Paddler's Guide to Happy Camping

Is Kawartha Highlands Park Getting a Permit System??

• Posted on July 11, 2008 at 2:04 PM
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Canoeist, Ashley McBride, lookes to the future of Kawartha Highlands

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Kawartha Highlands Park Permits

Ontario Living Legacy gave birth to central Ontario’s Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park in 1999, and since then the area has seen many changes. And more are definitely on the way.

Since the park area is only half-an-hour north of my home in Peterborough I find myself paddling there a lot. On m recent trip, however, I took notice of all the campsites having new signs and each had their own giant metal fire box.

I’m just guessing, going out on a limb, but I’d have to say that a permit system will definitely be the next step, and I’m guessing by the spring of 2009. Once that’s set, you’ll have to register and maybe even reserve a spot to paddle and camp in the Kawarthas.

This isn’t a surprise to many who travel here, but the idea of a permit system is unsettling to some. After all, people have been coming here for years, mainly because of the hassle free system; you simply drive up for the weekend and go for a canoe or kayak trip, free of charge. I’ve been doing that for over twenty years now and it’s going to be tough to change over to a regular park system.

Do I agree with the change? Well, I go back and forth with this issue a lot. The Kawartha Highlands is a busy place to paddle on the weekends. It’s easy to get to from most major urban centers and offers some fantastic lakes and rivers to camp on – hassle free. I also know the area quite well, as do other locals, and it’s disconcerting that soon some government employees who are perceived to know little about the area are now going to tell me and all the other local inhabitants what can and cannot be done there. These thoughts are selfish I know, but I do think about them often.

On the other side of the coin, however, because it’s so close and easy to use for so many is why I think a system needs or at least destined to be put into place. In fact, I’m quite surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

I think the bigger point here is what are they, the government, going to do or how are they going to manage the park after the system is in place. I’m not the only one who thinks that the idea of the Kawartha Highlands actually being a park is a bit of a joke. Almost every lake has a hunt camp or cottage, ATV trails are everywhere chewing up the portages and boats are stored on almost every portage take-out and put-in (Rathburn had 24 boats and the ponds north of Coon had 16 last I counted – which is absolutely ridiculous). Then there’s the garbage issue. Our volunteer group – The Kawartha Brigade - won second prize this year for the most amount of garbage picked up for the world-wide Great Wilderness Clean-up. That’s not good! We picked up over twenty bags of garbage alone on Copper Lake, back behind some single hunt camp. How can you call this place a provincial park with all that happening? It sounds like they just tried to make everyone happy, except maybe for the flora and fauna that exists there.
On an end note, if some type of system needs to be put into place because we paddlers are loving a place to death, then I’m all for it. This is a wonderful place and it definitely needs protected. But if I’m paying for it, then I never want to win second prize for garbage collection again, get confused on a portage because of ATV abuse, or dodge a pile boats at the end of the portage.