If you have beaver fever, Algonquin Provincial Park is where you want to light overnight, for a week or the entire summer, excluding the first two weeks in May, known in Ontario as black fly season.
“If you can tolerate the flies — big as bats, or so it seems, when they bite — you could spend the whole spring and summer here,” said Janie Norville, a Niagara Falls resident who braves the pests every year.
Norvile said she wants to enjoy wilderness for the entire season of warmth. She takes four to five months each year from her job as a casino dealer to fish, canoe and laze on the beaches strewn among the preserve’s more than 4,000 square miles of forests, lakes and rivers.
She and her housemate are bare-bone campers, preferring Algonquin’s no-frills, hard-ground spaces to the mini subdivisions for recreational vehicles sucking up electricity and water. RV-posh or rock-hard tent flooring, Algonquin’s more than 100 camp developments are picturesque, the trees and brush secluding each site.
Nearly two-thirds of the estimated 12 million annual visitors who visit this provincial park overnight or longer share Norville’s penchant for the earthly life — cooking over the wood fire, showering in the communal bath, walking and biking through the wilderness.
The park also contains amenities more suitable to someone of Ted Bounds’ sensitivities. This Lockport resident visits Algonquin every winter, circulating among the park’s several resort hotels.
“I love nature up close,” he said. “But I like to commune in comfort. I’m a skier, and I like to know there’s a hot buttered rum awaiting me in a formal dining room.”
Algonquin is in Canada’s highlands, settled by nomadic aboriginals who fished, hunted and picked berries. In the 1700s and 1800s, pioneer loggers from the Ottawa Valley invaded Algonquin in search of the immense white pine trees whose prized wood was increasingly demanded by an expanding British economy.
Their stories unfold in the Algonquin Logging Museum, a smaller version of the orientation center which can keep visitors mesmerized for an entire day with explanatory videos, wide-screen documentaries, powerful exhibits and hands-on experiences, such as small, tamed animals for children to touch.
Visitors can live the wild life in the park, foraging through the bush, or settlling for the decks and railed steps that seem as natural to the land as the moose, deer, rabbits and other creatures who tolerate human presence.
According to algonquinpark.on.ca, Algonquin was established in 1893 to establish a wildlife sanctuary, and, by excluding agricultural development, to protect the headwaters of the five major rivers which flow from the park. Canada regards Algonquin as its most important site for biological and environmental research.
For travelers, this gigantic park spans all penchants for relaxation, from fire-lighted concerts by the Algonquin Symphony to wolf calling under the moon. All you have to do is dress for the occasion, and perhaps arrive by canoe or other non-motorized conveyance.
Contact Sharon DeMarko-Gordon at 693-1000, Ext. 107.
IF YOU GO
• WHAT: Algonquin Provincial Park
• WHERE: Northern Ontario, Canada
• WHEN: Year around
• COST: $12 overnight camping and upward
• MORE INFORMATION: 705-633-5572 and www.algonquinpark.on.ca
Features
Related Photos
-
Contributed Photo
Discussion
June 29, 2006
Curing your outdoor fever
Visiting Ontario's Algonquin Park may answer the call of the wild
- Features
-
-
TOM'S CORNER:
The Gazette has partnered with local automotive expert Tom Torbjornsen to publish his weekly national column. Tom's Corner will appear in Thursday's editions.
-
Underwater craft helps Great Lakes researchers collect shoreline data
A couple of scientists looking to learn all they can about Lake Ontario visited the beach near the Oak Orchard Creek Lighthouse on Saturday morning. Before they left, they had gathered data using an AUV -- autonomous underwater vehicle.
-
TOM'S CORNER: A little bit of automotive alchemy
The Gazette has partnered with local automotive expert Tom Torbjornsen to publish his weekly national column. Tom's Corner will appear in Thursday's editions.
-
New monument revealed in memory of State Trooper Kevin Dobson
A new monument in memory of New York State Trooper Kevin Dobson was revealed Wednesday morning during a ceremony that family, friends and dozens of colleagues attended.
-
Seven ladies create Antique to Chic
Imagine a business where planning meetings include white wine and laughter, and the partners go shopping together and then sell their finds in a funky, chic storefront to people who adore the treasures they've collected.
-
Saturday's Niagara University graduation a family affair
When Aaron Sydor receives his undergraduate diploma on Saturday afternoon, his mother, Kathy, was waiting at the other side of the stage to congratulate him. Instead, she was right behind him, joining her son as a member of the Niagara University Class of 2013.
-
![NIA Tom T mug [Duplicate]](http://d6673sr63mbv7.cloudfront.net/archive/x266751175/g0300000000000000006773cec09154bbe123f18cf6fd93fc9a46e8947e.jpg "NIA Tom T mug [Duplicate]")
TOM’S CORNER: Quiet, it’s a secret ... I’m buying a car
Why it is that car sales people experience what seems to be the worse treatment of professional sales people in the world of business?
-
East about to be overrun by billions of cicadas
Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast. The insects will arrive in such numbers that people from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered roughly 600-to-1. Maybe more.
-
![NIA Tom T mug [Duplicate]](http://d6673sr63mbv7.cloudfront.net/archive/x701039085/g03000000000000000070f3e047db4b2cf94e001d182f0a038a39b673f6.jpg "NIA Tom T mug [Duplicate]")
TOM'S CORNER: How do you say the name of that car?
The Gazette has partnered with local automotive expert Tom Torbjornsen to publish his weekly national column. Tom's Corner will appear in Thursday's editions.
-
Control yourself: Biofeedback helps ease migraine pain and more
People who suffer from problems such as migraines and hypertension now have a new option to help control their symptoms thanks to the efforts of Jim Abbondanza, a psychology professor from Lewiston.
- More Features Headlines
-
Obama Offers Drone Strike Defense
Raw: Heckler Interrupts Obama on Guantanamo
A Slice of Apple History Up for Grabs
Johnson: Don't Blame Islam or UK Policy
Raw: 80-Year-Old Climbs Mount Everest
Wash. State Man Arrested Following Ricin Scare
Chain-Reaction School Bus Crash Injures About 50
Raw: Scuffles in London After Hacking Death
Texas Students Coach Teachers on Fitness
New Forecasting Tool Eyed for Hurricane Season
Meet MJ, the Bike Riding Tabby Cat
Britain Attack Believed Linked to Radical Islam
Raw: Kevin Durant Tours Moore After $1M Pledge
Man Shot While Questioned in Boston Probe
Weiner Launches Bid to Become NYC Mayor
School Storm Protection Spotty in Tornado Zones
Moore Native Toby Keith Tours Tornado Damage
