Algonquin Provincial Park

Algonquin Provincial Park begins just east of Huntsville — the West Gate is roughly 30 minutes along Highway 60 — making Huntsville the most convenient base for exploring it. The park covers nearly 8,000 square kilometres of Canadian Shield, a mix of boreal forest, hardwood ridges, and more than 2,400 lakes. In autumn, when the maples turn, the Highway 60 corridor through the park is one of the most intensely coloured drives in eastern Canada.

Canoeing is what most people come for. The park has an extensive network of portage routes, from easy day paddles accessible from the highway to multi-week expeditions deep in the interior. The Mew Lake and Lake of Two Rivers campgrounds on the highway are good entry points for shorter trips; the outfitters at Canoe Lake and Portage Store rent all necessary gear and can advise on routes. Hiking trails range from short interpretive walks to the 88-kilometre Highland Backpacking Trail. Wildlife is genuine here: moose sightings are common along the highway at dusk, wolves howl in the interior, and otters can be spotted in the slower streams.

things to do sight
A story
Algonquin was Ontario's first provincial park, established in 1893 partly to protect the headwaters of rivers flowing south to Georgian Bay. The landscape painter Tom Thomson, who died mysteriously here in 1917, captured its moose-browsed lakes and jack pine ridges so vividly that his canvases became the visual language through which most Canadians imagine wilderness.