Tranquil Presqu'ile Park

Presqu'ile Park is a campground that holds a lot of memories for me. Every summer throughout my childhood and teen years I would come here with my Farmor (Danish for grandmother) and my siblings and sometimes my parents to spend a day of swimming and eating ice cream.  This was the first trip back to this park since my Farmor passed away a few years ago. I had been thinking of camping here for over a year and I had been counting down the days for months before finally arriving here. 

My brother, Carsten, and his girlfriend, Penny, arrived ahead of me to set up the tents because I had to work that day and since it was about a 5 hour drive, I knew that I wouldn't  arrive until after dark.

When I got there Carsten and Penny told me about a raccoon that had visited them and had come right into the dining tent and was sitting right beside Carsten before it realized that he had been spotted and took off again.  I never once saw the raccoons that came to visit but I knew they were there. I was awakened in the middle of the night by raccoons trying to get into my tent. They were actually trying to open my tent door. I don't think they knew I was inside until I turned on my flashlight and started yelling at them to go away. they soon got the hint and went off to explore somewhere else and I went back to sleep. The next morning there were little raccoon footprints allover my tent door. 

 

The water front near our campsite was not the swimming beach. This was just a place with picnic tables where you could sit and relax and look out over the water.

One of the first things you notice when you reach the edge of the water is miles of what seems to be a boring grey rocky shoreline.  To the untrained eye it would not hold much interest. But to me, it is this particular reason why I come year after year. 

You see, these grey rocks are riddled with all kinds of fossils. There is a wonderous history here of  sea creatures that  used to reside under the waters millions of years ago. 

The fossils that are most plentiful are the ones that have bunches of small crustacean type creatures all bunched up together in one rock. Mostly they look like a bunch of small circles all grouped together. 

But there are also some that stand out more and look more defined, like bones or shells. 

Often times you can come across some very weathered and smooth snail shell fossils. They aren't as plentiful but they aren't too difficult to find. 

Every once in awhile, if you are really lucky, you will come across a really rare, well defined fossil like the one below.  You aren't supposed to take these fossils home, but I am sure that many people do. If you don't have any luck spotting good fossils, there is a visitor center in the park with a display of many really nice fossils that were found on the beach. 

Fossils and rocks are not the only things that are plentiful here. Living in amongst the stones are a whole lot of spiders. They tend to make a run for it though when you start moving the stones so they aren't really bothersome. 

It's not just fossils I come to search for though. There are plenty of pretty coloured stones as well and I can spend hours sifting through them all. There is something zen about sorting through a bunch of pretty rocks and I liken it to sifting through a box of buttons. Anyone who likes to sort through buttons knows exactly what I mean.

​This is also probably the largest collection of skipping stones you will ever find too. The water has worn all the stones smooth and most are fairly flat. So if the water is calm you can try your hand at skipping the stones across the surface of the water. Most of the time the water isn't calm though.  Part of the tranquility of this place is that you can listen to the waves roll up against the shore, carrying rocks up with it and then dragging more rocks back again as the water recedes. It is a different sound than just plain water crashing against the shore because the moving rocks clunking together creates a different sound. 

I tend to spend more time looking down than I do looking up when I am walking this shoreline. I am in my own little world and time and troubles just drift away. 

Eventually I figure I had better start heading back to see if Carsten and Penny are awake yet.  Once I finally start looking up instead of down there are a whole lot more things to see. I managed to snap a picture of a White Throated Sparrow in a tree. There are plenty of these little birds around but they don't sit still for very long. 

In September there is not always a whole lot of flowers around but the purple asters were everywhere here. 

And so were the Orange Jewel Weed.

The bees were just loving the flowers that were still blooming at this time of year. 

As I was walking along I found a web with a really huge female Orb Weaver spider. She was so big that you could easily see the hairs on her legs. 

The morning was beautiful. The sun was sparkling on the wet dew filled grass like a field of diamonds. The weather was warm and the leaves were just starting to turn colours.

My walk back took me past the ampitheatre where I saw something I had never seen in a provincial park before. It was a sign saying "Church In The Heart Of The Park 10 a.m. Sundays from Canada Day weekend to Labour Day weekend".  What a great place for a church service!  Too bad I wasn't able to attend one since not only was it after Labour Day, but we wouldn't be there on Sunday anyways.  Further up the road was a sign that just said Thank You. It didn't say what it was thanking me for, just "Thank You".  No...Thank YOU Presqu'ile Park! I had been here less than 12 hours and already I was just loving it here. 

 Our site was number 206 and it was in a good spot. It was near the comfort station as well as walking distance to the waterfront. There was plenty of shade so you didn't wake up in the sauna type heat of the morning that you get in some campsites. The campsite itself was large enough to hold both tents, the dining tent and both cars.  Just up the road there was a site that was reserved specifically for the Park Host Program (#212). I had never heard of a Park Host Program until now. Apparently you can sign up to become a host or a mentor for an inexperienced family or group of campers to help them learn how to camp and learn about the park. If you become one of these hosts then site #212 is reserved for you. Number 212 is an OK site but number 210 which is right beside it is a much nicer site. 

When I reached our campsite  Carsten and Penny were awake and eating breakfast. We sat around for a bit and got to planning our day. We had already made plans months ago to make sure that we went to see the light house and to hit as many of the walking trails as we felt up to while we were there. Plus we wanted to go into the near by towns to do shopping and sight seeing. 

We decided that since the weather was so nice and we didn't know for sure how it would be the next day, that we would go to the Light House first, the Marsh Board Walk Trail second and then to Owen's Point trail after that. Our day was looking pretty full already. 

The Light House is at the other end of the park and you have to drive to it. The one thing I noticed is that all the roads are paved and are in top condition. There is not a single pot hole anywhere. As far back as I can remember the roads here have always been in good condition. They look brand new. As a matter of fact almost everything in the park was exceptionally clean and in good repair. The drive took us beside the day use  picnic area where even there they had a screened in picnic shelter and the grass was tidy and mowed. There was not a spec of litter anywhere. 

Finally we made it to the Light House. Penny was excited because she had never seen a real life light house before.  You can't go inside this one but you can walk around the outside and read the signs that talk about the ships that had sank in the area. 

You can also walk around the outside of the old Light House Keepers house and read about it's history on the posted signs. 

There is one spot where you can just sit on a bench and enjoy the view or look through the binoculars to see what is out in the distance on the water. 

This Spotted Tussock Moth Caterpillar was getting ready for winter over by the light house. 

Since the peak of camping season is over in September, a lot of the visitor centers in the provincial parks are closed. This park is no exception, so we were disappointed to find that the visitor center at the light house was closed for the season. Having been inside on previous visits I know that there are displays on fossils, ships, birds and all kinds of interesting things. 

After awhile we decided to head off to the first of our hiking trail destinations of  the day, the Marsh Boardwalk. This was the trail that I was looking forward to hiking. I love walking marsh trails with board walks on them. There seems to be a higher chance of seeing wildlife on these types of hiking trails....and we weren't disappointed. 

The very first thing you see as you begin the trail is a look out made of composite boards. There is wheelchair access at the bottom and stairs to a higher view from the top.  Presqu'ile is Canada's largest fresh water tombolo (former island....in this case two former islands) and possibly the largest in the world. 

We spent quite a bit of time in this spot before we even really began the hike. We had binoculars and we scanned the landscape looking for signs of birds and animals. The view reminded me of pictures of an African plains or something. 

These red band-winged meadowhawk dragonflies were flying and landing everywhere. There were so many of them. 

In some places the marsh grasses were so tall that you couldn't see over them or through them. It was interesting to see a wide variety of different kinds of grasses too, including two different types of cat tails. 

We were beginning to wonder if there were even any fish in the marsh at all but then we finally saw this little sunfish swimming around. 

Although we could heard so many birds everywhere we had a really difficult time spotting most of them. Our first real sighting of any sort of birds was when we came to an area of open water and saw a group of mallard ducks. 

Once we saw the ducks we started seeing more and more birds. We were even graced with a visit from a blue heron. 

Some birds would not sit still long enough to have their pictures taken. I managed to get a not so clear shot of a chickadee. But I never did get one of the blue jays that we kept seeing. 

About half way through the trail we came to another look out that had an over hanging tree that would have been perfect for a tree house. 

And in that tree sat this brown thrasher bird that sang a pretty song as it watched us. 

Just as you are nearing the end of the trail you go from the grassy marsh into a cedar and cottonwood forest. In the forest you will see these odd shaped trees called "The Horse Trees" . These strange growth patterns are a result of something damaging the trees well over a hundred years ago and the trees have managed to grow around it and then back up towards the sky. Many people come here now to sit in the saddle shapes of these trees. 

That concluded our hike on the Marsh Boardwalk Trail. But the day was still young so we hopped in the car and headed over to our next stop....the Owen Point Trail. 

Now after walking the Marsh Boardwalk Trail the Owen Point Trail paled in comparison. At first I was thinking that it was actually pretty boring and hardly scenic at all. It started off pretty much like an every day walk through some trees. 

Slowly the trees and bushes started to get thicker but that just made it worse because there was nothing much to see and now you couldn't even see through the bushes to look at the water even. Luckily we had picked up a brochure at the trail head that showed numbered points or "look outs" that had corresponding facts or blurbs written about each spot. So we headed towards the first "look out".

The first 3 or 4 look outs were the same thing. The trail led to a roped off area over looking the sandy shore line of the lake. Except for a few sea gulls here and there , it wasn't much to see really. We had better views of the lake back at the campsite. I was beginning to get even more disappointed with this trail. 

Finally the trail started getting at least a little more interesting. The vegetation around us started resembling corn stalks and we started to feel like we were in a corn maze. 

At one point the corn maze closed in around us so much that we actually had to duck down to go through the path to the look out. We pushed the plants aside and we felt like we were in the movies in the jungles of North Korea or something. Soon we were laughing as we pushed our way through. 

Even the flowers had grown to eye level. 

It was flowers like these though that attracted the Monarch butterflies. We had seen signs at the trail head saying that Monarchs can gather in large numbers in late August and September as they migrate south towards Mexico for the winter.  We didn't see "great numbers" of them but we did see quite a few. The wind kept most of them from landing and staying in one spot for too long so taking a picture was difficult to do.  It wasn't long before you could hear us shouting out to one another "Oh, there's one!" and "Oh no.... he flew away". "There's another one!"  And so the butterfly chase was on. 

Finally we cane to an area where close to the Point the wind wasn't so strong and it was a bit sheltered by some of the plants. And there they were, a couple of Monarchs resting on the flowers that they like just waiting for us to take a picture of them. 

It's not just the yellow flowers that attract the Monarchs to the area. The Milkweed plants are also a part of the attraction. 

Finally we came tot he point. Up until September 10th this part of the trail is closed to the public while hundreds of shore birds are nesting. There are two other islands, Gull Island and High Bluff Island that are also closed to the public during nesting season. No one is allowed within 200 meters of the shore of those islands up until September 10th.  But now the point is void of nesting birds and all you can see are shells and bones and rocks. 

Now when I say that all you can see are shells, I mean that there are so many that the ground looks like white beach sand.  There actually is no beach sand in this picture. It is purely shells and rocks and algae. That is a whole lot of shells!  You can feel them all crunching beneath your feet as you walk along the water's edge.  

At one point there were 4 beaches at Presqu'ile Park. But now they are down to 3 beaches. That is because they have stopped raking and maintaining the one that is closest to Owen Point and they are letting it naturalize. This is in order to create more habitat for the birds and wildlife here. The result of this has been an increase in algae growth along this part of the Point. This algae is very important for sustaining a food source for the shore birds. It is murky and doesn't smell the best so you don't want to go swimming at this part of the park. But that's OK because it's safer for the birds when there is minimal interference from humans anyways. Besides, there are 3 other very large, very sandy, very clean beaches to choose from. 

As we headed back we came across a part of the trail that were covered with pretty Fringed Gentian flowers. According to the information we read about on our hike on the Marsh Boardwalk Trail, these flowers are actually pretty rare. I found it kind of odd that we didn't see a single one  on the Marsh Trail but here on Owen Point trail they were lining both sides of a long section of the trail. 

At the very end of Owen Point trail is the Park Store. This place brought back a lot of memories. As kids we would take time out from swimming to walk up to this store to get ice cream and to buy a small toy like a    yo-yo or some other small trinket. Unfortunately at this time of year it was also closed. Maybe next time we will have to come back earlier in the season. 

It was getting close to supper time and we had walked way more than we were used to today and we were tired. So it was time to head back to the campsite and get ready for supper. 

We had planned to cook hot dogs over the fire and bake potatoes. The problem was, since the park store was closed there was no place to buy firewood. Plus we had forgot the hot dogs and there wasn't enough tinfoil for the baked potatoes. We had planned to go into the town of Brighton earlier in the day but by now we were just too tired to go anywhere.  Instead we opted to eat egg salad sandwiches for supper (I had boiled some eggs before coming to camp) and we would make the trip into Brighton the next day and have our campfire the following night. 

Before it got too dark we headed down to the waterfront one last time for the day. We watched the pinkish skyline turn to grey and the moon coming up over the water. A single sailboat floated along peacefully far out from shore. 

The rest of the evening was spent playing board games into the wee hours of the morning.  We had gone to bed thinking that we hadn't seen hide nor hair of the raccoons that night and figured that we actually wouldn't be getting a visit from them. But alas, that was not the case.

About an hour or two after we had gone to bed and fell a sleep we hear a loud and terrible crash coming from the dining tent. The raccoons were back and they were rifling through all the boxes in the dining tent including the cook stove and the containers with pots and pans and cutlery. We just about jumped out of our skin but quickly realized what was going on. I could hear Carsten and Penny shouting at the coons and chasing them away. All of our food was in the cars and there was nothing to be had so they didn't stick around and probably went to hunt for frogs or something instead. Once again I only heard them but did not see them. It wasn't long before I was back to sleep. 

​It had been a beautiful day , a beautiful evening, and the night of sleep was beautiful too.