When we left Mattawa, we headed to Opemican National Park, its about 5-6 hours from our home but only about a 90 minute drive from Mattawa. This park is located in the province of Quebec but we knew when we made our summer reservations that we were going to be close so we thought we would check it out. On the way to the Park, we drove through Alexander Lake Forest Provincial Park and also Jaco Rivers Provincial Park.
It’s a terrific park and nice campsites and quite a bit to do in the area. They have the most interesting design for their Visitor Centre, it’s quite something. And they have a unique way to get your firewood, you get a canvas pack with handles, load up as much wood as you can and then leave the empty bag on your campsite post. Very good recycling idea unlike Ontario Provincial Parks where they toss out thousands of non reusable wood bags every year. For info, a bag of ice was $5 and the pack of wood, which was a LOT, was only $8.00. I really crammed the wood in there which in retrospect wasn’t my brightest idea as I had to carry the wood and ice from the building, down the walk, across the road and over to the parking lot. lol
Opemicon Visitor Centre 
Our campsite
Another view of the Visitor Centre 
Outside the Visitor Centre, information about the park 
An old building by the water 
An old building you can go into 
Inside 
Log driving was done in the Parc 
Auberge Jodoin built in 1883, second oldest building in the region and now a museum 
I love history of old buildings and places 
Inside the old building
Next post we’ll go to Temiskaming and Laniel to see some of the area outside of the Park.
Trums Travels 
This looks like a nice place to explore, I love the dock and lake view! 😊🇨🇦❤️
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Me too! it was a great park, I would like to go back
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You guys are a lot closer than me, go for it!
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Very cool! Your canoe photos are making me excited for spring! I love the, “old building by the water” photo. Something about old country buildings.
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This definitely was such an amazing site we visited Thanks Anita
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What a nice venue this was and I guess I never saw your RV and truck together … that’s a lot to be hauling at one time, plus the canoe. It looks like both a pretty and welcoming place to stay and the proximity to the water and dock also looks like a plus to me. I also like the rustic buildings that you can see in these parks. The second picture, the grass is full of yellow … I went back to your title to see the month (you, like me are still wading thru July 2022 photos). So it isn’t dandelions – must be buttercups? I haven’t seen buttercups since leaving Canada in 1966. Maybe they don’t have them hear, but we used to have a field and woodsy area at the end of our subdivision (which was later developed into a shopping mall as we were getting ready to move). All us kids would pick buttercups and bring them home for our moms.
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I love those old buildings, part of the logging industry that occured in this area. I don’t think they were buttercups but I can’t remember now! They are very pretty though
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Yes, I remember you had gone through another logging area where they still had all the implements still there. I found that post interesting too. Yes, wildflowers are so hardy – better than my flowers look. When I started walking, I went to Michael’s Crafts and bought lifelike silk flowers to “plant” in all my baskets and pots. I secure them with pipe cleaners to net bags (from oranges and grapefruits) and fill the bags with rocks. They don’t need weeding, deadheading or pruning and won’t blow away. I had to replenish them in 2021 as they were getting faded – best investment ever.
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Yes we have gardens and they are a lot of work to be honest! A good idea you have about planting silk flowers.
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Yes, before I started walking I spent tons of time in the garden, mostly the backyard, perennials, annuals – a butterfly garden. It was a lot of work … now 1/4 of the back garden which was mostly bushes was destroyed by the fire and I’ve not decided what to do with it yet. The silk flowers look so real and if you secure them to the rocks, they will never move or blow away. I had a basket of flowers sitting on a kid’s rocking chair and used small bungee cords to attach the basket and fastened it in the back of the chair, then hooked it onto the chain-link fence. So nothing moved. But all the dampness and humidity we had back in 2021, when I picked up the chair to carry it into the basement for the Winter, it fell apart.
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We try to plant butterfly attracting type flowers too ! We just had our woodpecker feeder stolen by the raccoon living under our back deck this morning! I don’t think we’ll be seeing that again lol
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Oh no! I have a friend who lives in rural New York and she feeds the birds. She lives near a woodsy area and gets lots of deer passing thru, munching on her flowers and bushes. She feeds a group of feral cats as well as the birds. She takes the feeders and dishes away once it is dusk. She forgot one bird feeder and came out the next morning and the raccoon was sitting down (like a person) ravaging the bird feeder with its paws and scooping up seeds.
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Yes they are very opportunistic aren’t they? This is the first she’s done that!
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Yes, I wish my friend would have taken a picture … it seemed like it was content and pretty pleased with itself! We used to have a neighborhood squirrel that would go around from house to house gleaning treats and if there were none, it then raided the birdfeeders – it almost broke its neck a few times doing a flying leap from the fence or a tree to land on the feeder!
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