Hiking in Killarney Provincial Park

I convinced some friends to join me at Killarney Provincial Park today with tales of their world-famous Fish & Chips. I also wanted to show Olivia, a visiting American, another side to Northern Ontario that doesn’t involve Big Nickels, smoke stacks, and black rocks.

After an hour and half drive we arrived at the park and decided on a trail, “The Crack.” It was described as moderate-difficult and about 3 hours in length. I feel that difficulty levels are always so relative. Is this difficult for fit hikers? for sourthern ontarians? for senior citizens? In hindsight I should have been wearing my hiking boots. The beginning of the trail was relatively flat. A perfect running trail actually. With nothing too strenuous to concentrate on my mind kept slipping to 90’s dance music…

Then we started going up. And up. Climbing up and over large rocks. And then a 10 ft high polar bear appeared out of nowhere and attacked me. Or at least that is the official story. Truth is – I walked into a stick. Climbing up a rock I heaved my whole body weight upwards and nearly impaled myself on the blunt end of a stick. I recoiled in pain and filled the beautiful forest with explicatives. The rest of the day the nasty looking scratch looked worse and worse as the bruising came out to nearly the size of my palm. I’ll never be a leg model now.

When we arrived at The Crack we weren’t disappointed by the view. After some water, wild blueberries, and photos we descended back the same way we came in search of lunch. No one else got any battle scars which is surprising because Alicja’s shoes had absolutely no grip on them. With no more injuries we headed in search of Fish and Chips. Herbert Fisheries is legendary in the North and I am sad to report that as far as I can remember I’ve never had any. Although I was tempted to break my vegetarian diet for a taste of what all the fuss is about. Instead I had some salad and ice cream.Yum.

A detour to a lighthouse rounded out a great day. I should do this more often.