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The Parks / Ontario / Pukaskwa National Park

Hiking trails and canoe routes furnish the most complete picture of the special character of Pukaskwa's rugged landscape. The fascinating geological story of the glacier-scarred bedrock of the headland and the filigreed shoreline, where rainwater collects in small sun-warmed pools for dragonflies, water striders and plant forms that germinate in still water, is best encountered afoot. One may travel by canoe down the White River through muskeg, boreal forests and wide expanses of the Canadian Shield lying exposed or thinly covered by a greyish layer of acidic soil. The roughly rounded hills and moraines were formed from Precambrian rock, eroded over millions of years, then shaped by glaciers. Watersheds, cobble beaches, rock-rimmed lakes, ponds, tumbling rivers, quaking bogs and the largest sand dune complex on the north shore of Lake Superior are all part of the transformation of the landscape fashioned by the receding glaciers. The hills are now a fraction of their original height, but at 636 metres, they are still one of the highest points in Ontario. Although 95% of the park is zoned as ‘wilderness’, a series of special preservation areas provides the highest level of protection to Woodland Caribou, arctic- alpine flora, a jack pine forest, acid-sensitive lakes and the early Aboriginal pits.