Short Hills Provincial Park is a provincial park located in the centre of the Niagara Peninsula, bordering the city of St. Catharines and the town of Pelham in the Niagara Region in southern Ontario, Canada. It occupies an area of 6.6 km². It also borders the new vineyard sub-appellation called the Short Hills Bench.
Located on the southern edge of the Niagara Escarpment, the park is a jumble of small but steep hills ("short hills") and valleys created by the last ice age. The effect was only compounded when the Twelve Mile Creek cut through the sedimentary deposits and glacial till.
Wildlife inhabiting the park include white-tailed deer, coyote, and meadow vole. Being at the north end of the Carolinian zone, many plants grow here that do not grow or are rarely found in other parts of Canada, including pawpaw, sweet chestnut and tulip-tree.
The only park of its scale in Niagara, Short Hills Provincial Park is a prime destination for residents of nearby cities, especially St. Catharines and Niagara Falls. Popular activities include hiking, horseback riding, fishing and mountain biking.
The park contains six-side trails including the Bruce Trail and several waterfalls, it has a nice mix of both dense forests and open meadows, with meandering creeks and gentle hills that offer good hiking conditions.
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—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“It was the most wild and desolate region we had camped in, where, if anywhere, one might expect to meet with befitting inhabitants, but I heard only the squeak of a nighthawk flitting over. The moon in her first quarter, in the fore part of the night, setting over the bare rocky hills garnished with tall, charred, and hollow stumps or shells of trees, served to reveal the desolation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The dead level of provincial existence.”
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“The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,”
—Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)