Algonquin’s Mew Lake Campground is not only a popular place for summer camping, it’s open year round! Here’s what you need to camp there, any time of the year.
Our first time visiting Algonquin Park was last fall, when we stayed at Canisbay Lake.
While that particular campground didn’t impress us (it was at the very end of its season, last year... there was a lot of disrepair!), we really enjoyed Algonquin Provincial Park in general, and decided to try again - just with a different campground.
Luckily, we didn’t have to wait til the spring or summer - Algonquin’s Mew Lake campground was available for winter camping!
Nestled along the shore of Mew Lake, it’s the only campground in Algonquin PP to offer year-round camping, as well as yurts.
Pulling up a chair in the snow to sit around a good fire, after going skating at the nearby comfort station. Being a short drive from winter hiking trails, actually snowshoeing on the lake right behind our RV?
Amazing. The best thing? Very, VERY few people!
We learned really quickly that winter camping was a great choice for hermits like us.
Anyway, I held off on doing a review at the time, knowing we’d be back in the summertime.
Now we’ve camped there in both extremes - winter, and DISGUSTINGLY hot summer - so I’ve got a lot to say!
Let me tell you all about it!
The Basics:
Campground Name: Mew Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Address: Hwy 60 P.O. Box 219 Whitney, ON K0J 2M0
Website: https://www.ontarioparks.ca/park/algonquin/mewlake
Price: Ontario Provincial Parks uses a pricing matrix across all their parks. See 2024 Camping Fees for more details on reservation and additional vehicle fees..
Reservations: Ontario Parks Reservations
Park Classification: Natural Environment
Season: January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024
Logistics
Algonquin Provincial Park is about 55 km across - along Highway 60 - and all of the campgrounds and attraction locations are referenced by the km, reading from the west side of the park.
Mew Lake Campground is JUST past the 30 km mark, so it’s really centrally located. If you’re looking to explore the park, it gives you really great access, with several popular hiking and biking trails right nearby.
Some more information to help you plan your trip:
Registration and Check In
As always, registration was quick and easy online, via the Ontario Parks registration portal.
It was easy to get a great spot during the winter... but our summer stay involved a round of the 7am booking Hunger Games.
When we visited in the winter, check-in was done with a paperless permit set up, and the Mew Lake campground office was closed for the season.
They asked you to register online if you can, or check in at the east gate or west gate park office if not.
For our summer stay, the Mew Lake office was open, so we thought we had to check in. Nope - that’s just if you haven’t pre-registered online. We were good to go!
Maps and Signage
Some information on finding your way around Mew Lake Campground:
Park Map
The campground map is the same giant newspaper map we got for Canisbay Lake Campground back in the fall.
Pretty unwieldy, especially when the vast majority of the park ISN’T open year-round. Most of it doesn’t apply during the winter!
We liked how Arrowhead Provincial Park had a winter-specific map - would have been nice to see a winter-specific info booklet for Algonquin.
Very hard to tell what trails / parking lots / etc are open or closed, especially with spotty internet.
Of course, it was all fine for the summer trip!
I had kept seeing reference to it in Facebook groups, as THE place to see a bear. No amount of Googling had turned up the info on where it actually was, within the campground.
The employees were super helpful, and even had a specific map for that!
Signage
It’s a small park, but the signage left a bit to be desired.
We ended up talking the loooong way around to get to our first camp site, as the first turnoff wasn’t clearly marked - we didn’t want to end up having to try and turn around, if it wasn’t where we were wanting to go.
In the camping area, you basically had to be on top of a side road, before you could see which camp sites were down that road.
I could SWEAR there was small, poorly positioned signage at each row during the winter trip... but we didn’t see them on the summer trip. You can see the first few site numbers down a row.
That said, if you go all the way to the row by the lake, you have one sign pointing you to either the main block of campsites to the right, or the smaller block off to the left.
Anyway, slightly annoying ... but it’s a really small park.
Because it’s so small, it didn’t take long to get the lay of the land and not even need to look at signs.
Waste Management
There are only two Trailer Sanitation Station setups in ALL of Algonquin park (they’re working on adding a third though), which is woefully inadequate for the size of the park, and the number of campgrounds / campsites it needs to cover.
The closest dump station is about 6 km east, up the highway - across from the East Beach area.
The other one is at the Rock Lake campground, which is 10 km up the highway, then another 8 or so down a side road. Not terribly convenient!
Anyway, the dump and fill station is closed all winter, so plan accordingly if you’re camping in the off-season.
The “nearby” Poop Loop is a fairly tight loop - 2 lanes, no bypass lane. There are 2 dump platforms, then 2 fill platforms.
Bring a book to read, especially if you’re camping on a long weekend!
Luckily, you don’t have to travel too far for a garbage and recycling center - there’s one right in the Mew Lake Campground area.
Snow Plowing
The plowing, when they did it, was pretty immaculate.
That said, we definitely got snowed in at one point, and our car got stuck on the highway exit to the campground at another, as it seemed the snow plows didn’t start til later in the morning.
Connectivity
Cell reception was pretty spotty on both trips
During our winter trip, it was fantastic at our first site - a waterfront site - but randomly either decent or nonexistent at our second site, which was near the comfort station
During our summer trip, we pretty much had no cell phone reception at our main site (Electrical, near the waterfront but across the road from it), and barely any signal anywhere else in the campground.
We had more signal very early in the morning, for some reason.
Accessibility
In terms of Mew Lake Campground specifically, there are 2 barrier-free campsites, right next to the comfort station, and the comfort station has wheelchair accessible toilets and showers.
I was surprised to see that the two vault toilets near the beach area were also marked as being wheelchair accessible.
Beyond that, the bike trail that goes through Mew Lake Campground is wide, flat, and MOSTLY well-packed trail.
I haven’t seen enough of it to know if it’s legitimately wheelchair-friendly, but it’s definitely “easy”, and could work for those with other mobility aids.
In the summer months, there are two wheelchair accessible trails - Spruce Bog Boardwalk, and the Logging Museum. Both of these are inaccessible in the winter months, with the boardwalk trail being open - and ungroomed - for snow shoeing.
Beyond those two, none of the trails are rated “Easy”, and the ones that we’ve done in the “moderate” rating generally aren’t anything you’d want to face with any other kind of mobility aid.
The Visitor Centre itself is also barrier-free for the most part.
Pets
We’ve definitely seen better campgrounds when it comes to dogs.
As always, dogs are supposed to be leashed at all times, and all the other normal rules apply - no excessive barking, no harassing other campers, pets, or wildlife, and owners have to pick up after their dogs.
Mew Lake Campground has a dog beach / “pet recreation area” ... sort of. It was tiny, in kind of a gross area of the lake, had no parking nearby, and just wasn’t super inviting. Garbage on the shore, etc.
That said, we did see a few people dog sledding through the campground during our winter stay, and THOSE dogs looked like they were having a blast!
Parking
The campsites are mostly all HUUUGE, and many were accommodating several extra vehicles at the time of our summer visit.
There seems to be plenty of room for parking at the comfort station, beach, and bike trail, for the size of the campground.
Miscellaneous
Mew Lake Campground has a fantastic lack of light pollution.
We didn’t get auroral activity during either stay, but we spent some time out on a clear night, taking night sky photos right from outside our RV.
Magical!
Campground Amenities & Info
Some details on the modern camping amenities available for visitors at Mew Lake Campground:
Creature Comforts
There’s a heated comfort station that’s more or less centrally located in the campground, with laundry facilities, flush toilets, and showers.
This is the first time I’ve had to mention heating for a comfort station, but hey - no one wants to meet a frozen toilet seat, when visiting washroom facilities in the winter season!
The comfort station itself - and the vault toilet we used once on the last visit - were in good condition. We didn’t use the laundry facility on either trip, though.
Park Store
The Algonquin Park Store - Lake of Two Rivers Store - was closed for the season during our winter visit. (They’re only open from early May-Thanksgiving)
There was a small camp store at the west gate, but mostly just a limited selection of park souvenirs.
We did visit it during our summer trip, to pick up some fire starters and such.
They also have a little .. Café?... next door. It was WAY too busy to check out, but from the looks of it, it was one of those “hot dogs and hamburgers” kind of snack bars.
We didn’t go in, we just happened to see it when we were looking to see a Moose, early one morning on our summer stay!
Visitor Centre
We visited the Visitor Center - as well as the Algonquin Logging Museum - during our fall stay in another Algonquin campground - see our Canisbay Lake Campground review for all the details.
Anyway, the visitor centre was open during our winter trip, but the fire tower boardwalk trail had not been shoveled when we went.
The visitor centre parking lot was a fantastic location for birding, during both our winter and summer visits.
Day Use Area
The day use area in Mew Lake itself is.. Underwhelming. A beach and a few sparse picnic tables, that’s it.
It was all completely under snow during our winter visit, but made for great snowshoeing!
Anyway, the park recommends the day use facilities at the Lake of Two Rivers Picnic Area (a pull off right on the side of the highway), or at the East Beach Picnic Area.
Apparently there’s a picnic pavilion at East Beach, but all we saw were parking lots and a boat launch.
There was no signage at all in there, and we didn’t feel like going into every parking lot to walk around, so I don’t really have any observations for you!
Rentals
The rental options - at least during summer - are almost overwhelming.
The closest option for renting equipment is at the Lake of Two Rivers Store, when it’s open. It’s just a few kilometres away, and offers bicycle rentals, as well as a bunch of info on other outfitters.
The Portage Store on Canoe Lake and the Opeongo Store on Opeongo Lake both offer canoe rentals, and there seem to be a TON of outfitters in the area, some of whom will actually deliver a canoe right to your site!
In the winter months, winter equipment rentals are mostly only available from private outfitters, located outside the park. Apparently you can get snowshoe rentals at the East and West gates, though.
Campground Details
Mew Lake campground is unique in Algonquin, as it’s the only campground to not only offer year-round camping, but also both roofed accommodation options.
Car Camping
Mew Lake campground has just over 130 campsites. Many of the sites are waterfront sites, about half of the sites have electrical hook-ups, and most have at least some degree of tree cover.
As always, picnic tables - and a fire pit - are pretty standard with the campsites.
The car camping are is divided into 3 sections:
Wabisheshi / Marten Campground: A small section of non-electrical sites, right next to the highway. Cute, but really loud from highway noise.
Pagwadjiminan / Berries Campground: The main block of camp sites, this is the hydro site section. It’s located in the center of the campground, with easy access to the beach and comfort station. HUGE sites, for the most part.
There’s also a little line of non-electric, waterfront sites between this campground and Makwa Campground.
Makwa / Bear Campground: A small section of pet and radio-free campsites, most of which are waterfront. These ones have quite a bit more privacy than the Berries campground sites.
Our Sites
We’ve stayed at a few sites so far: 3 different electric ones, and a day at a non-electric one in the Makwa campground.
Our favourite was the waterfront electric site we had in the winter - gorgeous views of the lake and sky, fairly private, and HUGE.
The more interior electric sites are all huge, but don’t have much in the way of privacy - or cellular reception. It was fun to be such a short walk from the skating rink, though!
Really, all of the sites here seem great, though there are some drawbacks, depending on the location. (Road noise, lack of cell reception, lack of electricity, etc)
Roofed Accommodations
There are two different styles of roofed accommodation at Mew Lake: Cabins and Yurts, available year-round:
Yurts
The yurts are cute little soft sided shelters, basically a step up from a four-season tent. Probably a lot warmer and more secure than a winter tent, when camping in the snow, too!
There are 6 of them in the Mew Lake Campground, also located in the Berries campground.
Like the cabins, each of the yurts comes with 2 sets of bunk beds, a table, chairs, electricity (1 outlet), lighting, and heating.
Unlike the cabins, none of the yurts allow pets inside.
Rustic Cabin
The 4 “Rustic Cabins” are cute little wood-finished cabins, located in the “Berries” campground.
Each of the camp cabins comes with a couple sets of bunk beds, a table, and chairs, and has electricity, heating, and fluorescent lighting.
One of the 4 even allows pets!
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Entertainment and Activity
The location of Mew Lake Campground - about halfway along the main corridor of the park makes for a great home location for exploring all that Algonquin Provincial Park has to offer.
Being so centrally located gives you great access to a lot of the most popular activities in the park, here are some of the closest options:
Hiking
We were both very much looking forward to exploring more of the Algonquin park hiking trails on this trip.
Unfortunately, I was having a fairly bad tendon flare, and Porter was recovering from heat sickness after our little RV tire explosion drama en route to Algonquin.
So, we had more of a chill stay, mostly just taking a few short strolls on the old railway trail in the campground, to see the bears.
We had been planning to at least consider checking out some of the 4 closest trails:
Bat Lake Trail - 5.6 km, Moderate
Located at km 30, this one takes you through the woods to Bat Lake, which is an acidic lake.
We were most looking forward to this one, really interested to see the different wildlife that an acidic lake would host.
Hemlock Bluff Trail - 3.5 km, Moderate
Located at km 27.2, this one takes you through the forest to see a nice view of Jack Lake.
Track and Tower Trail - 7.7 km, Moderate
Located at km 25, this one seems WILDLY popular - the parking lot always seems to be full! This loop trail takes you to a lookout over Cache Lake.
Optionally, you can take a 5.5 km side trail right from Mew Lake to this trail. Let’s be real, though... IF I was able to do the 7.7 at a moderate level, there’s no way I’d be able to do an extra 11 km (return) on top of that!
Two Rivers Trail - 2.1 km, Moderate
Located at km 31, this one says it takes you up an “easy” climb (I’ll believe it when I see it - the Ontario Parks staff in charge of trail descriptions is why I have trust issues!) up to a cliff.
Be sure to check out our Canisbay Lake Campground Review for photos and recaps of hiking a few of the other trails in the park.
Biking
The Old Railway Bike Trail is a decommissioned rail trail (read: wide, relatively flat, no wild changes in elevation) that runs along a good section of the main Algonquin Provincial Park corridor.
It’s 16.2 km long, and stretches from the Track and Tower Trail to Rock Lake, with access points at Mew Lake and Pog Lake along the way.
Though we didn’t bike it, we walked part of the trail in the Mew Lake Campground, in around the old airfield.
The trail winds through an area of seemingly endless blueberry bushes, and it’s a popular spot for bear watching. We saw two!
There’s also a small bridge over the Madawaska River, just before connecting up with the main length of bike trail.
Assuming everything is functioning better by our next visit, we’re looking forward to biking along more of this trail in the future!
Swimming
There’s a small sand beach in Mew Lake Campground:
It’s also FAR more popular, and was straight up chaos when we went to check it out on the August long weekend.
Birding, Wildlife, and Nature
Our wildlife viewing experiences were wildly different between both trips:
Winter Trip:
We actually saw birds this time!!!
In the campground itself, we saw what we believe to be Pine Grosbeak a Red Crossbill, along with some kind of little grey bird we hadn’t seen before.
When we went to the Spruce Bog Boardwalk, we saw a giant raven, some chickadees, and a few Canada Jays.
A photographer there suggested going to the Visitor Centre to see the Evening Grosbeak, and we did see some - up in a tree in the parking lot - as well as a few Blue Jays.
Summer Trip:
The first night of our stay, we finally got to cross a BIG- literally! - item off our bucket list: we saw a bear!
He was just going to town on some blueberry bushes in the airfield. Super cute!
In terms of birding, we saw: American Robin, American Crow, Black-Capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Canada Goose, Cedar Waxwing, Common Grackle, Common Raven, Eastern Bluebird, Nashville Warbler, Red-Eyed Vireo, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Song Sparrow, Tennessee Warbler, Turkey Vulture, White-Throated Sparrow, Wild Turkey, Yellow-Rumped Warbler,
... and we heard: Brown Creeper, Chipping Sparrow, Common Loon, Dark-Eyed Junco, Downy Woodpecker, Grey Catbird, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Pileated Woodpecker, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, Swamp Sparrow,
... And they probably don’t count, but we saw a Kestrel, a Red-Tailed Hawk, and a Barred Owl at a live show about raptors, at the outdoor theatre!
Row 2: Blue Jay, Broad-Winged Hawk, Cedar Waxwing
Row 3: Common Raven, Eastern Bluebird, Great Blue Heron
Row 4: Kestrel, Nashville Warbler, Pine Siskin
Row 5: Red-Tailed Hawk, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Sparrow (?)
Row 6: Wild Turkey, Wild Turkey (Baby!!), Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Bears!
It’s been more than a year since we started camping, and SO MANY campground signs about bears in the area... without a single bear sighting.
We finally brought an end to THAT streak - we saw several during our summer trip to Mew Lake Campground!
We could pretty reliably see one every evening at the airfield - especially right before sunset - and then we saw another when going up near the Opeongo Store, in search of moose.
Still haven’t seen one of those, btw. I guess there’s always the fall trip..
Boating
Boating and canoeing are HUGE in Algonquin Provincial Park - I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many canoes in one place in my life, as I did on our summer trip!
You can canoe, kayak, and stand-up paddleboard on Mew Lake, as well as... I don’t even know what it was that we saw. Some kind of a water cycle?
Anyway, there are lakes and boat launches all over the place throughout the park in general. Bring your own canoe, or rent one at either the Portage Store or Opeongo Store in the park.
Additionally, some of the outfitting companies will deliver a gear rentals right to your campsite / boat launch area!
Fishing
Algonquin Provincial Park is a HUGELY popular destination for fishing, known to have some of the best fishing opportunities in Canada, with over 230 lakes offering trout fishing alone.
Also, many of the lakes along the highway are stocked with Splake.
Weirdly, we didn’t actually see a lot of fishing going on during our summer trip.
Well, unless you count the couple of guys wading in the water at the Mew Lake Beach late at night. Apparently several types of fish will hang out right near the shore there, after dark.
Discovery Program
While not much seems to go on in Mew Lake campground specifically, Algonquin Provincial Park has a really robust Discovery Program during the summer.
Over our stay, there were at least 2 programs scheduled each day, from talks and guided hikes, to raptor demonstrations, a play, and live folk music / storytelling.
Most of the activities we were interested in took place a few kilometers down the road, at the outdoor theatre (East Beach).
Anyway, the week’s schedule is posted at campground bulletin boards around each of the campground areas.
Winter Activities
While summer is obviously the most popular time for camping at Mew Lake, there were plenty of outdoor activities available during our winter stay.
As first-time winter campers, we had a BLAST!
Here are some details on the fun winter activities you can partake in, at Mew Lake Campground:
Ice Skating
When the weather cooperates, they turn the comfort station parking lot into a skating rink!
There was a little shack near the rink to warm up after being out in the cold air, with a park-branded fire pit going nearby, and Christmas twinkle lights everywhere.
The rink was AMAZING.
The ice wasn’t great (Though not as terrifying as it was when we visited Arrowhead Provincial Park!), but the ambiance was fantastic - the lights overhead, the fire next to it, the friendly people coming and going.
Had a great time!
Snowshoeing
We bought some snowshoes as a Boxing Day deal, and finally got to try them our during our winter trip.
Snowshoeing on the lake was amazing!
It would have been nice to see some sort of indication on ice safety/thickness - for all I know, it would have been safe to go all the way into the middle.
That would have been fun, but without any information we played it safe and kept close to the shore.
Later, we went snowshoeing at the Spruce Bog Boardwalk trail, a surprisingly great place for snowshoeing.
Unfortunately, I learned an important lesson about newbie technique in new, somewhat deep snow, and ended up screwing up my hamstrings by kind of scooping up the snow as I went.
Whoops! I’ll know better for next time. Ah well, it was magical while it lasted!
Cross-country Skiing
While we didn’t own any cross-country skis last winter, our experience on that trip inspired us to buy a pair on spring clearance, looking forward to next year!
Anyway, Algonquin has a few networks of dedicated cross-country ski trails, with all kind of different lengths and degrees of difficulty. These are:
Fen Lake Ski Trail (West Gate of the park): 4 different groomed and track set ski trail loops, with a 6 km section that also has a lane for skate skiing.
Leaf Lake Ski Trail (Not sure where this one is, I don’t see it on the map!): Groomed trails ranging from 5-51 km in length, and of all difficulty levels. Many of the trails are track set trails, and there are 3 loops for skate skiing.
Minnesing Trail (Near Canisbay Lake): This is a bike trail in the summer. Not sure if it’s actually going to be open for skiing, as the trail was closed to hiking both last fall, and during our summer trip. If it is, it’s 4 loops of ungroomed trails.
Can’t wait to try it out next season!
Dogsledding
Apparently there are a couple commercial companies offering dogsledding opprortunities in different areas of Algonquin Provincial Park.
We didn’t see any information about those during our stay, but we DID see more than one team dog sledding up the campground roads during our stay.
What a great idea - and it was fun to watch, too!
Niantic Games
As of our winter trip, there were 2 Pokestops and a gym in the campground, all kind of near the comfort station. Couldn’t confirm that on the summer trip, as we never had enough cell reception to load the game in the campground!
If you’re playing during an event, best to just drive to the visitor center parking lot. Several stops and a couple of gyms there, as well as plenty of signal!
Final Thoughts
We’ve been to Mew Lake campground twice now - in wildly different seasons - and we’ll definitely be back.
We are HUGE fans of the waterfront sites in particular - huge and with a fantastic view, what more could you ask for?
Honestly, I think I preferred the campground in the winter.
As a figure skater from Winnipeg, I am DEFINITELY a winter person. Between that, and neither of us being “people people”, winter was just a much more magical time to camp at Mew Lake. IMHO.
All that gorgeous snow, the peace and solitude, skating, and more. I’m not one for swimming in a lake (I will absolutely freak out if something touches my legs!), but snowshoeing over that same lake was amazing.
The park in general is just way more peopley in the summer. Still a great destination - gorgeous, so much to do - but the winter camping is absolutely glorious.
Either way - summer or winter - a really great experience, though.
Love it!
More Algonquin Provincial Park Campground Reviews
Want to read some more of what we have to say about the campgrounds and attractions in Algonquin Park? Here are some more reviews!
Canisbay Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Kearney Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Lake of Two Rivers Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Pog Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Provoking Falls, Algonquin Provincial Park
Raccoon Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Rock Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Tea Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Whitefish Lake Campground, Algonquin Provincial Park
Interested in seeing our other Provincial Park reviews? We've got a huge - and ever-growing! - list of them here: 2 Nerds in a Truck Campground Reviews
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