Our latest camping trip was to Murphy's Point Provincial Park on June 19–20. We stayed at site 197, which we'd stayed at before back in 2021. Murphy's Point is great as it's about a 1.5-hour drive from my home in Ottawa, and it's a well-managed and well-kept park. I find there are always people around, but it never books up fully, and the sites are spread far enough apart to make it feel private.
We like site 197 as it's a bit on its own, and is right beside a water tap and a short walk to the vault toilets, or a bit longer walk to the comfort station if that's more your style.
Once we had camp all set up, we wanted to go for a hike before it rained, as it was calling for scattered storms later that evening. Since my wife and I had been to this park before, we had done most of the trails except for Loon Lake (which is a loop) and McParlan House Trail (which is a there-and-back trail that branches off the Loon Lake Loop). My wife is pregnant, so we wanted something a bit shorter and flatter than our usual hike, and these two trails fit the bill.
These trails had so much wildlife it was almost unbelievable. We started the hike off strong with a mother raccoon and her five babies playing in the leaf litter a little way off the trail — we watched her until she wandered out of view. After that we saw some birds and butterflies. Once we turned onto the McParlan House Trail, my wife spotted a white-tailed deer through the trees. Not to be outdone, I spotted a black bear and her cub a little further down the trail. This was the first time either of us had seen a bear out on a trail, but thankfully it behaved exactly as it should: it spotted us, sniffed the air, and then went on its way in the other direction. We spotted them two more times along the trail, and thankfully the same thing happened each time.
Once we got to the McParlan House at the end of the trail, I spotted a northern leopard frog and a huge eastern garter snake (not pictured). The house was locked, so we couldn't go inside, but the park does open it from time to time for various programs.
Nothing eventful happened on our way back to the car, but I ended up hiking 3.76 km in total.
Back at camp, we had dinner and started the fire. It was a fairly nice night, and the rain mostly stayed away other than a few bursts here and their until around 2 a.m. While we were enjoying the fire, a park warden drove by, so we told him about the bear sighting. He was quite interested and wanted to know more about the sighting, since it's not all that common to see one around the park.
The next day, we packed up a wet tent and the rest of camp. We went to do the Lally Homestead Trail, which is a very short 900 m loop that goes through an old hay field and a sugar maple forest, with a lookout over a marsh. For such a short trail, I saw so much: a blue dasher, red-winged blackbirds, a little wood satyr, and most impressive of all; I saw and heard a pied-billed grebe, though I didn't manage a photo.
On our way home, just after we'd left the park, we saw a mother deer and her fawn on the side of the road eating grass. The fawn ran into the woods as soon as we pulled over, but the mother stayed put, so I was able to get a photo of her.
Overall, it was quite a camping trip, animal-wise. The rain stayed away long enough for us to have a nice fire, and the bugs weren't too bad for late June, especially compared to our last camping trip at Lake St. Peter.
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| Camp all set up. |
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| View behind camp. |
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| Camp after we tore down the next day. |
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| A family of raccoons. |
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| Little wood Satyr. |
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| Eastern Wood-Pewee. |
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| Hairy Woodpecker. |
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| Hairy Woodpecker. |
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| White Tailed Deer through the trees. |
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| Black bear, when the camera wont focus and the subject is moving. |
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| Mother Black Bear and cub. |
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| Northern Leopard Frog. |
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| McParlan Homestead is at the end of the McParlan House Trail. |
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| McParlan House Trail. Most likely use to be a road to the house. |
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| Blue Dasher. |
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| Fungi on a branch. |
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| Red Winged Blackbird signing from a branch. |
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| Common Eastern Bubble Bee |
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| Little Wood Satyr. |
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| Lally Homestead House. |
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| White Tail Deer on the side of the road. It had a fawn next to it when we stopped but the fawn ran away. |
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