A cross country, Ontario to Calgary (and then on to Vancouver) road trip, solo! That was my summer plan! Camping and visiting 6 National Parks and 5 provincial parks along the way! Plus lots of other fun stops! A post with my full itinerary is coming soon, but for now here is a recap of my first stop, and what you should know if you are planning to visit Six Mile Lake Provincial Park.
I didn’t have a site pre-booked for this park because it was my first stop and because there were a lot of sites available online. So when I arrived I asked “whats the best site you have left?”. And much to my surprise the girl responded “well the most popular site in the park is free just for tonight, its waterfront, do you want it?”. Obviously I said yes and I was not disappointed. I actually audibly gasped when I pulled in.
The site was SO private, completely surrounded by trees with a fairly long driveway, and the view of the lake was awesome! I could not have asked for a better first stop on my three week roadtrip.
I will say that driving through the park a lot of the sites were not this nice. Many were fairly small and really close to the road. There were also some walk-in sites that looked really nice too though!
I had done almost zero research about this park and was pleasantly surprised by all of it. There are three trails in the park, Living Edge Trail, David Milne Trail and the Marsh Trail. They do all basically connect to form a loop though so there isn’t much diversity. I hiked all three connected together and it took me about an hour and 10 minutes. The boardwalk on the living edge trail was definitely my favourite spot. I saw two beavers swimming around. They even put on a bit of a show, slapping their tails!
Park Rating
Site quality – 10/10 for my personal site but there were a lot of sites that were pretty small and right by the road.
Privacy – 10/10 again for my site but many were not that private.
Noise 7/10 – could hear the noise from the highway. But everyone in the park was respectful and quiet. Even those out boating ran their engines quietly.
Parks staff – 10/10 – Recommended me the best site in the park and helped me out when someone randomly started fishing on my site.
Drinking water access – 9/10 – tap was close by my site but could use a few more taps for the number of sites if I’m being picky.
Toilets – 9/10 only 2 were open but they were clean and were flush toilets. Small sink with soap and running water.
Trails – 6/10 only 3 trails and they all kind of form one loop. But I did see two beavers 🦫 so that was cool! They are also easy to follow and were well maintained. Easy rating, very family friendly.
VLOG of Six Mile Lake!
Final Verdict
I probably wouldn’t make a three hour drive just to visit this park but it is nice for a day. It’s also only a 20 minute drive to Georgian Bay Islands National Park so its a good spot to camp if you don’t want the hassle of camping on the island but still want to visit.
