Lake Superior Provincial Park

The park runs about eighty kilometres along Lake Superior with the highway threading between the shore and the hills, giving one of the best coastal drives in the country. Old Woman Bay is the signature stop, a crescent of cobble under a two-hundred-metre cliff. Agawa Rock carries Ojibwe pictographs painted in red ochre on a vertical face at the waterline, including Misshepezhieu, a horned underwater lynx; reaching them means a short but genuinely awkward scramble onto a sloping ledge above deep cold water, and the site closes when the lake is rough. The paintings are estimated at a few hundred years old.

What you actually see

• The Agawa pictographs - ochre paintings including the horned water lynx.
• Old Woman Bay - a cobble crescent under a two-hundred-metre cliff.
• The coastal highway - Highway 17 running between shore and hills.
• The inland lakes - canoe routes and waterfalls behind the shore.

When to go

June to September; the Agawa Rock ledge closes in wind and high water, which is common. Autumn colour along the highway is exceptional. The park closes for winter.

Honest expectations

The pictograph ledge is slippery, sloping and directly above deep cold water; people have gone in. It closes without notice in rough conditions. Superior weather changes fast.

Nearby

The Agawa Canyon train runs from Sault Ste. Marie; Pukaskwa lies northwest.