In a great sense this was the beginning of it all, our first trip together to a provincial park. Grundy Lake is a beautiful place to camp.
We had site 22 on the water and were able to fish right from the shore. I am in no way an avid fisherman but at the time it was simply nice to just sit and relax. We had a raft with us on this trip and took it out on the lake as well. I did most of the rowing so Quen and Mafio could enjoy the ride. We didn’t go very far mind you, just up the lake to look around a little.
This was an opportunity to show Mafio how to start a camp fire and how to use a hatchet. He is pretty young here and almost hurt himself but these are great skills to learn. We made sure to keep a close eye on him.
Camping was not my first choice, Mafio was maybe eight, I am terrified of snakes and how the hell am I going to feed these people in the wild. It was a stressful idea but how else do you vacation after buying your home. Meki’s family always camped when he was a kid so he was confident that this would be a great time. We got a tent and what we thought we would need to get us through the next week.
The site is wonderful, this large rock at the back of our site right on the water. I ran right out on to it as soon as we arrived. Standing, looking into the distance, taking in my surroundings, I’m not sure how long I stood there. When I did turn to come back and start setting up the tent I hear Meki say to me “Just keep walking, don’t look down.” and then I realize as I look down, there is a snake, right there. Scared the crap out of me. At least I got it out of the way early, little did I know it would not be the last.
Grundy is such a beautiful place, we hardly left our campsite. This is where I am shocked, its been eight years since we took this trip. I have changed and evolved but Grundy Lake Provincial Park is huge, and I saw nothing more than our site, the bathroom, the auditorium and beach. I look at the map now as someone who walks trails and is more interested in nature and strongly believe we would take the same site but this time its about the terrain and the birds. There is so much going on there I can not wait to see it again with new eyes. We did need to go back into town, we brought bacon, it did not cook well, we were swarmed by bugs and a dining tent was beyond necessary. We have a Coleman 15×13 instant tent or something along those lines and its great. Super easy to set up, I don’t even need to know how to do it.
We are using a very large eight person, two room tent and because we have electronics and a pump for the air mattress I ran electricity from the car into the tent. I used a small inverter and it was more than enough for everything we needed.
Grundy offers activities for families so we also went and did a little soap stone carvings, it was fun and not very hard. Now I say that knowing full well that I am no artist and my carving was not spectacular but I enjoyed doing it. We had a great time choosing our designs and sitting together in the rain carving our stones, it was a very relaxing experience.
Grundy Lake Maps
Grundy Lake Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, is a natural environment park established in 1959 and is part of the Ontario Parks system. The park is located near Britt, at the junction of Highway 69 and Highway 522.