Ouimet Canyon

Ouimet Canyon is about one hundred and fifty metres wide and a hundred deep, with sheer diabase walls, cut when meltwater exploited a fault in the rock. The floor never gets direct sun for long and cold air pools in it, so ice persists into summer in places and arctic-alpine plants grow there that otherwise occur hundreds of kilometres north, including species found nowhere else in the region. That fragility is why the floor is closed to visitors entirely; two viewing platforms cantilever over the rim instead. The Sea Lion rock formation and the Sleeping Giant are elsewhere on the same shore.

What you actually see

• The sheer gorge - a hundred-metre drop with vertical diabase walls.
• The cantilevered platforms - two viewing decks over the rim.
• The arctic plants - species surviving on a cold canyon floor far south of their range.
• The lingering ice - snow and ice persisting in shaded floor sections into summer.

When to go

May to October; the park closes in winter when the access road is unploughed. Morning light reaches into the canyon better. The visit takes under an hour.

Honest expectations

The canyon floor is completely closed to protect the plants, so the visit is two platforms and a short trail. It takes about forty-five minutes. The park closes for the winter season.

Nearby

Thunder Bay lies southwest; Sleeping Giant park is south.