The Ring Kiln Side Trail - Natural Ontario
Petroglyphs Provincial Park Sign

Petroglyphs Provincial Park

If you’re looking for a unique experience that includes some interesting history then Petroglyphs Provincial Park is your destination. Not only does this park have about 20km of trails, it is home to 900 petroglyphs that were carved 500-1000 years ago! It was really hard to leave the camera behind, but you are asked to not take photographs of the petroglyphs, so you’ll just have to take my word that they were awesome!

Petroglyphs Provincial Park was one of the stops on our Thanksgiving camping trip. The park is located one hour north-east of Peterborough or one hour north of Ferris Provincial Park. It’s one of the few parks I’ve visited that has an early closing time, so when we finally got there we didn’t have time to waste. We definitely wanted to make sure we saw the petroglyphs, but it was also a good opportunity to get out on the trails and stretch our legs.

We figured we had enough time to hike the Nanabush Trail at a nice, leisurely pace. The trail was rather hilly but not overly challenging. Looping around Minnow Lake was great except I don’t think the people on the other side knew how far their voices were carrying! The lookouts were also really nice and they gave us a chance to snack and relax. We made it around the trail in a little under two hours which gave us just enough time to drop off the dog and jog over to see the petroglyphs!

I really had no idea what to expect. When I was in Lake Superior Provincial Park the petroglyphs were on the side of a rock right on the lake, so I figured there might be something similar. I was really wrong! After entering the spiritual area you see a huge grey building with glass windows all around. The petroglyphs are all on one massive rock in the centre of the building with informational panels everywhere you look. I was impressed with the conditions of the carvings and it was actually fairly easy to identify a lot of them.

It was a nice change of pace to get a little learning done while visiting a park. One day I hope to return to Petroglyphs Provincial Park to visit the rest of the trails. Being able to see the carvings again would be an added bonus!

Additional Resources:
http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/petr.html

Posted: March 25th, 2013