HALF DAY
Steps Count half day : 12,000 steps (Nanabush Trail & Petroglyph site)
Time : 2 hours; Distance : approx. 7 km
FULL DAY
Steps Count Today : 19,450 steps total (Nanabush Trail, West Day use trail and Teaching Rock site)
Distance : approx. 12.5 km
Petroglyph Provincial Park is a gorgeous and educational place for hiking. It has beautiful lakes and interesting trails. Situated on an outcrop of white marble on the Canadian Shield, the Teaching Rock site is one of the largest known concentration of prehistoric rock carvings in Canada. Several hundred images comprising a wide variety of realistic animal and human forms, as well as abstract and symbolic representations, give evidence of the spiritual and intellectual life of the Algonkian Indians who carved them between AD. 900 - 1400. This site is a sacred place and features their spiritual significance, for the First Nations (Nishnaabe, Ojibway) people.
We started circulating the loop of Minnow Lake and then after lunch, some finished with a hike to McGinnis Lake, which was bright blue and green in color, one of only a handful of meromictic (layers of water that don't intermix) lakes in Canada. It was an amazing experience in Petroglyph Provincial Park and well worth visiting again.