flush toilets, and the two in the interior of the campground area (Between Holmes Bay and Lime Kiln, and between Lime Kiln and Gunn Point) also have laundry facilities.

There are also vault toilets all throughout the park.

The comfort stations and toilet buildings all seem to be relatively modern and well maintained.

Park Store

There’s a small park store in the main gate building. You can buy ice, wood, park souvenirs, ice cream, stuffed animals, etc.

We bought some wood and an ice cream sandwich.

The ice cream sandwich was good, but the wood was VERY wet. Extremely hard to light, and you could see and hear the water boiling out of it as the fire started.

We’ve heard - and experienced - that this is pretty common for wood at provincial parks, we just haven’t bought a lot of it!

Definitely going to have to start looking into those road side wood stands!

Visitor Centre

The park doesn’t have a set Visitor Center, but has educational signage and points of interest throughout the park.

Day Use Area

There’s a day use park that’s situated between the main beach parking lot, and the far end of the boat launch area - which has a playground.

We don’t usually see any of the nets set up at parks we’ve been to, but this one actually had a really nice volleyball net set up:

Rental Items

Inverhuron Provincial Park offers several different types of rentals and loans.

Personal Floatation devices (PFDs) are available to borrow at the Main Gate, and there’s also a tackle share program at the park.

Trailer storage is available on a rental basis during the operating season.

There WAS an extension cord loan service, but it’s been cancelled. Too bad, this is such a great idea at the parks that have it - and a lot of the pedestals at this park are pretty far from the sites!

Campground Details

The camping area of the park is divided into 3 campgrounds: Gunn Point Campground, Holmes Bay Campground, and Lime Kiln Campground.

We stayed in Holmes Bay, which is apparently a relatively new campground.

The other two campgrounds were not operating during our stay, so we don’t have a lot of information on them.

Gunn Point seems to be all electrical sites, and Lime Kiln seems to be a mix of hydro and non-electric sites, though.

Campsites

Anyway, every one of the sites in Holmes has electrical service, a picnic table, and a camp fire pit.

From what we could see, most - maybe all - of the sites were set back from the road with a fairly long drive, leading into a large open area - perfect for larger trailers!

The road through the campground is packed gravel, in decent shape, and pretty wide open - ALSO good news for bigger rigs.

I think all of the sites we saw seemed to have a relatively flat, gravel base for most/all of the camping area.

Anyway, generally not a TON of privacy.

The actual camping areas are more surrounded by trees than the driveways are, but you can mostly see clear through to the sites from the road - not so much site to site, though.

Also, note that the long drive ways mean the pedestals - which are along the road - tend to be a fair distance from the camping area. Bring extension cords!

The PATHS!

The really cool thing about the sites that back onto the Chain Trail - along the waters edge?

Most (maybe all, we didn’t check) have little trails leading from the back of the campsite, to the trail.

They all seem to be fairly narrow and well obscured - you can get a little view of the trail, but it’s not a wide open path.

Ours was one of the first things we noticed about our site - 256 - as we could see clear through to the water!

One little trail from our site to the Chain trail, then another trail down to the water, on the other side of the Chain Trail.

Really nice!

We did have one person who saw fit to ride a bike through our campsite on the last day, but that was the only weird intrusion that we noticed, via that trail.

People... don’t do this.

Especially where this guy was on a bike, we were only a few campsites away from the main access point - it would have been very little effort for him NOT to be a tool.

It’s weird, rude, and kinda creepy to just make your way right through someone else’s entire campsite like that!

The Rustic Cabins

Nearby - but on a separate road off the main park road - there’s the camp cabin row.

They look pretty cute, and fairly private:

The really sweet thing about the row of cabins is that they’re all facing towards the water.

They’re a bit back off from the water - set back from the road - but across the road from the cabins, there’s an amazing private beach.

Its accessible via little trails from the road - they’re fairly frequently placed. Very nice - peaceful!

Entertainment and Activity

For such a small park, there’s actually a fair amount of things to do! Here are our thoughts on the available activities, at the time of our visit.

Hiking

Though the website for Inverhuron Provincial Park only mentions one multi-use trail, there are actually 4 nature trails in the park.

They’re mostly relatively short and easy - we were able to do all 4 of them in the first 24 hours of our trip!

Here’s the breakdown:

Chain Trail

This is the one trail that’s actually mentioned on the park’s website - a 4 km long trail that circles most of the park and is rated easy.

We tackled this one over the course of two walks.

The first night, we took a walk from the trail out back of our campsite, down along the shores of Lake Huron, and back up onto the main road, near the boat launch.

For the most part, this was an easy walk, with wide, flat, well packed trails.

Once we got down around the south end of Gunn Point Campground, the trail got more rough:

The really cool part of this section of trail - from our site in Holmes Bay campground, down to Gunn Point - is that there were little offshoot trails to the shore every 5-10 metres or so.

These go down to a really rocky beach. Not really a swimming beach, but it was the perfect place to just take in some fresh air.

We saw a couple with their lawn chairs pulled out onto flat sections of rock, just chilling out - definitely liked their idea!

Anyway, we walked past the old lime kiln - more on that later, past the day use area, and through Holmes Bay to get back to our campsite.

All told, it was about 2.75 km, and took us about an hour.

The next morning, Porter went for a jog on Chain trail, heading in the opposite direction as the night before.

This took him past the cabins, along the armed fence, and through a few different kinds of environment.

Along the way, he passed an old Hay Dump Rake on the side of the trail, with some signage talking about its history.

Overall, he enjoyed his run on the Chain Trail. As a nice, wide, mostly flat trail, it was perfect for a jog.

In terms of accessibility, we’d say most of the trail is at least somewhat wheelchair accessible - especially if you have an all terrain one. I could definitely do it in a boot, with a cane, etc.

I wasn’t having an AWFUL tendon day when I walked my part, but it wasn’t great either - and I didn’t have any problems with the trail itself.

The offshoot trails to the lake, though - those are definitely less accessible!

Maloney Trail

This is a relatively short trail - 1 km, ranked easy - BUT it’s an offshoot trail. You’ll have to walk either ½ km-ish (from the road, near the cemetery), or probably ~1 km, if you’re starting near the gate house.

So, expect it to be more like 2-3 km, depending on your starting point.

The main attraction of this trail is the Maloney Homestead - remains of some old agricultural land from the 1800s - more on that in a bit.

As for the trail itself, not quite as flat. It felt more like a rural driveway or logging road, moreso than a hiking trail.

Not wheelchair accessible, doable with a cane or boot - assuming it’s not too muddy at the time!

River Trail

The River Trail is the most challenging of the trails in Inverhuron Provincial Park, coming in at 3km of “Moderate to Difficult”.

I wasn’t having a great foot and knee day, and I would rank the first half as moderate, the second half as easy.

The difficulty is basically just several large hills - there weren’t any obstructions to get over, etc.

I had to laugh a bit at the designation. Thinking back to the Agawa Rock Pictographs trail in Lake Superior Provincial Park, CLEARLY there’s wild variance in how trails are graded.

I’ll never understand how that was graded only moderate - that was seriously hardcore!

I digress.

Anyway, this trail starts out at the parking lot for the beach, and is a straight shot to get to the trail loop, crossing over a cute bridge in the process.

If you go to the left - basically a U turn - when you get to the trail loop, you’ll be starting on the more difficult half - but it’s also the half with much better views.

This takes you through a young hardwood forest and along the Little Sauble River, with several outlooks along the way. You’ll pass the site of an old sawmill - there’s signage, but nothing left to actually see.

During certain times of year, you can see fish spawning right on the side of the trail in one spot!

We really enjoyed hearing the sound of the rushing water of the river, on this half of the hike.

Almost exactly at the halfway point, the trail wildly changes vibe and difficulty. You come out of the forest, and it’s just a wide, flat trail.

While the first half was pretty covered, you’re in open sun for the easy part of the trail. This half was pretty meh in terms of view, so we didn’t end up taking any photos.

Anyway, in terms of accessibility:

If you’re doing the whole trail, it’s not wheelchair accessible, and I wouldn’t recommend doing it with any kind of mobility aid beyond an ankle brace.

If you’re doing the easy half only, it’s still PROBABLY not wheelchair accessible (on account of some of the sand / wonky trail near the beginning), but is absolutely doable with pretty much any other kind of mobility aid.

Tulip Trail

Tulip trail is a short walk out from the main gatehouse. It’s listed as a half km, easy trail - but it IS a straight shot, rather than a loop. So, 1 km return.

It’s named for the tulip trees along it - none of which were in bloom during our trip, unfortunately!

Had they been in bloom, it would have been more interesting. As it was, it was more like a connecting path, than a destination hike.

In terms of accessibility, this one was not wheelchair accessible.

The hills are rolling - and some are steep - so we wouldn’t recommend it in crutches, a cane might be difficult, and a boot would be doable - assuming it’s not too wet or muddy at the time.