Arriving At Silent Lake Provincial Park

In our last morning at Balsam Lake Provincial Park, we attempted to hike and film Plantation Trail but it was so overgrown and buggy that we ran the trail as fast as we could. Luckily, although we didn’t enjoy the hike, we did enjoy the White-throated Sparrows that sang to us while we quickly made our way around the one loop.

We took Chloe down to the beach for one last dip, had lunch and packed up the trailer. We then started heading toward Silent Lake Provincial Park for our next leg of our trip. Along the way, we made a pit stop in Norland to get gas ($1.21/litre).

We tried to switch to an electric site, but there were none available. Our site, #127 was quite nice, even though we had to go up and down and then back up and very steep hill to get to it! The truck tires were slipping on the dirt and it was pretty stressful! The lower part of the campground isn’t accessible for trailers and luckily there is a sign at the top of that portion to tell visitors!

We set up the trailer and screen tent and then positioned the solar panel to try to keep the battery as charged as possible. We then walked down to the lake, which was gorgeous and fairly close to the site. There was a canoe dock and places to sit and enjoy the scenery and lots of spots to swim from.

After making pizza on the Coleman stove, I walked back down to the water’s edge to enjoy the sunset and listen to the loons calling over the lake. What an amazing place!

Silent Lake has two campgrounds, walk-in sites and roofed accommodations. There are not very many electrical sites at the park, and they do seem to get reserved very quickly. There are three trails at the park of varying lengths (1.5 km, 3 km and 15 km), as well as a mountain bike trail. Canoers can paddle around Silent Lake or make their way to Soft and Quiet Lake (aren’t those awesome names?).

If you’re at the park for a while, considering hiking the 1.7 or 8.8 km trail at Egan Chutes Provincial Park, taking a drive into Bancroft or a day-trip to Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park.