Canada’s Point Pelee National Park became one of my priority destinations ages ago. Now, finally, after all these years I could visit it in person. I was not about to miss my opportunity.
It’s not difficult to get there, but for me at least it involved the added complication of an international border. Luckily, now I was in Ontario and not too far away. It was a simple day trip from Sarnia, stopping for lunch in Leamington, and then a full afternoon at the park (map).
I timed it just right too, with just a light chill in the air and the crowds long gone. Plus, the park’s infamous biting stable flies were dead for the season. Pretty much perfect. I could only imagine the hordes flocking here on summer weekends because it’s not a big place and it’s close to Windsor and Detroit. However, that wasn’t a problem on a random Monday in late October. I did have a nagging concern about leaf peepers but I think we were about a week too early for that. The place was practically empty.
Geography
Point Pelee forms a triangle that juts from the northern shore of Lake Erie. Our flight flew right past it on the way to Michigan on a bright, sunny afternoon. So of course I took a photo and promised we would stand on the tip in a couple of days.
This is the southernmost tendril of mainland Canada. Sure, an island and an islet sit a little further south but they don’t physically connect to the rest of the country. Very little of Canada lies below the 42nd Parallel and this little dangle contributes a lot to it. In fact, Point Pelee extends even farther south than a small strip of California.
Additionally, Point Pelee occupies space within Carolinian Canada. Here the weather more closely resembles parts of the United States than the rest of Canada due to its latitude and the moderating effects of Lake Erie. The plants are characteristic of the Eastern Deciduous Forest, just like my home near Washington, DC. It all felt very familiar to me.
And if that wasn’t enough to deserve a visit, this is one of the rare places on earth where a visitor can plausibly experience a sunrise and sunset over water.
Visitor Centre
It took longer than I expected to drive from the park entrance to the visitor centre. The distance isn’t all that far, about 7 kilometres, but the speed limit is super low. Fortunately it’s a lovely drive through shaded forest, and best appreciated slowly. We arrived eventually, and then toured thorough the exhibits and further oriented ourselves. We also waited here for a shuttle to the tip.
Shuttle
Most people come to to the park for its namesake point. After all, that’s the point (terrible pun alert).
By definition, a wedge narrows towards the tip. This one doesn’t leave a lot of space for visitors down at the end, much less parking. So everyone has to park at the visitor centre much of the year and then ride a shuttle to the actual point a couple of kilometres away. The shuttle runs continuously but not on a fixed schedule, so its arrival depends on how long it takes to load and unload passengers and complete a loop. Visitors might have to wait up to 20 or 30 minutes. Yes, of course we hit it wrong and waited the full cycle.
We didn’t have any trouble getting a seat once the shuttle arrived — there were only a handful of passengers — but I imagine the crowds can overwhelm it during the summer.
The Tip
Visitors still have a little walk after leaving the shuttle, much of it through sand. A strong wind whipped from the west during our time there, blowing grit and bringing a chop to Lake Erie.
Point Pelee has swimming beaches, but not here. The currents are too strong on any given day, and probably treacherous on our day. Nonetheless, that didn’t bother us because we were here for the geography not the bathing. So I trudged through sand and finally captured Canada’s southernmost mainland.
We also climbed to the top of the observation tower. Even so, I didn’t take a photo of the tower because the shuttle pulled up while we were still at the top. So we ran down as fast as we could because we didn’t want to wait for an entire loop again.
Marsh Boardwalk
We finished our trip to Point Pelee at the Marsh Boardwalk. The park looks completely dry and solid when peering at it from the air or on a map. Yet, looks are deceiving. An access road runs on dry ground along the western edge of the park, all the way to the tip. However, marshland covers much of the rest of the triangle. So they built a boardwalk over one section of marsh, creating a one kilometre loop that doubles as a nature trail. It reminded me of Virginia’s Lake Drummond from a visit several years ago.
There were plenty of other sites that we didn’t have time to see. In particular, I wanted to walk the homestead trail. So now I have a good reason to return.
Articles in the Borderland Series
See Also: The Complete Photo Album on Flickr.
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