I recently wrote about our visit to Pinery Provincial park which is a great park. I think our favourite park from this summer was Arrowhead Provincial park which is near Huntsville, Ontario.
It’s located about three hours north of Toronto and is just outside Huntsville.
What we liked about Arrowhead
- Campsites were large and private. Couldn’t ask for anything better. We rented a cabin again and it was just lovely.
- Nice beach. Ok, it wasn’t Pinery, but the beach area is very nice, although the water wasn’t very warm. Good enough however. There is a good rental place on the beach for various watercraft.
- Nice river. There is a quiet river leading off from the swimming area which is great for canoeing.
- Stubb’s waterfall. There was a small waterfall about 10 minutes walk from our site. The kids had a great time climbing around the various shaped rocks near the falls. We did a short hike down a very scenic trail beside the river.
- Trails – Lots of good walking trails. There are also mountain bike trails and rentals on the beach.
- Close to Huntsville. If you have to make a quick run for food/beer, it’s nice to have stores nearby.
- Near Algonquin Park. An Arrowhead pass is good for Algonquin as well. While there is lots to do at Arrowhead, if you have a rainy day – heading to the Algonquin visitor centre is an option.
We liked it so much, we’re planning a longer trip next year. Probably five nights.
Anyone else ever been to Arrowhead? Any other parks you want to extol the virtues of?
On with the links
How to save money wrote a primer about how to use Priceline to get cheaper hotel rooms. For detailed bidding instructions, you can check out my post on how to use Priceline.
Michael James had an interesting look at market efficiencies or inefficiencies depending on your perspective.
Jim Yih shares why he switched to a cashback credit card.
Mike Piper answers the question – Is rebalancing, market timing?
Boomer and Echo asks – Can you trust advice from your bank? I say no.
Ellen Roseman has some good advice and resources if you are in the market for a new car.
7 replies on “LinkStuff – Arrowhead Provincial Park Edition”
I think there is another park in that area called Arowhon? which is smaller and less busy.??
Ontario has many interesting parks and the days are long gone when you could just turn up with a tent and be one of a few people camping, now you make reservations and turn up with enough stuff to fill a small house.
Craigleith is a nice park, closer to TO but busy.
There are lots of great parks in Canada, but I find that I like to stay home during the summer. It’s during winter that I get the itch to get away. Thanks for the mention.
Sounds like an interesting park but it’s a little out of my range seeing as I’m from the east coast. Thanks for linking to my Priceline post. It’s an oldie but a goodie. I’ve been meaning to write a more comprehensive priceline guide ever since I launched my site but I haven’t done it yet. Someday!
Sounds like a nice spot. A cabin is definitely the way to go.
Thanks for the mention!
We’re now based out of eastern Ontario and we just love Charleston Lake. It’s got some fantastic campsites right on the water, great water for kids to play in, an off-leash dog swim area, and lots of hiking trails (well, enough for a weekend, anyway). They also have canoe/hike in camp sites.
Yes, I too very pleased to read about the parks. Haven’t been camping in too many years, look forward to renewing a tradition summer 2013. Thanks!
I’m familiar with that park, driven past it many times. My son and I go camping frequently, it’s a great family activity (and we also have ATV’s we like to run, difficult to do in SW Ontario).
But there’s no reason to pay campsite fees so you can enjoy dirty washrooms. We quit paying camp fees years ago. You’re allowed to camp pretty much anywhere on crown land in Canada – and you’ll find much nicer and quieter spots than anything in a provincial park.
For example, if you keep going north of that park you mention, pretty much all the land north of North Bay is crown land. If you google the ministry sites, somewhere there’s a map of the crown land in Ontario you can use to find spots.
But there’s an even better spot to camp, that’s even closer than Arrowhead. South of Huntsville, take the 118 towards Haliburton. Take black creek road north off the 118 and go in a few miles. Everything in that area is crown land. In fact if you check out a map, you’ll see ‘cinder lake’. The best camp site I have ever seen is on that lake (not in a campground, it’s a campsite on crown land). I think you actually are supposed to pay for that specific camp site, but outside of that specific area, you can camp anywhere, pick a spot, for free.
Combining Google satellite maps and maps of crown land will show you spots you can camp for a weekend for free, with just a bit of research.
We may be getting a bit overboard on the camping though. We just bought a ‘real’ tent: http://www.canvastentshop.ca , complete with a wood stove. Just tried it out for 5 days in the bush south of Timmins. 12X14 tent that you can stand up in, a woodstove for heat and cooking on, oil lanterns for lighting, cots for sleeping, all the amenities of home :).