And that my friends is the Long Point Provincial Park

(To be spoken in the voice of A. Whitney Brown SNL's The Big Picture-- You remember him right?)
Hello, my friends, in the vast seascape of the never-ending, effervescent Long Point.  Camping for me, my friends, is a time to commune with nature, get out of the city, and get back to something more pure; like the algae bloomed waters of lake Erie.  Up until now, I have only camped with my wife for this Blog, not that there is anything wrong with that.  However, I think, as most of you will agree, there is probably something wrong with that.  For this reason in 2014, we went to Long Point Provincial Park with a total stranger named Brent Fidler, his woman/wife/mother of his children -- Kate Poulin ("I love you"said like Brent), and their children Alison, and Michelle.

Nice matching red shirts on the Fidler Boys.

Now, I haven't been camping with my brother since…

This time, matching short shorts.  Oh the eighties.

And I'll never forget the time we were playing hide and go seek at Cyprus Lake Provincial Park (now Bruce Peninsula National Park) and Brent hid so well we didn't find him for three hours and when we finally did at a ranger station, obviously the winner, he was crying and eating ice cream.

Brent Fidler.  Foodie from a young age.

But I digress.  What no one would ever know, until now because I'm telling you, is that I sometimes travel on Friday in the morning when there is less of a parking lot surrounding Toronto and go set up our site then drive back to the closest GO station to get Beverley after she's done work.  This is a marvellous way to do things, but it requires five things -- a lower than average ability in math, an affinity for spending money on gas, and Fridays off I guess.  "Three sir!"-- Sir Galahad.  On the way I always try to do something as a treat for myself, and this time I stopped by Ramblin' Road Brewery Farm.  Two of my favourite things in the world: farms and beer.  Ramblin' Road is owned by the Picard's Peanuts family where you can stop by for a taste of their beer anytime you are in the neighbourhood from Monday to Saturday 10 am to 4pm.  Most convenient hours ever.

That's Tomaco in the back.

The brewery is a great piece of Ontario ingenuity, and you'll especially think so after about four bottles of their beer.  The fascinating one uses potato starch in their Dakota Pearl Ale  and makes a beer that you don't have to have potato chips with, even though I know we did.  Bet you can't drink just one!  And I know you won't because you won't find it easily, at least for a couple more years when maybe they will get into the liquor store.  When I finally arrived at Long Point I have to admit I was slightly disillusioned with our site.

Hat guy in  the back is at their fire.  Why would any park line up the fire pits  of two sites exactly so you are staring at each other all night? ... And it's not her beer.

It's was like camping at a zoo.  Not that there would be anything wrong with that.  But as I'm sure most of the animals out there would agree, there is something definitely wrong with that.  It was like living next door to a nudist colony where your curtain-less windows line up perfectly and no matter how hard you focus on not looking, you're always catching areola out of the corner of your eye.  Luckily, for us our neighbours were not nudists and there was only one casualty.  It seems the reason why everyone puts up with no privacy is because of the beach, which is the best one at a provincial park I have ever encountered.

It goes on forever.  If 1.5km is forever to you.

Created in a great year for communism and when the Ottawa Senators beat the Vancouver Millionaires for the Stanley Cup, oh the good ole days of 1921 when I can still remember wearing an onion on my belt, this is a beach of a Provincial Park and is recognized as a biosphere reserve by the United Nations for birds, turtles, snakes, and ticks with Lyme disease, from what I hear.  So what else can you do at this park?  Well you can bird watch, boat, fish, and hunt? (I'd love to get the details on the hunting)  There are educational programs for the children, but other than accidentally bird watching, we did none of these things.  I guess for me, because there was no hiking and I don't tan well, this was like watching a marathon of "Will and Grace" and listening to my wife tell me how much it relates to our lives.

Playing Euchre in the middle of the day is always so much fun for children.

Now, camping with small children is great.  It warms your heart, they say funny things, and if they are really small you can put them down for multiple naps.  Heck they'll spend an hour watching bubbles.

Her excitement is incredible.  You pick who I'm talking about.

But sometimes they do this;

Alison beached... out.

And you just want to leave them there, which everyone out there would agree is wrong.  Luckily for me, they aren't mine, and I can, after I take their picture.  Now I love my brother's family and I have to admit if they were not there I wouldn't have enjoyed Long Point as much as I did, but our neighbours totally showed us up when it came to the Saturday dinner.  I'll let the video do the talking;

It's called a Peka and it comes from Croatia; I'm sure all you back country campers were curious.  It was wicked awesome until they shared some with us and it tasted better than our dinner. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but there damn well is!  Let this be a warning.  Don't anyone ever do that again.  With that in mind there are some sites with enough privacy to put in a list.  In Cottonwood Campground numbers 205, 208, 263, 277, and 279.  In the ingeniously named New Campground numbers 309, 311, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, 337, 354, 356, 360, 366, 403, 413, 415, 419, 428, 430, 434, 439, 441, 444, 445, 446, 447, and 448.

Site 204 photographed to look private.

When everything was said and done and Brent's family was waving goodbye, I realized why I really like camping with other people so much.  It combines all the best elements of having someone over for the weekend without having to plan entertainment, clean the house, worry about the amount of cocktails anyone is having except for yourself, the TV never goes on awkwardly, the neighbours never complain unjustifiably, and when all is said and done you ate well and created some pretty good memories some of which I may embellish, and that my friends is the long point.  

Definitely wrong.  Bad Bad Neighbour.

Site Cleanliness:  Because the sites are all sand there was a top layer of bits and pieces and then the buried treasure bits and pieces.  All in all, not bad though.

Privacy:  Very bad.  I would suggest going with another family and getting two adjoining sites there are tonnes of those.

Hiking and Activities:  Beach! Beach! Beach!  If you are a water person or a sun bather this is the place for you.  Educational programs are set up for kids.  Being as it is a UNESCO biosphere reserve I wish they would put together a program for adults.

Park Class:  Recreational.  Of that there was no doubt.

Beach Quality or Ease of Getting to the Water:  The best.  Every site in our campground was a stone's throw from the beach and the quality of the beach was phenomenal.

Recommended Length of Stay:  If it's sunny you could stay for a very long time, but if it's supposed to rain, I just don't know what you would do.

Overall Impression:  I loved this place.  Does that have to do with the fact that my brother and his family were with us?  Undoubtably.  Would I go back if it was sunny?  For sure.

Rating out of 103:  This is truly a treasure and should go near the top of the list, but if it was rainy it would take a lot of the fun out of it.  I am going to reluctantly put this park at 43 because if it had a couple of hikes it would be 42 the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

If you are logging in the hours;

#2 Algonquin

#3 Quetico

#19 Sandbanks

#21 Neys

#22 Wakami Lake

#23 Nagagamisis

#26 Pancake Bay

#29 Chutes
#30 White Lake

#40 Mississagi
#43 Long Point
#49 Marten River

#51.5 Silent Lake

#52 Restoule

#53 Point Farms

#56 Inverhuron
#58 Rene Brunelle

#92 Rainbow Falls

#101 Turkey Point

#102 Bronte Creek

Here is your bird picture.  Seagulls!  What did you expect from the Long Point?

Marten River Provincial Park and the Case of a Great Park, Short Visit

(To be read in the manner of gumshoe Mike Hammer or Sam Spade)
After a long ride, sometimes you just want to get home, put your feet up, and crack a cold one.  And sometimes, just sometimes, you wish you had of taken another week off and bought a two-four on the road.  That was the case with Marten River Provincial Park.  When looking into the place it seemed like it would only take a day to see everything, but we easily could gone three times on that merry-go-round.

When we arrived it was like any other park.  A gatehouse.  A prepubescent park attendant.  And a site.  In the game of craps the site turned out to be a 7 followed by another 7.  It was like a near death experience walking down into the site going through the darkness to get to the light.

What the tree's said was really off colour.  Then there's what the fox says...

After a shot of warm welcome, we headed straight to the beach to wash any car stink off of us.

Sorry,  Car.

"Come on in the water is warm," Quoth the river.

After washing off some mysterious stink, we jaunted and jostled down to the jewel of this park -- the 19th century logging camp.  We arrived to locked doors, crazy wheels (which is actually a braking system for a logging wagon), and a grouchy grouse.

Before we knew it the day was turning to night before our eyes, so it was time to put head to pillow and count whatever makes you happy until happiness don't matter anymore or the sun comes up.  As I told Scott Starra before I fainted in the waiting room of that hospital… fade to black.

The next day started with a jolt and a cup of coffee gave me a second one.  (Using the word jolt, I wondered who remembers Jolt cola.  Oh the memories.)  With that burst of confluence, we were ready for a ramble.  Marten River is funny like a clown for this one, as it says it has three hikes, but really it's just one of various distances.

Shut up Bird.  We, of course being that sort of people, did the long one.  It was a good hour and a half hike (for us an hour) through the boreal forest to a huge marsh.

Broad Winged Hawk if you were curious.

With our time done we closed the case on Marten River wishing we could stay longer, but sometimes the longer you stay the more you wear out your welcome.  And just in case you thought I forgot...

Sorry I couldn't put on the outfit.  It had a new life growing on it.

The nicest spots to lay your hat at Marten River are numerous, but heck here they are: In Chicot Campground numbers 2, 5, 6, 33 (the best), 35, 41, 43, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63a, 74, 77, 81, 82, 83, 95, 97, 106, 108, 112, and 114.  And in Assinika Campground numbers 116, 117, 126, 128, 135a, 137a, 152, 153, 161, 164, 165, 172, 173, 179a, 198, and 199.  Just to give you the low down on this place it would be best to come during Lumberjack Days which is the second weekend of July from what I can tell.  You can get a lumberjack bean dinner then watch feats of strength and listen to musical entertainment neither of which have to do with the bean dinner.

Site Cleanliness:  Fair to Marten River.  There were a few bits and bobs of garbage, but nothing serious.  The site was beautiful like a dame without a dress on so you can forgive a little bit of dirt on her knees.

Privacy:  Unbelievable.  The only part that could even be considered not private was the opening to the river and like a window to the south you wouldn't want to shudder it.

Hiking and Activities:  There are only two real hikes here, but the hike we did was great (not difficult or long, but great natural beauty).  Activities wise the logging camp was interesting and would be even better in the summer when you could go in every building.

Park Class:  Recreational, which means there are good beaches, lots of campsites and lots of things to do.

Beach Quality or Ease of Getting to the Water:  The beach was nice and sandy, but dirtier than I would have liked.  It's a river so it never gets too deep, but because of that the water was warm by the end of June.

Recommended Length of Stay:  I would suggest a stay no shorter than 3 days but no longer than 5 days. 

Overall Impression:  I wouldn't kick this park out of my sleeping bag for eating crackers.  There are so many fantastic sites and enough to keep you busy easily for a long weekend.  This is a true bird paradise and a lovely quiet spot.

Rating out of 103:  Marten River ranks at #49 for the amount of great campsites it has plus ten for the logging camp and the hikes.

If you are keeping score;

#2 Algonquin

#3 Quetico

#19 Sandbanks

#21 Neys

#22 Wakami Lake

#23 Nagagamisis

#26 Pancake Bay

#29 Chutes
#30 White Lake

#40 Mississagi
#49 Marten River

#51.5 Silent Lake

#52 Restoule

#53 Point Farms

#56 Inverhuron
#58 Rene Brunelle

#92 Rainbow Falls

#101 Turkey Point

#102 Bronte Creek

Lastly just in case you wondered what a Marten is or looks like here is a picture.  If you want more information on the Marten just click on the word Marten.

Previously on Blogging with Robert Fidler

When we last left our heroes they were being chased by a crazed Samurai, every second weekend through the provincial parks of Ontario.

"I want sushi!"

  Our heroes had just learned some hard truths about their ten year experiment to see every Ontario provincial park.

I learned how to use my gizmo to take the best "selfies" ever and...

Eight (parks) times ten (years) is only eighty, not 103, no matter what calculator you use (even the ever optimistic Fidler calculator).

I thought I'd look like this forever. Damn Fidler Caculator.

 So after four years of adventures, and our defeat of the two headed turtle,

I'll get you Rob and Bev!

We have decided to add four more years to our time limit (just like a two term president) thus attempting to see every provincial park in Ontario in merely 14 years.

Then I'll be King of the Ontario provincial parks!

Beverley and I will also be applying for the Woods™Dream Job to travel the entire summer hiking, canoeing and camping on the Trans Canada Trail.

We will see this again, hopefully in better weather.

Wish us luck.  Or even better contact Woods™ and tell them why you think we would do the best job at contactus@woodsdreamjob.com.  This is a new year and I will endeavour to entertain, inform, and have a unmitigated blast doing it.  So let the Blog begin…

"Until that day my friends, until that day…"

Rene Brunelle Provincial Park : I'm on the Top of Ontario Ma!

The Ballad of Rene Brunelle (If you can't guess the song ask someone who is over 40)

Come and listen to a story about a man named Rene (Joseph Napoleon) Brunelle,

A jack of all trades (teacher, tourism operator, politician, etc.) he treated everybody well.

Then one day he decided to pack it in.

And way up north they decided to honour him. (With a Provincial park that is.)

Well, first thing's first, old Rene was always fair,

But his wife must of said we cannot live near there.

So they moved to Magog, Que. and promised to be back soon,

Kapuskasing didn't care cause they were over the moon.

(Beam that is, UFO spotting site, Where the Provincial Park is.)

Come on I'll show you around Rene Brunelle Provincial Park. This is the south day use beach.

If you didn't guess already, Rene Brunelle Provincial Park was named after someone. Rene Brunelle was an Ontario politician for Cochrane North from 1958 to 1981 and after doing a little research on him, he was a bit of a conundrum.  First, he wanted to allow forestry in some of the largest provincial parks, particularly Quetico, and yet the province still named a provincial park after him?  He came from a family in the pulp and paper business, but later in life ran a tourism company, which, I have to assume, was not deforestation tourism... "On the right you will see where we have chopped down 100 acres of boreal forest to make toilet paper and Kleenex.  Does anyone need a tissue?"  Then, in the end, after serving Ontario for 23 years, he moved to Magog, Quebec; 120 kilometres east of Montreal and 40 kilometres from the Vermont Border.  I guess he got tired of the north? ...or was it the bugs?

A little hard to see but every unidentified speck in this picture is a dragon fly.  There must have been thousands.  Again in the day-use area.

Rene Brunelle Provincial Park is located 30 minutes east of Kapuskasing right above the town of Moonbeam off the northern trans-Canada highway #11.  If you don't know where that is phone your high school geography teacher and ask him or her, when they don't know -- ask google.  It truly is the top of Ontario, unless you use a plane.

Rene Brunelle PP was about to be shut down in 2012 due to low visitation, but the people of the area protested so now the park is open and Moonbeam is on the hook for any shortfalls.  When we arrived at Rene Brunelle we were only staying one night because I figured they only had two trails and I could see everything I wanted in a day and a half.  Well... I was right on the park's two trails:

Vigilance Trail (1.5 km) was a not so leisurely stroll (due to the mosquitoes) around a point on Remi Lake with information signs about the history of bush pilots in the area.  It was beautiful and interesting, but not enough to make us forget about the mosquitoes.  It should take about a half hour (we did it in 10 minutes).

Gene Roddenberry might have something to say about this?  Trail begins and ends at the day use area.

Spruce Lowland Trail (1.6 km) was better when it came to flying pests and was an easy half hour hike with the points of interests being trees, flora, fauna, and an empty bear's den.

They told me it was an empty bear's den, but then why is the barrier rope broken? (Not in the day use area.)

What we didn't know is that right outside the front gate you are connected to 40 plus kilometres of trails for hiking, biking, rollerblading, or in the winter cross-country skiing.  Total amount of Moonbeam Trails hiked -- zero.

For more information : http://naturetrails.moonbeam.ca/carteEn.html.

Remi Lake, the lake Rene Brunelle PP is on, is well known in the area for swimming, fishing, boating of all kinds, and hunting.  Which brings me to my bird picture.

A Blue-winged Teal and next years targets.  Good Luck ducklings.  Picture taken at the day use area.

Rene Brunelle would be a great park to visit if you wanted to do some fishing and didn't worry if you don't own a boat because the provincial park rents them.  Now, you may have noticed a theme running throughout this about whether we were at the Day Use Area or not, that's because if I was staying at this park I would probably never leave the day use area.  It has washrooms, a place to cook, two great beaches, a volleyball court, a park for children, wild life, and a covered eating area.  It's like this park put more time, money, and thought into their day use then their camp sites.  For example, the Camper's Beach looks like this:

Private, yes, but small and not very sandy and not close to any of the campsites.

Versus the Day Use beaches:

This is the north beach for day use.  Private and big and nicely sanded -- but again really not close to the campsites.

Our site was nice, don't get me wrong, but for how far north this campground is I would have hoped for more privacy.  It's not like this provincial park doesn't have the land or waterfront property.  This is the first time (definitely not the last) where the site we stayed at is not on the list of good sites.

Site 87.  We could see our neighbours on both the right and left; not seen in this picture,

I could accept this if the campsite was right on the water, but it isn't.  The good sites at Rene Brunelle are numbers 9, 33, 34, 39, 41, 49, 54, 56, 57, 82-85, the best one being number 88.  None of these are near the beach, but some have views of the lake which is the next best thing.  In summation, Bev and I had a great time at this park, however most of our fun was had at the day use area where we hiked, swam, relaxed, and saw some amazing wildlife.

Dragonfly landed on Bev with its Mayfly lunch in tow.

Well now it's time to say goodbye to Rene and all the merrymaking,
I'd like to thank you folks for kindly dropping in.
I highly recommend this park's locality,
If only it wasn't ten hours away.
(By car that is, straight time with no breaks, and that's from Toronto -- you figure it out from where you're from and unless that's Moonbeam or Kapuskasing it's far.)

Site Cleanliness:  Good.  There was some garbage but nothing that couldn't be cleaned within ten minutes of arriving.

Privacy:  Not great.  Out of 88 campsites only 13 had what I would call adequate privacy.  If it was up to me this is where I would spend money on fixing up the sites.  You could easily fix some of these privacy issues with some well planted trees -- and you have experts in tree planting living as close as next door.  As well they have room to build new sites, even if they were walk-in's.

Hiking and Activities:  Better than expected.  I was saddened to find out there was so much hiking that we didn't get to enjoy.  As well, there are ample boating and fishing opportunities for people who have a little more time.

Park Class: Recreational Park class for all the things you can do here.

Beach Quality or Ease of Getting to the Water:  Beach quality was quite good, but as for ease to getting to the beaches they were quite a distance from any of the campsites.  As far as ease of getting to the water, every site by the water has a path to it which is great for canoeists, but not great for swimming.

Recommended Length of Stay:  I would suggest that if you are going to Rene Brunelle you absolutely book ahead of time to get one of the best sites and stay for at least 5 days.  A couple of days for hiking and a couple of days for fishing. I'm certain you would never get bored.

Overall Impression:  I liked the day use area the most I have ever liked a day use area at any provincial park.  Unfortunately, because it was so good it made the campsites look less desirable.  This would be a great park for a fishing trip.

Rating out of 103:  I'm going for number 58 for the year Rene Brunelle the politician retired.

Again if you're keeping track:

#2 Algonquin

#3 Quetico

#19 Sandbanks

#21 Neys

#22 Wakami Lake

#23 Nagagamisis

#26 Pancake Bay

#30 Chutes

#51.5 Silent Lake

#52 Restoule

#53 Point Farms

#56 Inverhuron
#58 Rene Brunelle

#92 Rainbow Falls

#101 Turkey Point

#102 Bronte Creek

P.S. If you still haven't gotten the song here is a clue, Jed Clampett.