Gatineau Park - Sites and Activities

Sites and Activities

Gatineau Park is a recreational destination offering public facilities including beaches, campgrounds, picnic areas, trails, and parkways. There are 165 km of hiking trails and 90 km of trails for mountain bikes and the Trans Canada Trail passes through the park. The park is also popular with cyclists where many routes are quite steep and very demanding on legs, heart and lungs!

Beaches are located at Meech Lake, Lac Phillipe and La Pêche Lake. While no camping is allowed at Meech Lake, there are campgrounds at the other two lakes. All three lakes are open to canoeists, but gas motor boats are only allowed at Meech Lake due to the presence of many private properties.

Cross-country skiing is one of the park's main recreational activities. Nearly 200 km of cross-country trails criss-cross the park, which hosts the annual Gatineau Loppet ski race (formerly known as Keskinada Loppet). Downhill skiing and snowboarding are engaged in at Camp Fortune.

During the summer months, Camp Fortune offers an aerial experience including ziplines and treetop obstacles.

Although the practice is not formally permitted in the park, some of the more secluded corners are popular with nudists. In particular there is an unofficial nude beach that has been in use since the late 1930s. Located northwest of parking lot P11 on trail 36, the beach is extensively used by members of Ottawa's gay community.

There is a tea room at Moorside, the former summer home of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the tenth Prime Minister of Canada. Located near Kingsmere Lake, the estate also features gardens and the "ruins" collected by King in a woodland setting. A small waterfall runs down the escarpment near Moorside. Mackenzie King donated his 600-acre (2.4 km2) property at Kingsmere to the people of Canada at his death in 1950.

Also located inside the park are the Prime Minister of Canada's Harrington Lake country retreat, and the official residence of the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, known as The Farm, which is Prime Minister King's former residence.

At the end of the Gatineau Parkway, Champlain lookout provides a spectacular view of the Ottawa Valley from high atop the Eardley Escarpment. When leaves change colour in fall, tourists and locals are drawn to the park's lookouts, roads, and pathways to enjoy the autumn scenery.

Pink Lake is a meromictic lake found in the park. Tiny algae in the lake give it a bright green colour. The lake's name comes from the Pink family who originally owned property in the area. The park includes many other lakes.

King Mountain, the highest peak in Gatineau, rising an almost vertical 345 metres from the Eardley Escarpment, was the first triangulation point in Canada. Also, the mountain's unique positioning provides an interesting spectrum of vegetation ranging from evergreen and deciduous forests to windswept savannas. The mountain is also home to a number of trees which are rare in the area, including some that are nearly 600 years old. For many years, a 30-foot-high (9.1 m) red-coloured cedar cross was located on top of King Mountain. Originally erected by Old Chelsea's parish priest, Father Maguire, it could be seen for miles around. It eventually rotted and fell over the cliff. King Mountain served as the main location for Will Inrig's 2005 feature-film Ivannikov and the Blessèd Virgin Mary.

All the Ottawa-Gatineau area's television and FM radio stations broadcast from the Ryan Tower atop Camp Fortune just north of Kingsmere.