Where are the Wild Boars?

You expect to see a lot of wild things when you are camping, but when my cousin mentioned that Voyageur Park had wild boars roaming within it's boundaries that was some place I wanted to go. 

At first I thought maybe she was pulling my leg and that it was all just a joke. But, sure enough, when I opened this year's issue of the park's newspaper and saw the "Notice To Park Visitors" warning about the boars written in black and white I knew that she wasn't joking. So from that moment on, I was hoping to spot one. Not up close of course. Maybe just on the road from the safety of my car or something. We were only going to be here for one night as a stop over on our way to Bon Echo Park. Not a lot of time to see a wild boar. But we were hopeful. Click here for more on Wild Boars in Canada.

The staff at the office were not very helpful. Normally at an Ontario provincial park they give you a map and circle where your site is and give you directions on how to get there. The staff here did none of that. We had to pick up our own map and navigate our way to our site on our own.  I did manage to get the last sticker that they had for the park passport books though. 

After registering at the office we pulled into our site; number 95. I had reserved the site online and had never been here before so I was pleased to find that the site I had picked was quite nice. 

It was a very large site with plenty of room for cars and tents. We probably could have had a large group on this site if we had wanted to. 

Our site backed onto the water and we had a private path right down to the water's edge. 

I had chosen a site right beside the boat launch because I had learned from past experience that those sites are usually pretty nice and fairly quiet. Our site had a little extra driveway between us and the boat launch where I suppose campers with boats could park their boat if they chose. We didn't have a boat so despite all the space we had in the middle of the site we chose instead to use the little extra driveway as a place to set up the dining tent.

With the dining tent way over to one side and our sleeping tents way over to the other side, we had a huge amount of open space in the middle around the fire pit. It was a nice little set up. 

Our site was not only near the boat launch, but was also near one of the beaches. So,after setting up the tents we decided to explore a little and we headed off towards the beach.

We passed by the boat launch which had a dock nestled on the water's edge. 

The trail brought us over a little wooden bridge and connected up to another trail. 

It was not far at all to the beach. Since it wasn't the main beach it was pretty quiet and no one else was there at the moment. It was a decently large, sandy, beach.

There was a sign prominently posted  in the middle of the beach warning of the spread of Water Chestnut which is an invasive species of plant.

They provided a bucket in hopes that people will pull the water chestnut plants and put them in the bucket. 

We looked inside the bucket and saw that someone had done just that. 

Bladder Campion flowers were growing in the tall grass between the beach and the woods. 

And there were wild strawberries here and there hidden in the grass. 

A Common Yellowthroat Warbler was up in a pine tree and had a newly caught shadfly in his beak. I thought to myself that I would like to try to come down to the beach in the morning by myself  to see what other birds I might find. 

The mosquitoes were getting pretty bad so we headed back to camp. As we were leaving the beach we noticed two boats out in the water. They looked like they were moored there for the night. I thought about how nice it would be to spend the night out on a boat in the park. I may have to try that sometime. 

Before heading back to the camp we made a pit stop at the bathroom. It was your regular vault toilets. It was nice to see that they used 100% recycled toilet paper. However, the sink was boarded up so there was no place to wash your hands. We had to go and find a water faucet to do that. 

Then was setting over the boat launch dock with a pretty pink and purple hue. 

So we started a fire and settled in for the evening. We noticed that the mosquitoes were significantly less at the campsite compared to the beach. 

We cooked hot dogs and marshmallows. When the fire had burned down we moved into the dining tent to play board games. 

Just before bed we walked to the comfort station which was only a short distance away. I saw a raccoon in the bushes and a toad along the road side. No wild boars though. Maybe tomorrow. 

 As I had planned, I got up early the next morning and went to the beach to do some bird watching. And I wasn't disappointed. 

​The shadflies must be plentiful in this area because I spotted a Song Sparrow with a shadfly in it's beak like the Yellowthroat Warbler from the day before.

I saw a Brewer's Blackbird up in the branches of a leafless tree. 

There were quite a number of Red-winged Blackbirds in the area. 

Some birds were hard to see and identify through all the foliage. 

I did see another Common Yellowthroat Warbler.

Despite the fact that he didn't really want to show his face. 

There was even a woodpecker hiding in the branches. 

Birds weren't the only things flying around this morning. There were Widow Skimmer dragonflies too. 

A Banded Hairstreak butterfly was sitting at a peculiar angle on a leaf. 

Water bugs were swimming around in strange spiral patterns in the water. 

There were some over grown paths that led through the tall grass and down to the water. I thought about following some of these to see if maybe I could spot a heron or something. But then it occurred to me that these trails may actually be animal trails. And the next thing that occurred to me was that they could be used by wild boars. Now, I know I said that I wanted to see the wild boars, however, it's one thing to want to see them from the safety of a car and it's c completely different thing to come across them when you are blocking their path between the water and the wide open space.

​ So I figured it was best to play it safe and not venture down those paths. Instead I opted to enjoy the white and pink Bindweed growing at the beginning of the paths.

After about an hour I went back to the campsite. Carsten and Penny were awake and were starting breakfast. We ate and then packed up our tents. But before leaving the park we decided to go and get some ice at the Park Store which was located down by the main beach. 

The store had Moose Ears for sale. 

Carsten was done in the store first so he went to wait for me and Penny at the picnic area down by the main beach. 

The main beach was pretty quiet at that time of the morning. But I could see that there was plenty of room to hold a large number of people once peak time came around. On a hot summer day I could see this beach being quite a popular place to be. 

It was popular with the Canada Geese too. 

Both old and young. 

Well, we never did see the wild boars that the park newspaper had warned us about.But I did see a wild turkey crossing the road as we drove out. And  we did see the wild parsnip that the park signs warned us of. We were sure to stay well enough back from this plant. 

As we passed by the Voyageur Park sign we looked up and spotted a hawk flying above. So we stopped the cars and took the opportunity to get a picture. 

We are pretty sure it was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. 

It was a pleasure to visit this park. The park newspaper describes how they have been working on making improvements to the park. I think they have done a good job so far and this park is going to get even better and better as time goes on. So if you are an avid bird watcher or if you want to go searching for wild boar in a pretty nice park.... this is the place to do it!