COVID-19 here in Ontario has not hit as hard as it has elsewhere in the world, but we have still been under order to social distance since mid-March. I’ve spent the past five months working on my thesis from my kitchen table. Luckily, on July 15th, the federal government opted to reopen Canada’s National Parks—singlehandedly saving the summer season.
My partner, Jake, and I jumped on the opportunity to book a week-long hiking trip to save us from the Coronavirus blues. But where to go? We decided we wanted a trail that was between 50 and 100 km in length, that was located in Ontario, and that had excellent views. We were interested in the La Cloche Silhouette Trail in Killarney Provincial Park, but we ultimately decided on the Pukaskwa (pronounced PUCK-a-saw) Coastal Trail.
The Coastal Trail is a 60km out and back trail located on the northern shore of Lake Superior. According to the park staff, this trail is considered one of the three most difficult trails in Canada and is comparable to the West Coast Trail (which I hiked in 2018). It is a truly excellent hike. The trail travels through the black spruce and birch forests of Northern Ontario. Often, the trail emerges from the forest and you spend kilometers walking in the sunshine over barren, glacier-scraped rock. Other times the trail veers along the coast of Lake Superior, where you get to navigate the beautiful and slightly technical rocky shoreline. At times, the hike requires you to beach walk over loose sand, to wade across shallow rivers (or brave the ramshackle log ‘bridges’ that past hikers have created), to boulder hop along slippery rock and to climb steep rock faces. It is a difficult and beautiful hike – particularly near the far end of the trail.
Jake and I did very limited planning of the itinerary of this trip, because we really just wanted to ensure we got a spot during the week Jake had off from work. As a result, we ended up following the recommended itinerary in the Puckasaw backcountry guide (available for download here) with minor changes due to availability. I recommend that aspiring hikers do a little more research, because I don’t think our itinerary allowed us to monopolize on the best campsites, and I felt like we rushed out of the most beautiful part of the trail by taking on a 17km day too early in the hike. To get you started, here is a chart for the distances between the campsites. I took this from the 2020 backcountry guide and edited it for clarity and convenience. While planning, keep in mind that the trail is easier the closer you get to Hattie’s Cove. If you want to do big miles, do it there.
For now, here is our itinerary, and I will go into more details about our favourite campsites and background information below:
| Time Hiking | Distance Travelled | |
| Day 1: North Swallow Harbour* to Hideaway Lake | 1.5 hours | 4.0 km |
| Day 2: Hideaway Lake to Fisherman’s Cove | 7.5 hours | 17.0 km |
| Day 3: Fisherman’s Cove to Fish Harbour | 5.5 hours | 12.4 km |
| Day 4: Fish Harbour to Willow River | 4.5 hours | 9.1 km |
| Day 5: Willow River to Chigamiwinigum Falls | 4.0 hours | 8.6 km |
| Day 6: Chigamiwinigam Falls to Hattie Cove Visitor Centre | 3.5 hours | 7.8 km |
Getting There
The trip from Guelph, Ontario where Jake and I live, to Pukaskwa National Park was a 12 hour drive. Luckily, I have family with a Camp in Sudbury, so we stopped there as a midpoint. If you are driving from the Toronto Area, planning a stop in Sudbury or Sault St. Marie would be well worth it, to ensure that you don’t arrive for your hike already exhausted.
After two long days of driving and singing along to Stan Rogers, Jake and I arrived at the park. We considered camping for free on Crown Land, but ultimately decided that we wanted the campground amenities and booked a front country campsite. If you plan on spending anytime in Pukaskwa’s front country, we highly recommend site 48, which is definitely the most private of all the campsites and even has a very short trail from the parking spot to the tent site!
I don’t have a lot to say about the front country of Pukaskwa as we only spent one night there, but there are plenty of beautiful trails, the Anishinaabe camp (which was unfortunately closed due to COVID-19) and the visitor centre! I found that staff at the visitor centre to be very knowledgeable about the park. It was here that Jake and I learned the origin of the spelling of the park’s name.
Origins of the spelling of ‘Pukaskwa’
It is easy to assume that the word ‘Pukaskwa’ is Indigenous in origin, and indeed, even the park website claims this to be the case. However, the Park Interpreter, who told us that he was raised in the nearby Ojibway of the Pic River First Nation community, informed us that the spelling, at least, has no basis in the Ojibway language.
The namers of the park were probably going for Ojibway word which describes the cooking of the marrow inside animal bones. In Roman letters, this would probably be best spelled ‘Pukasu’. However, the last four letters of the word Pukaskwa deviates from this more correct spelling to instead include an ethnic slur referring to Indigenous women. This is an extremely derogatory word and shouldn’t be used. The people who know and love this park will tell you that the correct pronunciation of their park’s name is PUCK-a-saw. Try to wipe any other pronunciation from your brain now.
Day 1: North Swallow Harbour to Hideaway Lake
There are several options for hiking the Coastal Trail. Many people we met on the trail had opted to hike to the trail’s halfway point at Oiseau Bay and back from the visitor centre. Others were planning on hiking the entire way to North Swallow Harbour and back out (a 120km journey!). When planning, Jake and I knew that we wanted to hike every kilometer of the trail, however we didn’t have the time to hike the entire 120km, so we opted to book a boat to drop us off at North Swallow Harbour and then to spend the next six days hiking back out. We booked our boat through Doug at North Shore Adventures ([email protected]) who was very friendly and had many great stories about living and working on Lake Superior.
Booking a boat is very expensive, particularly in times of COVID-19 when you cannot share with other groups.Our booking set us back over 700$CAD. Having hiked the trail, I am so glad we booked a boat because so many of the most beautiful parts of the Coastal Trail occur past the trail’s midpoint at Oiseau Bay. Despite the price, if you don’t have the time to hike the entire trail in and out, it is worth it to get a ride one way. If you opt to hike in and get picked up at the end of the hike, beware that bad weather on Lake Superior can sometimes delay a boat pick-up by hours or even days. Hikers going this direction should be sure to bring several extra meals in case they are stranded.
The building feelings of excitement of nervousness really hit us as we watched Doug motor away, leaving us on the sandy beach. After a few quick photos at the Parks Canada Red Chairs placed at White Swallow Harbour for Canada’s 150th anniversary celebration, we started on our adventure.
Our first day of hiking was pretty brief and we arrived at Hideaway Lake after only an hour and a half of hiking. This was my second favourite campsite of the entire hike. There is only one campsite at Hideaway Lake, so it is extremely private and quiet. That combined with the rocky outcropping for swimming and sunbathing, the private privy, and the excellent views made this an idyllic campsite. If you can work it into your itinerary, I would recommend it.
Day 2: Hideaway Lake to Fisherman’s Cove
Day 2 was our longest day with 17km of hiking and taking seven and half hours (not including a long lunch at White Gravel River). It was also the most beautiful section of the entire trail. In retrospect, I would recommend splitting this section into two days with White Gravel River as a possible midpoint.
On this day, at about kilometer 40.5 of the trail, we hit the trail’s highest point—a whopping 330m above sea level. Given that Jake and I have each summited several 1000m mountains, this did not seem like a big ask, but this day was difficult hiking. Another thing to note about this section is that there is very little water between White Gravel River and Fisherman’s Cove. Make sure that you carry at least 2L on this section.
Fisherman’s Cove was our absolute favourite campsite on the Coastal Trail. Though we did share a privy and bear box with the group at the adjacent campsite, we had our own private sandy beach with perfect sunset views. It’s a great spot and well worth the 21kms we had hiked so far.
Day 3: Fisherman’s Cove to Fish Harbour
We started a little later on Day 3, because we were exhausted from our grueling 17km hike the day before. Another good reason to hold off on big miles until your body is used to the trail again! This was another long hiking day (12.4km) with a lot of beach walking. We passed the midpoint of the trail at Oiseau Bay and spent some time reading the information signs located around this area. The Oiseau Bay area is home to a colony of the endangered Pitcher’s Thistle, so we were very careful to stay on established hiking trails. It’s easy to forget that sandy beaches are an ecosystem themselves and so hikers should try to only walk where past hikers have already disturbed the plant growth. Leave no trace!
Fish harbour was a little more exposed to the wind than previous campsites and the three sites at this location are very close together and not as private. The privy and bear box are shared between the three sites, so you frequently have to walk by other sites throughout the evening. Still, each site has its own path out onto a sandy beach, looking out on a beautiful natural harbour. It’s a great place to swim if you are willing to brave Lake Superior’s icy waters!
Day 4: Fish Harbour to Willow River
The hike between Fish Harbour and Willow River was flatter and far easier than any of the previous days. It was a quick hike and we made it to camp just after 1pm. There are two routes on this section of the trail, with one running closer to the shore which adds about 1km to the hike. Passing hikers told us it was well worth it for the scenic views, but at this point Jake was having some pain in an old knee injury, so we opted to get to camp early and to have a relaxing night.
This was also the only day we were rained on during our hike, which was lucky because the terrain on the Coastal Trail would be absolutely treacherous in rainy weather. Luckily, the rain waited for us to arrive at camp, eat lunch and go for a swim before arriving in earnest. We spent most of the evening reading and playing chess in our tent. We stayed at WR1, and we were not super impressed with our campsite. It did have a very nice campfire pit out on the dome of a big rock overlooking the water, but it was also extremely exposed to bad weather and had almost no areas that were flat enough to pitch a tent. Willow River was, in general, a nice enough campground with a mix of rocky and sandy beach, with campsites that are well spaced. I would recommend opting for WR2 or WR3 if possible!’
Day 5: Willow River to Chigamiwinigum Falls
Though my trip report will tell you that this section took us 4 hours, it is not a difficult hike. Unfortunately, Jake’s knee was quite sore at this point and so we were moving pretty slowly. Here the trail becomes much more populated and wider from the greater usage. The hike becomes easier and even small rivers are bridged, saving you from fording in or balancing on logs to cross them. We loved stopping just after the Hook Falls campsites to take some pictures by the rapids of the Hook Falls.
In order to get to the Chigamiwinigum campsites, you have to hike nearly a kilometer off of the main trail. The campsites here are not ideal. They don’t have a good swimming area, they are well used and had far more garbage than anywhere else on the trail, and they are set up such that hikers staying at CHF1 have to walk directly through CHF2 to get to both the privy and the bear box. The best part of staying at the ‘Chig’ campsites was the visitors log which was in a box on the trail into the sites. It was so nice to read about other hiker’s experiences on the trail and to add our own entry.
Overall, I would not recommend staying at Chigamiwinigum Falls. If you’re able, I would opt to stay at Hook Falls instead, which is much closer to the main trail, and a little farther from the trail head (meaning less people and less garbage to contend with).
Day 6: Chigamiwinigam Falls to Hattie Cove Visitor Centre
Our last day on the trail. By this point we were eager to get back to the cottage for a couple of days of relaxing, but we were also very sad to be finishing the trail. We had planned to add the Mdaabi Miikna Trail, a relatively new 10km loop off of the main trail that follows the shoreline of the Picture Rock Peninsula. However, we opted to skip it so as not to further injure Jake’s knee.
This section of the hike was much more populated as people often hike it Chigamiwinigam Falls as a day hike. It even had some great informational signs along the way! On this day we spent some time walking on floating boardwalks through the marshes near the trailhead, which I really liked! If you’re only in Pukaskwa for the day, hiking to these boardwalks would be an easy trip.
We arrived at the trailhead at around noon and celebrated our completed hike with a swim at the Visitor’s Centre.
Before long we were back on the road and headed for A&W for a post hike meal. The Coastal Trail is a beautiful trail and we would highly recommend it to any aspiring adventurers.
