Killbear Provincial Park

Fresh into the new year 2025, a small group of us decided to winter camp at Killbear Provincial Park.

Killbear is situated on the east coast of Georgian Bay, which is part of Lake Huron, one of the five great lakes.

Killbear Provincial Park, on a map of southwestern Ontario

Killbear Provincial Park only started offering winter camping a few years ago. I had camped at Killbear before, but wasn’t entirely sure what to expect in terms of what was open, or not during the winter.

Getting there

The mad chaos of packing, and the always gonna-miss-you goodbyes to loved ones are tough. About 30 minutes down the road though, there’s a peace that comes over me as I embark on another adventure.

The drive to Killbear was a long, six and a half hour drive, but fortunately an uneventful one. It was a sunny day, with dry roads, and because it was a weekday, there was not much traffic the whole way.

Depending on whether I’m solo, or have trip companions, I decide whether I listen to an audio book, podcasts, or music, or chat. For this trip, Sheila joined me, and we always have plenty to talk and laugh about.

Driving that far, 500km, across Ontario, is really neat to see the changes. The terrain morphs from farm fields, to rolling hills, to deciduous forest wilderness, to ample stretches of Canadian Shield granite with coniferous trees. The awe inspiring view of a great lake never gets old. Lake is an inadequate name for what is a vast inland sea.

Setting up Camp

As we arrived at our campsite, I remembered that this was the first day the park was open this winter. There was a robust accumulation of snow on the ground with only animal tracks. We stomped around to pack it down to make a place for our hot tent. Setting up the hot tent proceeded quickly as it usually does with a SnowTrekker.

A SnowTrekker Basecamp tent in the midst of a forest.

With the stove set up and chimney in place, I got a fire going. The initial whiff of smoke as the fire starts, the crackling sounds, and the increasing warmth are magic to any soul. An hour later, with our beds, and kitchen set up, I couldn’t help but say that we are more comfortable than we have any right to be, in the snowy, windy, woods.

Depending on how much wood you load into the wood stove, how much oxygen you let it intake, and how wide or narrow the baffle for the chimney is - you can control the temperature and how long the wood lasts. It’s a bit of an art and science game to get it just right. Too hot, and you waste wood and risk damage to your gear. Too cool and you’ll get an inefficient burn and creosote buildup. Without too much trouble, I’m able to keep the tent between 15°C and 25°C consistently. So yeah, we’re very comfortable!

The inside of my hot tent. It’s very cosy!

We made veggie burgers on the wood stove. My back was sore from the long drive, setting up the tent, and splitting wood so it was a treat just to lie down and rest as our burgers cooked. As usual, there’s a bit of time blindness at this stage. It’s deeply relaxing to get to the point that you have camp set up, and hot food. We realized we were taking longer than we had planned to visit our friends next door in their hot tent. Oops! But fortunately they didn’t mind.

The visit to our friend's hot tent was nice. We all come from different parts of Ontario so it’s not easy to get together. For that reason it’s a treat to catch up a bit, chat, and laugh. Most of us are confessed gear geeks, so we got a chance to talk about new equipment we’d bought or ordered, and dream a little bit about things we’d love to try. There’s an ease when spending time with authentic good people that is food for the soul.

The very hungry caterpillar

It was after 10pm, and I was pretty tired, so after picking our way through the snow back to our hot tent, I snuggled into my bed. Sheila did too, thinking we would just go to sleep. Maybe 30 minutes later, she got up again, and made a really great impression of the very hungry caterpillar. She was really hungry, and ate a bunch of different things - some chips, a half a muffin, an almond danish, and more. There’s a good reason I call Sheila the “queen of the snacks”. She always brings such tasty things! Giving your body ample fuel when you’re out in the cold is wise, even with the wood stove.

We both slept well, and were lazy in the morning, sleeping in. Christine decided to go for a ski, and reported the snow wasn’t quite enough when she returned. Jenny and Mary-Rose did like Sheila and I, having a relaxed decadent breakfast. A snow squall warning had been issued for that afternoon, so we figured out our plans with that in mind.

Into the forest to find Grandma’s house

A side quest for this trip was to attempt to find the house that Sheila’s grandmother lived in. She’d long since passed. She lived in Parry Sound, very close to the park. Sheila had vivid memories as a child of catching frogs near some water, climbing a distinct rocky hill, and other vignettes. We knew roughly where it should be, but what we didn’t know is if it even still existed, as it had been 30+ years. The area had been built up quite a bit since the last time she’d been there.

I’m a bit sad I didn’t capture a video of the experience. It was really neat to hear Sheila share memories. Her reactions as she recognized landmarks were priceless. The intense moment when we ultimately saw her grandmother’s house in the woods, was incredible.

It was also meaningful for us to share the experience of paying tribute to her grandmother. We talked quite a bit about the complexities of intergenerational trauma. There’s a nuance in that while grandchildren don’t want to invalidate the experiences of their parents, they also don’t share it. Grandparents were often very kind to us. All can be true at the same time. And we can hold space for both views. This grandmother of Sheila’s was an interesting lady - she was very well educated, when that was quite uncommon for women. She had some tough times, and persevered in spite of them. Some of the criticisms of her, that she wasn’t an immaculate housekeeper, are things that society has fortunately largely grown out of. Who doesn’t have a messy house?! I think maintaining appearances for others is less healthy than being authentic, and in that, she was a trailblazer.

We bend, but don’t break

When we arrived back at camp, everyone was out, doing different activities. We managed to connect, and decided to visit the famous Killbear windswept tree. It was a short walk from our campsites. At that point, the wind had picked up, and you could see early signs that the storm was coming. We walked down to the tree, and took pictures. Even having your mitts off for a moment to take a picture was painful on your hands. Nevertheless, I took some nice pictures.

I really like this picture. Sheila was facing away from the storm so the wind wasn’t biting her face quite so hard.

Sheila, facing away from the storm and biting wind, with the famous Killbear windswept tree.

Night Hike, and I fell through the ice

We didn’t have set plans as a group. We’d chat to see what everyone felt like at any point.

Normally, of my own volition, I would not hike at night because of limits in my vision. The group was comfy with a plan to go for a hike at dusk, and without hesitation everyone said they’d keep me in the middle of the pack and look out for me. They did so very well, and I’m grateful.

We hiked up to a scenic point, with Christine doing a great job leading the way. I didn’t have the same experience that the others did, not being able to see the epic lookout, but I did experience something noteworthy. When you’re walking through the woods, even in the intense quiet of winter, you can always hear some sort of sound. Rustling of leaves or branches in trees, trickling of water, and more. This soundscape almost gives me a similar mental picture as seeing. Suddenly, a huge gap opened up in front of me, with no sound. This was the top of the tall hill overlooking the lake.

I got to see everyone’s pictures from their phones after, and it was very cool to see!

A night photo from a lookout point overseeing Georgian Bay

Jenny did an excellent job guiding us back. At one point, no fault of hers, the people tracks in the snow had gotten off the trail. Jenny quickly realized we weren’t seeing blazes any more. As we considered which way to go, we decided to keep following the tracks, and crossed a creek. As I was stepping to leap across the open water of the creek, the ice under me suddenly gave way and I was knee deep in the water.

The ice breaking and surprise cold water plunge was a shock. I quickly got out of the water, jumped across the creek, and followed the others. The squelch squelch squelch was worse than the dip, so I let everyone know I was going to take my boot off and wring out my socks. I dumped about a cup of water from my boot, and a good amount from wringing out my sock. This is a case study on the right gear. Because I was wearing wool, I wasn’t that cold, in spite of being wet. As we resumed our hike, I had enough body heat that I was perfectly comfortable.

When I got back to camp, I changed into dry clothes, changed into my down booties, got a fire going in the stove, and set my boots and clothes to dry. This is one of the most important things you get while hot tenting, but not while cold tenting - the ability to dry stuff out. A good practice is to have boots with replaceable liners, like pack boots or mukluks. A good pair of mukluks are on my dream list.

We had another visit with our friends, and made dinner together in their hot tent. It was nice to reflect upon the day together, and notice that in spite of it being a relaxed trip, and the snow storm, we still did a bunch of neat things together.

Digging out in the morning

We had approximately 15 cm of snow overnight. While very manageable, it still requires shaking snow off gear, and digging a few things out. After breakfast, we broke camp, and decided to go for a ski before heading for home.

As we anticipated we would, we very much regretted not staying an extra day. Hot tents are delightful, and they let you do things in comfort that you would otherwise not do. But they are a lot of work. And sometimes a longer trip is the best way to make that work worthwhile.

The weather the morning after the storm was wonderful. Mild, sunny, and the fresh accumulation of snow made for ideal skiing conditions. Killbear Provincial Park does set cross country ski tracks, but staff were still digging everything out, so we had to break our own trail. No biggie. We created our own track down the road, through the forest, to another campground, and around a scenic area. It was as good as cross country skiing ever gets. This was definitely an all time cross country skiing highlight for us. Truth be told, we stayed longer than we intended, savouring the ski. We knew we had such a long drive home, but we regret nothing!

Sheila as we paused to savour the sun, in the forest, skiing in Killbear

The land of Oz

Recently, I got my ham radio license. Specifically, my license with honours, which lets me use more radio frequencies. More on this in a future post.

On this trip, for fun, I brought my radio with me, to see what kinds of signals I could pick up. Between Ottawa and Barry’s Bay, I could pick up quite a bit on the 2m band. Between there and well after Huntsville heading west, there was pretty much nothing. In Parry Sound, there were a good amount of signals. I used APRS to beacon our location too. The APRS results jived with what I saw with voice, plenty of signals in Parry Sound, but nothing much between Rouseau and Barry’s Bay when going east. Family back home were following our progress, in spite of there being no cell signal in many places.

At one point, while Sheila was driving, I was able to chat with a gentleman from Melbourne Australia. This was really neat. He was telling us how hot it is for him. It was currently 30°C, and at that moment, we were at -12°C. We were able to chat for about 10 minutes, which was a very geeky and delightful end to a fun trip.

The drive home was uneventful, even if it was mostly in the dark. After the ski, we were content to listen to podcasts most of the way.

Thank you to Christine, Jenny, Mary-Rose, and Sheila for such a fun trip!

Snacks and Anoraks