Lake Superior Provincial Park

Lake Superior Provincial Park is one of the oldest and largest provincial parks in Ontario. It is located along the eastern coast of Lake Superior and spans between Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa. It features lush forests, rocky overcrops, cliffs, lakes, ponds, waterfalls and beautiful sandy beaches.

We’ve been to Lake Superior three times:

Hiking Trails

Lake Superior offers a variety of trails that range in length from 500m to a multi-day 65km trek along the Coastal Trail. Below are some of the trails that we’ve hiked.

(1) Nokomis Trail (5.0km, rated moderate), which winds uphill through the boreal forest and features a number of scenic lookouts that are reputed to provide some of the best views of Lake Superior.

A more detailed description of the hike can be found here

(2) South Old Woman River Trail (2.5km, rated moderate). The trailhead is located across the road from the Rabbit Blanket Lake Campground. The trail passes through a forest and criss-crosses the river. In some cases there is a bridge or boardwalk to help get across the river, but in other cases you just have to hop and skip over the rocks to get across.

(3) Trapper’s Trail (1.5km, rated easy). The trail follows along the shoreline of Rustle Lake, features two viewing platforms and has a floating boardwalk. It is also reputed to provide great wildlife sightings at dawn and dusk.

A more detailed description of the hike can be found here

(4) Orphan Lake Trail (8.0km, rated moderate) is located near the northern shore of Lake Superior, passes through hardwood and evergreen forests and features three scenic lookouts along the way.

A more detailed description of the hike can be found here

(5) Pinguisibi (Sand River) Trail (6.0km, rated easy). The trail follows along the river, which once served as an ancient canoe route, and provides a number of opportunities to view the falls and rapids along the way.

(6) Agawa Rock Pictographs (0.5km round trip, rated moderate). The trail descends to the shore of Lake Superior and across a rock ledge to view where generations of Ojibwe recorded their dreams and spirits in red ochre paintings at this sacred site.

Other Activities and Attractions

Lake Superior also offers a variety of other activities and facilities, including:

  • Three sandy beaches at Old Woman Bay, Katherine Cove and the Agawa Bay Campground.
  • Two Moments of Algoma signs that highlights some interesting information about the Group of Seven painters – one of the signs is near the visitor centre and the other is at Katherine Cove.
  • Eight canoe routes, ranging from easy day trips to multi-day trips that involve portaging.

Camping

There are two main campgrounds in Lake Superior, Agawa Bay (147 sites) at the southern end of the park and Rabbit Blanket Campground (60 sites) at the northern end. We stayed at Rabbit Blanket Campground twice and found that the sites are more secluded, but our site at Agawa Bay was pretty awesome as it was located right on the beach.

Lake Superior also offers around 200 backcountry campsites, which are accessible by foot along the 65km Coastal Trail or canoe.