Home  |  Cottage Country Region |  

River

Eels Creek

Class

Cascade

Size

Medium

Visitability

Good

Accessibility

Admission Collected - $7

Activity

Remote

Walk Time

120min

Trail

Moderate

Gorge Access

Moderate

Other Trails

Lots

County

Peterborough

Take Hwy 28 north from Peterborough, past Burleigh Falls. Turn right on Northey's Bay Rd and follow this road for about 10 minutes until you reach the Petroglyphs Provincial Park. Pay the admission and consult trail guides to reach the falls. Note that the hike to the falls from the Park centre takes about 2 hours. Alternatively, you can canoe or hike upstream along Eels Creek from Northey's Bay Rd before reaching the entrance to the Petroglyphs. I haven't hiked this trip, and would suspect it would take up to two hours.

Settlement

Stonyridge

NTS Map

31 D/9

Easting

731087

Northing

4942364

UTM Zone

High Falls is a beautiful waterfall located far from human development. It takes at least 2 hours to hike to the site, and thus even with the hordes of visitors to the Provincial Park, very few make the long trip to the waterfalls. The falls are not actually in the park, but are in the Peterborough Game Reserve. The site is quite unspoiled and natural. The trail to the falls from the Provincial Park visitor's centre is beautiful, passing by Minnow Lake and a variety of terrestrial and aquatic habitats. This park will occupy you for the better part of a day.

The Petroglyphs Provincial Park is a well known tourist destination in central Ontario. First Nations carvings in Marble bedrock give the site its name. The carvings are referred to by the Ojibwa Anishinabe Nation as "the rocks that teach". They were carved many hundreds of years ago. A beautiful bright building was constructed in 1984 to protect the petroglyphs from further weathering. PLEASE NOTE: Leave your camera in your camera bag while in the Petroglyphs building: photography of the petroglyphs is strictly forbidden!

There are several smaller rapids and cascades located between the waterfall and Northey's Bay Road. I plan to walk up the creek from the road and map as many of these as possible. I don't know if there is a well defined trail along the creek. If you've been here, please update me.