Review: Buzzard Lake, Kawartha Highlands Signature Site

Location: 70 km north of Peterborough
Website:  My CCR or Ontario Parks
Map: Google Maps 
Camping Facilities: Backcountry Exclusively
Grade: B+
Stargazing: Excellent 

Long Lake Access Point

Summary: A decent backcountry experience, as long as the cottagers are away.
Thoughts: I have been avoiding visiting Kawartha Highlands ever since it has become an operating park, not because I don't want to support the park system, but because of the seemingly cumbersome phone-in reservation process that they had in place in its first year as of operation.  This has fortunately been fixed, and you can even reserve your site online - a first for a backcountry park in Ontario.   The reservation system is impressive, with detailed information about each site in the park, along with photos.

Site 427 on Buzzard (note the marsh)

Regarding the camping, the main issue I have with the park is that it's plunked down on top of previously developed cottage areas.  While these developments are not quite on the scale of the Muskokas, cottages are found on nearly every lake.  To be fair, I haven't had any unpleasant experiences in the park due to cottagers (no rowdiness, no loud generators kicking in at midniht so that they can watch CNN on their plasma TVs), but the potential exists.  And given that most of us rarely get a chance to enjoy a backcountry experience, the last thing we want is for it to be soiled by motorboats or noisy yahoos.

Star gazing is great from this rock

The paddle from Long Lake is not too bad, roughly 45-60 mins, depending on wind.  There were plenty of motorboats, none of which slowed down as they passed us (impeding our progress as we had to reorient our canoe to contend with their wakes).  Once you arrive at the portage into Buzzard (a nice, sandy shoreline access, with two docks to receive you), you have a 300 m trek to cover, which is nice and wide.  A few ups and downs, but generally easy.  The put-in into Buzzard didn't have many nice options for loading up the boat, so you're likely going to have to get your feet wet here.

Tent pads are a bit scattered

Buzzard was an enjoyable lake, perhaps partially due to my stay occuring on weeknights.  The cottages on the lake appeared to be unoccupied on those days, so I can't comment if the owners are the boisterous type or not.  A friend tells me that from her experience, you do get a few motorboats over the course of the day, and even some chainsaws, but she found it generally tolerable. But I would suggest a mid-week trip, if you can do it.

The lake is reasonably big, but somewhat lacking in high quality sites.  We stayed at 427 after being informed by park staff that it was one of the nicest on the lake.  While it had some good features (nice rock on the northern part of the site to catch some breezes or stargaze, in addition to being pretty large), it had awkwardly laid-out tent pads.  We kind of just scattered to any part of the site where we could find a flat spot.  An unfortunate point about this site is that it is sandwiched between two marshy areas, so the bullfrogs can keep you up all night and the bugs can be bad at times.  We also had some whippoorwills visit us each night.  While they are pretty cool birds, with a haunting call, they created quite a ruckus (one morning they stopped in around 5am and called out relentlessly for about 5 mins...hard to get back to sleep after that). (For a video of whippoorwills going bananas, see below).  For those who are curious, there was cell phone network access on this lake, though don't take that as an invitation to watch youtube videos all night by the campfire (seriously, don't do that).

428 didn't seem to have as much space as 427, though its location might be slightly better and I'd recommend it over all others.  Sites 425 and 426 seemed nice (especially 425, which had a picnic table on a 15 ft high rock overlooking the water), though were adjacent to a cottage on a nearby island - again, the cottagers were away, so I can't comment on what their impact would be.  Sites 420 - 424 all are within view of one cottage or another, so exercise caution.  A fellow camper mentioned that 420 has some nice islands close by to the site that make for a nice destination for an afternoon swim.  A note about the fishing, there seems to be plenty of bass here; one of my trip mates caught about 9 smallmouth bass over 3 hrs of fishing (during one particularly productive hour, he caught 5, one of which was large enough for lunch).

Panorama off the star-gazing rock

We made a day trip down to Vixen (just the northern half), which was a narrow lake with a few nice island sites on the north end.  It didn't seem like there were any cottages here, but the topography is quite flat and the lake is small, so it's somewhat lacking in scenery.  However, you really got the feeling that you were in the middle of nowhere here.

All in all, Buzzard is a reasonably nice spot; it's not a far drive from Toronto, there's very little light pollution, the fishing isn't bad and there's some semblance of remoteness, even though you aren't actually remote at all.  A worthwhile trip, though I'm interested to hear what people have to say about the cottagers.  


Canoe Rentals: For those looking to rent a canoe to use during their visit at the part, two outfitters are within close proximity of the park: Wild Rock in Peterborough and Adventure Outfitters in Lakefield.  If it's on your way, Adventure Outfitters seems to be the way to go, their rentals are significantly cheaper than Wild Rock. 

Review: Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park - Sucker Lake

Location: 60km N of Peterborough
Website: Ontario Parks or My CCR
Map: Google Maps
Camping Facilities: Backcountry Exclusively
Grade: B+
Summary: Probably one of the best lakes in Kawartha Highlands, with no motorboat access and well spaced sites.

From site 120 on Sucker Lake

Thoughts: I had the idea to go to this spot based on a Kevin Callan recommendation in his excellent book "A Paddler's Guide to Ontario Cottage Country".  You can access Sucker from Catchacoma, then through Bottle, with some very short portages.  The short portages, proximity to Toronto and smooth paddles were some of the reasons I decided to make this trip my first solo camping trip. Also, being my first time at Kawartha Highlands, I was curious as to the quality of the backcountry here.

Bottle Creek

There are no sites available on Catchacoma (though plenty of cottages and motor boats), so you'll want to get past this one as quickly as possible. When I did the paddle, it happened to be a very windy day and Catchacoma is a relatively large lake compared with others in the park.  It was a real battle getting through to Bottle Creek. Once you do find your way to Bottle Creek though, it's a solo paddler's dream;  just a very smooth and sheltered path, with a high probability for wildlife sightings (though I didn't see any). I wouldn't recommend camping on Bottle Lake because there's a summer camp located in the NW corner, across from many of the campsites. I can only imagine it detracts from any sense of wildness and seclusion (if that's what you're interested in).

Portage into Sucker Lake

Bottle Lake

Sucker Lake, is much quieter.  In fact, it's the only lake in all of Kawartha Highlands where no motorboats are permitted (the only one! Yet many others seem completely inaccessible by motorboats...suspicious...).  The sites have privy boxes and park staff have even put up picnic tables on each site. All in all, its a nice lake. I stayed at the site on the western point (120), which had a gulls nest a few meters out from the island.  They must have perceived me as some sort of threat because they were cawing without mercy. Given that I was the only one on the lake (it was mid-week, in June), they tarnished what would have otherwise been a very peaceful experience in what felt like a remote location. UPDATE: I've visited the site again in August, and this time the lake was fully booked; this greatly diminished the quality of the camping experience.  I was located at site 126, which is VERY close to 125 and 127 - in fact, the sites all face each other.  Yet the island site (127) is nearly continually booked. I don't get it. It makes it somewhat difficult to recommend this lake during peak season if you're seeking peace and quiet.

Gull nest directly across from site 120 on
Sucker Lake - they never ceased calling

The other odd thing is that much of this lake seems to have cell phone reception. You may be suspicious about how I know this and I assure you it was purely by accident, I had no intentions of making phone calls or instagramming in the backcountry. It just so happened that I left my phone on and noticed it buzzing after receiving a text message. In fact, much of the park has cell phone reception, according to the park map. So this could tarnish your wilderness experience a bit, especially if some yahoo on a neighboring campsite thinks its a great idea to call up his buddies to tell them all about the amazing wilderness experience he's having. Conversely, if you're nervous about going on your first backcountry excursion, the ability to access a cellphone network in case of emergency might set your mind at ease. Asides from that, I still strongly feel that cellphones have no place in the backcountry.


In summary, I think this was just about the perfect place to make my first attempt at solo camping. It's accessible, the paddling isn't too hard, the portages are downright easy and you can get a sense of remoteness here.  Just stay away from the gulls nest.