Mew Lake Campground

Well, I’ve got a number of posts backlogged, and that’s only getting worse as I catch up after this recent camping trip!

Our first time visiting Algonquin Park was in the fall of 2023, 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! (See our post - Winter Camping in Algonquin for more winter-specific info!).

Nestled along the shore of Mew Lake, it’s the only campground in Algonquin PP to offer year-round camping, as well as yurts.

It was one of our first times winter camping, and it remains probably our favourite place to do so. We’ve been there several times since, usually in the winter camping season.

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 a DISGUSTINGLY hot summer!

As of May 2026, we’ve probably camped at Mew Lake about a dozen times, now - so I’ve got a lot to say! Let’s get right to 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 2026 Camping Fees for more details on reservation and additional vehicle fees..
Reservations: Ontario Parks Reservations
Park Classification: Natural Environment
Season: January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026
Park Warden: 705 571-3528

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 for our stays at Mew Lake have been quick and easy online, via the Ontario Parks registration portal.

It was easy to get a great spot during the winter... but our summer stays always involve a round of the 7 am booking Hunger Games - and sometimes more than one attempt!

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 first 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!

This is one of the few parks that actually means it when they say “proceed directly to your site” in the day-of check-in email!

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 2024.

It can be pretty unwieldy, especially when the vast majority of the park ISN’T open year-round. Most of it doesn’t apply during the winter, but there’s a lot of good info in there for the main camping season.

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 - lots of pertinent information, like when things were open, detailed trail info, etc.

During our first summer check in, I used the opportunity to ask the park staff where the airfield that everyone talks about actually is.

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 campground, but the signage in Mew Lake left a bit to be desired.

On our first visit, 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.

Water & Waste Services

There are now 3 Trailer Sanitation Station setups in ALL of Algonquin park. Up until May 2025, there were only two small trailer sanitation stations, which was woefully inadequate for the size of the park, and the number of campgrounds / campsites it needs to cover.

The closest dump station is the Sunday Lake trailer sanitation station. It’s located about 6 km east, up the highway - across from the East Beach area.

This “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!

This the dump and fill station is closed all winter, so - up til now - we’ve had to plan accordingly when camping in the off-season.

Luckily, the long-awaited Canisbay Lake / Minnesing Trailer Sanitation Station is finally open!

This one is about 8 km west on Highway 60 (km 23), up the road to the Canisbay Lake Campground. It shares a parking lot with the Minnesing Bike Trail.

This trailer sanitation station is a VAST improvement on the Sunday Lake situation: It’s 4 lanes, with LONG lead-ups. You could probably fit 30-40 RVs in line, before there’s ANY worry about clogging the roads.

There are 5 fill stations - with threaded hoses - across the 4 lanes, so you can fill your trailer on either side, no matter which lane you’re in.

Then, there’s a dump platform on the left side of each lane.

One really nice thing is that the 2 fill stations to the left are outfitted for winter use - They plan to have those platforms open all year round!

We’ve since used it in the winter - there’s usually SOME kind of problem on at least one of the open platforms (the dump receptacle being under 1" of ice, a hose not working, etc), but we’ve been able to fill every time, and USUALLY able to dump.

Anyway, the final - and furthest - trailer sanitation station is at the Rock Lake campground, which is 10 km up the highway, then another 8 or so down a rough gravel side road. Not terribly convenient!

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.

There are several large bins - 2 for garbage, one for containers, and one for paper - with a few orange bins to recycle used propane containers.

As a bonus - at least in the winter - those garbage cans come with entertainment! Pine Martens tend to hang around in the area, and they’re adorable!

Connectivity

Cell reception has been all over the place, across all of our visits.

During our first few winter trips, 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 first 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.

Then something happened with Rogers in early 2026, and there were at least a couple months where there was NO coverage anywhere at all between the West Gate and the Logging Museum. Even previously reliable areas of coverage - like the parking lot at the visitor center - had become dead zones.

That seems to have been partially rectified in May 2026. There’s very spotty coverage in Mew Lake, good coverage at the Visitor Centre, and the Logging Museum, and decent coverage at Lake of Two Rivers, for part of Spruce Bog, and at various random spots along the Highway 60 corridor.

This is all on Rogers Wireless - it sounds like those on Bell have MUCH better service in Algonquin Provincial Park!

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.

Accessibility

Mew Lake is definitely one of the more disability-friendly campgrounds in Algonquin Provincial Park. Here’s what you need to know:

Barrier-Free Camping

There are two barrier-free campsites at Mew Lake, both are located adjacent to the comfort station.

There’s a paved path running from those two campsites up to the back of the comfort station, with a gate and signage to other campers, indicating it to be used just by those staying in the two barrier-free sites.

I’d imagine this means there has historically been an issue with people walking through the sites to get to the comfort station so heads up on that!

Anyway, they both have the wheelchair accessible style picnic table, but the fire pits are different. The one in site 11 is the nice, vaulted kind... while 13 has the regular fire pit.

Also of note: As of May 2026, the ground across both sites has a lot of really deep ridges running through it. I actually had a bit of a difficult time walking from one side of a site to the other!

Barrier-Free Facilities

The comfort station has a single wheelchair accessible shower stall, and a single wheelchair-accessible stall in each of the gendered multi-stall washrooms.

Weirdly, the shower stall was locked for the entire time of our mid April 2026 visit, but was open for the May one.

I wonder if you have to request access during the off-season?

Anyway, they’re not labeled as such on the map, but the two vault toilets near the beach area were also marked as being wheelchair accessible at some point - but they’re not any more.

Each does have a single, barrier-free stall inside.

Just a heads up though: The gravel in front of them has settled over time, and the concrete pad that the outhouses are built on now sticks up about 2" above the gravel.

Barrier-Free Activities

In terms of nearby activities, Mew Lake has several access points to the Old Railway Bike Trail which is wheelchair accessible for the most part.

There may be some roots further out on the trail, but pretty much everything that’s anywhere near Mew Lake is wide, flat, well packed, and easy.

Beyond the campground itself, Algonquin Provincial Park has a couple other trails that are designated as barrier-free, mostly:

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, and has a barrier-free boardwalk trail around the side of the building.

It's called the "Fire Tower Trail", and it's just a 100 metre long ramp that goes around to a "replica of a cupola" - which is the observation deck of a fire tower. Basically, it's a cute little gazebo on the end.

We have never seen a Mobimat at the Mew Lake Beach.

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.

If we had a dog, I’d be driving a couple minutes up the highway for the Lake of Two Rivers Campground dog beach. Much cuter, better maintained, larger, etc.

That said, we did see a few people dog sledding through the campground during our winter stay at Mew Lake, 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 of our first couple of stays, but we spent some time out on a clear night, taking night sky photos right from outside our RV.

Magical!

March 2024 Update: We finally got a great show!

We were just returning from Canoe Lake, where we tried to get some shots from the parking lot... only to be thwarted by a LOT of lighting.

We decided to take a quick look to see if we could see anything from Mew Lake, and BOOM - big show!

At some point during the drive back, the sky erupted in colour - it was a gorgeous night!

If you’re interested in possibly seeing the northern lights, check out our posts: Aurora Hunting, How to Photograph the Northern Lights, Can I See the Northern Lights Tonight?, and Where to See Northern Lights in Ontario.

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!

Anyway, the comfort station has 2 multi-stall, gendered washrooms with a single wheelchair accessible stall, 4 regular shower stalls, one wheelchair-accessible shower stall, and two single-stall gendered showers.

As of May 2026, the laundry machines - both washers and dryers - were $2.50/load, Loonies and quarters only.

An interesting note on the women’s single-stall shower (not sure if this applies to the men’s one as well):

This is located next to the door to the women’s multi-stall washroom. It’s locked, and had a sign hat said "Shower Open. Enter from inside washroom".

Odd. I’ve never seen that before!

Anyway, I think this one might be a little bit bigger than the regular showers.

Park Stores

There are a few different stores in Algonquin Provincial Park.

First of all, there are small selections of Ontario Parks Souvenirs, maps, etc available at the East and West Gates, and The Friends of Algonquin has a cute little book store at the Visitor Centre, and the Unique Boutique Gift Shop is located at the Algonquin Art Centre .

As far as the more STORE-stores go, you have three options along the Highway 60 corridor. These are all open seasonally, spring to fall.

The one closest to Mew Lake is also the one I tend to think of as the main Algonquin Park Store - the Lake of Two Rivers Store.

It has a large selection of pretty much everything they carry - a bunch of clothing, a wall of camping supplies, more groceries than any other park store I’d seen before it, etc.

There’s also the Lake of Two Rivers Café and Grill, which has a pretty interesting menu AND the ability to order online for pickup!

The Canoe Lake Store is on the west end of the corridor - around km 14 - and a couple hundred metres up a side road.

Formerly known as “The Portage Store”, it carries Ontario Parks souvenirs, clothing, camping equipment, fishing tackle, snacks, and other outfitting supplies.

It also has a restaurant, and offers canoe, kayak, and paddleboard rentals.

It’s all split over two levels, with the more souvenir type stuff being offered upstairs, and the more supply type stuff - as well as the ice cream bar - being downstairs.

There’s also another store further along the highway, and down a side road - the Opengo store.

We finally went in during our May 2026 visit, and it was CUTE!

I had been expecting something pretty utilitarian, as it’s much further out there, and seemed to be intended just as an outfitter for the backwoods campers.

It was actually more boutique-y than the other two stores! Felt more like a mini, fairly high-end department store, than a campground store!

They had a huge selection - a lot of clothes, some decorative items for the home (cute throw pillows!), camping supplies, dehydrated hiking food packs, snacks, groceries, and more.

There’s even a scooped ice cream bar. Porter ordered a large Moon Mist, and they gave him what appeared to be more than half a litre of ice cream. Damn.

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, or at the East Beach Picnic Area.

The Lake of Two Rivers day-use area is maybe 2 km east of Mew Lake - a little past the LOTR campground - and is just a pull-off right on the side of the highway, with its own parking lot.

It’s a sprawling lawn with picnic tables, vault toilets, a leashed pet area, and a nice view of Lake of Two Rivers.

The East Beach Picnic Area is a little past that, on the far end of Lake of Two Rivers.

This section of the park has a beach, picnic tables, a picnic shelter, washrooms, and a boat launch.

It’s also where the Algonquin Provincial Park amphitheatre is located... and they actually use it! We’ve been to one event there, where they had a bunch of raptors and walked them through the audience - very cool.

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 couple 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.

Beyond that tidbit, here’s what you’ll need to know about camping at Mew Lake Campground

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!

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

There are 16 named hiking trails along the Highway 60 corridor of Algonquin Provincial Park -WAY too many to fully cover in this post!

So here are the 4 that are closest to Mew Lake - you can find more trail info on the rest of the trails in our Algonquin Provincial Park MEGA Post.

Bat Lake Trail - 5.6 km, Moderate

Located at km 30, this one sounds really cool - it takes you to Bat Lake, which is an acidic lake!

We had been looking forward to this one, curious to see the different wildlife that an acidic lake would host. Porter did the trail in 2025, here’s what he had to say about it:

“This 5.8 km trail starts out easy to moderate, as well-packed and mostly flat trail. After the first 0.75 km, it becomes more moderate, with hills, large rocks, roots, etc.

The trail follows along a small creek for a while - it was low flow at the time of my visit (August), but I'm assuming it's more active in the spring.”

“Along the way, you pass by a few little sections of large rock wall faces - they remind me of some of the trails around Bruce Peninsula National Park.

There are multiple steep sections on this trail, and a few sections where landscape timbers were used to form stairs on hills.

I really liked how "ADHD friendly" this trail was - even the sections that were just walking through the woods were interesting, because the woods themselves kept changing as the trail winded through it.”

“You pass by multiple marshy areas - some with boardwalk sections - before coming to the namesake lake.

I'd been hoping to see some cool wildlife on Bat Lake, given that it's a naturally acidic lake... but it was extremely calm and quiet at the time of my hike.

Overall, I really liked this trail a lot. It was interesting, challenging, had a lot of great views, and it was conveniently located across from Mew Lake Campground.”

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.

... we have yet to do this one.

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.

You can access it via the parking lot on Highway 60, or walk/bike the 5.5 km stretch of the Old Railway Bike Trail that goes between this trail, and Mew Lake Campground.

Anyway, Porter did this trail in 2025, here’s what he had to say about it:

“This 2.52 km trail starts out easy to moderate, then around 1 kilometre in it goes moderate - inclines, roots, boulders, etc.

About 1.5 km in, trail takes you along the top of a really steep cliff. Along this section of the trail - probably ½ km long - there are a set of overlooks, probably every 10-20 metres or so. These are short offshoot paths that take you to the edge of the cliff, for some nice views over the surrounding area.

The trail is in a section of mostly evergreen trees, so I wouldn't consider it a fall destination... but it's a really nice walk through the woods, either way.

It was a fun trail to do, and super conveniently located - the trailhead is right off the main highway, between the Mew Lake and Lake of Two Rivers campgrounds.”

OUR favourite nearby trail, though, isn’t really listed as a trail on the park’s website: Provoking Falls!

Provoking Falls

This is a short walk out from the garbage area in the Mew Lake Campground, leading out to a pretty waterfall.

We actually have a whole post about it, with everything you need to know: Provoking Falls.

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 still haven’t biked it, we walked part of the trail in the Mew Lake Campground, in around the old airfield. Also, Porter uses this for jogging on, when the weather is good for that.

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.

We’re definitely 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 ... really popular with the Canada Geese, if you know what I mean. Probably best to go the km or two up the road to the Lake of Two Rivers beach, which is much nicer.

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 vary wildly different between trips, and very much depend on the season:

Winter Trips:

In the campground itself, we’ve seen 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:

In terms of warm weather birding, we’ve seen and/or heard:

Alder Flycatcher, American Goldfinch, American Robin, American Crow, Bald Eagle, Black-and-White Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Black-Capped Chickadee, Black-Throated Blue Warbler, Black-Throated Green Warbler, Blue Jay, Broad-Winged Hawk, Brown Creeper, Canada Goose, Cape May Warbler, Cedar Waxwing, Chipping Sparrow, Common Grackle, Common Loon, Common Raven, Dark-Eyed Junco, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Bluebird, Evening Grosbeak, Fox Sparrow, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Gray Catbird, Great Blue Heron, Magnolia Warbler, Merlin, Hermit Thrush, Nashville Warbler, Ovenbird, Pileated Woodpecker, Purple Finch, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, Red-Eyed Vireo, Red-Winged Blackbird, Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Scarlet Tanager, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Tennessee Warbler, Turkey Vulture, Veery, White-Throated Sparrow, Wild Turkey, and Yellow-Rumped Warbler.

... 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!

Bears!

We had gone more than a year - since we started camping - seeing SO MANY campground signs about bears in the area... without a single bear sighting.

The first night of our first warm-weather stay at Mew Lake, 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!

That stay, 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, while we were in search of moose.